As this week begins a new month, I thought about taking a slightly new direction with my digital photo matting techniques.  Starting this week, I will begin showing how four different photos can go from the kind of thing you bring out make your late house guests go home, into something that will have them watching the whole show on your digital picture frame.  I will take some digital photos through a sequence of transformations which will eventually cover all the kinds of treatments I have offered to do for my Matte Watch audience.  Each subsequent week, I will take the matted photos and turn them into next stage of transformation until we circle back to the beginning with a new set of pictures.  This way, everyone can see how the photos look in the various treatment venues. 

The first matted photo is a new style of digital photo matting that incorporates some fractal manipulation of the central theme photograph.  As I have said before, I know that taking flower shots is probably about the most usual thing a fledgling photographer can do, but I like to matte these pictures and use flower shots in all kinds of different ways.  So, if you are some kind of “snooty” pro who wants to wise me up, then go ahead and show me what you have that is better.

Sometimes a picture can be made to compliment itself.

Now I know that more traditional matting styles can be more appropriate than creating the colorful designs and borders found in this week’s fare, but I felt like dabbling with some more unusual designs this week, so I went ahead with it.  There is certainly a lot to be said for going too far overboard in trying to make the beauty of flowers even fancier.  The next item might fit the category of too much, but I blame my wife because she said she liked it.

Too much dressing for a flower shot? You decide.

The third digital photo matting takes a complimentary colored spherical design using colors from the photograph, and drops it behind the main subject photo.  I liked this design for its variation away from the usual, and the beautiful flower as well.

Not all mattes need to be typical.

The final offering for this week’s digital photo matting parade of images uses a subtle weave of matte colors to create a delicate texture in the photo matting.  Next week, you will be able to see the digital calendar designs I create from these four matted photos.  Are you excited?  I knew you would be.

Use more subtle accents to create a nice texture.