The Realto Cafe.

[kevinobrien]

Before and after shots of my local Cafe, The Realto in Eyemouth Berwickshire. Hope you like it.

[Mad Aussie]

I'm personally not big on these filters at all and rarely like this sort of work ... but somehow this works for me.

[kevinobrien]

I don't use filters in my images I photograph all my own backgrounds, (another sad hangup I have) then use layers to create my images, I found that filters all look the same. I use my own artwork and backgrounds. The trouble is there are so many filters now you have to be pretty careful what you pick to be anywhere near original.

[Mad Aussie]

Well filters or not ... the result is still the same ... and usually it just doesn't impress me at all. Just makes a photo look like a print/artwork. Just my opinion ...some people love it. But like I said ... it worked on this. I think because it's an older looking building so the effect you've created has made it look older and therefore, for me, has worked.

[Marko]

I like your personal philosophy on this Kevin.
Textures and composites were born in the darkroom not the computer so for me, this is still photography. I'm not at all a fan of the computer doing most of the work which is why I too am not a fan of filters in general. That said the definition of photography and photography itself is changing as we speak.

I quite like the effect of the texture in this image - works well for me as it enhances the nostalgic mood.

[Jason]

I also like how this turned out. Out of curiosity, what did you use for the background?

[kevinobrien]

Hi Jason. OK here goes. I used three different textured layers, one was a scan of a piece of old 5 x 4 damages B&W film, one was an image of some well distressed brown paper, and a piece of acetate sheet that I scratched. I added green to the film layer and orange to the brown paper and pushed up the saturation, I then went to work on the image adding different coloured layers as I went along. Hope this helps.