Digital Collages

I've started playing with some digital collages, made with images I took or old photo images I got from various sources that have been scanned into my computer and are now digital.  No glue, actual paper, paint, etc., etc., were used for these collages.  I've used my new PhotoShop Elements 10 and a great book that I got a while back - "Digital Expressions" by Susan Tuttle.

The above collage uses a photo I took down in the Carlsbad Caverns of some of the formations as the background.  I decreased the opacity of that image so it truly was a background, and not too prominent.  I do like the texture that it adds to the piece.  I then did a cut and past of an old photo I got off e-bay.  I then added a quote that I saw on a sort of poster in a restaurant in town here.

Here's a collage I had fun with.  Again, I started with the same Carlsbad Cavern photo as the background.  I then added images of an soldier and a young woman, and then a page from a calendar of antique maps and some text.  I played with the opacity of each element to create a sort of "flow" between them all.

This last collage incorporates the background, and lots more images - old sheet music, old newspaper, book pages, images of friends (that's the story I have about them) and paint!  Lots of layers in this piece!

Ok - technically, this isn't a digital collage, but I just wanted to show the technique.  It's really just adding a texture type photo that I took (sort of a blurred effect of wood grain) and overlaid it on the photo of the flowers (adjusting the opacity of the texture layer way down!) so that it just creates texture within the image.  It's a different look, but I like it.

Enjoy!