We pulled into Picacho Peak State Park yesterday in the rain. That’s unusual because this park is in the Arizona desert. Waking up in our motorhome this morning and looking out the window, we saw a dense fog with the desert sun just a shadow of normal self, trying to shine thru the fog. I know a photo opp when I see one, and I know they are fleeting, so we jumped out of bed, grabbed the cameras and started shooting.

Then came the fun part! Once I transferred the picture to my computer and opened Picasa, I started playing. Cup of coffee beside me and computer in front of me, this is one of my favorite things to do. I call it “Fearless Photo Editing” because I can just click on buttons in Picasa and look at the result. If I don’t like it, I can always UNDO it. Here are the buttons I clicked on to create what you see:

Crop: I cut out some of the top and bottom, just to get closer to the Saquaro and the sun Pencil Sketch: that’s the main effect that turned this into artwork from photo. I dragged both the ‘radius’ and the ‘strength’ sliders over to maximum HDRish: to add even more definition to the lines Tint: to get the overall purple color Text: to add the words and I chose the odd “Jokerman” font Museum matte: since every work of art deserves a frame! And I used the color picker to make the outside frame be the same purplish color found in the picture.

Here is the original photo that I used. You can click on it to download a copy – then try it out!

If you are a Geeks on Tour member, here are some tutorial videos to watch: