Playing with photos

I've been busy playing with my photos on Photoshop Elements ver6, it is very intricate, simple to do simple things, but it does so much more! I decided to work through the lessons in the book, "Piecing with Pixels" by Hart & Campbell. My first project was making different colored textural backgrounds. I had a photo of some lacy seed pods, almost like babies breath flowers, it was very layered with fine lines. I played with the color, contrast, hue and saturation, I made a negative to get different color options, I was having trouble getting orange and yellow, cause it wasn't in my original picture. I chose matching colored flowers to go with the texture, red/yellow columbine, blue delphinium, red anemone, grape hyacinth, peach peony, lily of the valley, red bee balm, lavender mallow and a purple aster. I made a "Drunkards Path" quarter circle with the flowers, and the rest of the block with the texture. Instead of having to sew the curved piecing, it was all done on the computer. So I printed the 9 blocks onto fabric, that I had treated with bubble jet set, my printer ink lasted, yeah! They were a little dull, they look so brilliant on the computer monitor. So I added colored pencils to the flower pics. I used a lot of white, yellow and light flesh color, to add highlights to the light areas, and added dark blue, dark green, red and dark purple to the darker, shady areas, to define the contrast. This really perked up the pictures, I think the stitching when I quilt might cover up a lot of what I did though, so I will see if the extra work of coloring was worth it. I tried different arrangements of the Drunkards Path patterns, but with only 9 blocks there wasn't much choice, with 12 blocks I could have done a different setting. I pieced the blocks together in 3 x 3 rows, very simple, and decided not to do a border. I've layer batting and backing and have started to do the quilting. I am outlining and accenting with rayon threads, so we'll see when it is done. Stay tuned for more exciting quilting info.