Twirling Nature Photos

Here's what can happen with time on your hands and Photoshop on your computer. Click to enlarge this abstract design made from a unique palette of colors.

These colors! The unique palette of colors in this photo of three domestic geese on a pond. Would you like to see that again? 

All these lovely greens and creams and blues.

Are from this portrait of a peregrine falcon among evergreens. See where I'm going with this?

 Have Photoshop? Would you like to make this pattern? 

Start with this. You can find and watch the twirling method in lots of videos on YouTube. Here's a condensed version. Open a photo in Photoshop and make it a Smart Object. Pixelate it with the Mezzotint filter however you like. Then Radial Blur it three times: draft, draft, best. Distort with the Twirl filter until it looks nice, maybe to 120. Duplicate all of that. Then click the Twirl Smart Filter on the upper layer and change it to the opposite direction, in this case -120. Change the blend mode to Lighten, Darken, Pin Light or whatever pleases you. Be warned that this can be addictive.

Wonder what this bunch of heather would look like twirled?

Beautiful, right?

And you can duplicate and flip them and come up with lacy fairy things.

And every larger and more complicated images.

This paper wasp on goldenrod becomes...

this pretty abstract.

A daffodil in sunlight.

If you don't change the second twirl to the opposite direction it can look like the brush stokes of an oil painting. I love these colors. 

And here is the daffodil image complete with an opposite twirl.

You are not limited to twirling nature photos, of course. I made this one from...

this Negroni cocktail that I photographed in a dark bar in New York City the last time I was there, a few months ago. I am looking forward to the time when I can go back and have another. Maybe something blue that will twirl well.