The Virtual Chop

 

 

This piece from my “half timbered houses” series is all right….
but there’s no denying it’s a bit static and full frontal. 
So I’m thinking about chopping it up! 
I can either chop it into “interesting bits” – if such can be found…
or chop and reassemble. 
With the magic of Photoshop, I can see what the possibilities are.

I do love messing around virtually with quilts like this!

 

 

So here are some of the crops and rearrangements:

 

this first one is simply 4 vertical slices rearranged.

It does give a much better idea of the crowding of these old medieval buildings.

But the top right hand corner is very odd and disconcerting!

 

 

This one on the left (#2) is a little better but I find it difficult to look at with the squares on point at the top.  Too many different angles.

Then I did a series of straight crops: #3,#4, #5 and #6:

 

A couple have some promise…I do like the way that the diagonal lines (originally drainpipes) show up a lot more on this…particularly on the funky looking one I tipped sideways!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally I tried a horizontal slice (#7) - and I think this one is my favorite: it retains the original idea of the beams, but is nothing like as literal as the original image.

 

I recommend you to play!

You can do this with photoshop elements which is not an expensive program, or you could also do it by getting several copies of your image and cutting them up and glueing them onto a background; it doesn’t have to be high tech.

I simply open the image file in Photoshop and then make a “new” page at the same ppi as the image. I used black as the background colour since there was so much black in the quilt.  Obviously, though you can set any background colour.  Then I select the quilt image and cut out the section I want, then select the “move” tool and move that section over to the new page.  It’s really helpful to have your Layers toolbar open as each time you move a section over it goes onto a different layer.  Imagine making tracings of the sections and layering them on top of each other…that’s how the “move” function works.  So if you want to change a layer, you have to go to that layer (simply by selecting on the toolbar) to do it.

When you’ve got everything the way you want it, then go to the Layers menu, and select Merge Down which puts all your different sections into one image, dispensing with the different layers (as if your tracings suddenly all migrated to one page!).  

so, do let me know which of my manipulations you think the most successful!  Have a go at The Virtual Chop yourself!  and, if you have been, thanks for reading, Elizabeth