This photograph was taken in the dunes at Rock on the Camel Estuary in Cornwall.  We really have been having an exceptional September weather wise.  Making up nicely for a miserable August.

24mm f/11 1/200 sec. ISO-100

I’ve managed to collect a fair few sunny images over the summer.  As a landscape photographer, I prefer a bit of ‘weather’ to create more dramatic shots.  With a lot of sunny seaside pictures on my hands, I wondered what I might do with them other than just presenting them as nice seaside picture postcards.

I thought about the illustrations in the books I used to read as a child that made me long to be at the seaside and I started experimenting.  There are many commercial filters around that will turn photographs into water colour pictures, Photoshop has its own filter but I wanted to find my own way that created just the look I wanted,  so started experimenting in Photoshop.

I came up with my own recipe of layers, blending modes, layer masks and brushes available in Photoshop that created the sort of illustration effect, with the translucency of water-colour washes, that I was looking for whilst maintaining the qualities of my original photograph. I’ve posted a couple of my ‘illustrations’ below.  I’d be interested in your thoughts. Click on the image for a clearer view.