Using Photoshop for Home Decor

I'm certainly not the first blogger to use images available on-line for non-commercial license for economical wall decor.  The New York Public Library has a wonderful digital image library, and recently I discovered the Botanicus Digital Library.  It's indexed, but it takes some digging to find publications with wonderful images of natural studies.

I found several bird and botanical studies, and settled on two to use in the office.  I took advantage of Michael's Presidents Day sale to pick up some frames and mats.  Frames were half price with another 25% off with coupon!

I couldn't decide how to hang them, and since I hardly have any paint leftover for touch ups, I had to get it right the first time.  I took advantage of an existing nail in the wall, hung one print and snapped a picture.  Right now, it's too low, but that won't matter in a minute.

Selecting only the framed print, I copied it into a new file.  Next, I "repainted the wall" using the
stamping tool creating a virtual blank wall.

Copying the image of the frame twice into my original file, I'm ready to digitally arrange my prints.  Are you with me so far?

Originally I thought about hanging them vertically, but I didn't like how much taller they were in comparison to the painting on the left.

Next I thought about hanging them horizontally.

It's better, but they seem to be floating over the desk chair.  Let's try staggering them a little.

That's the winner.  Time for a hammer and nails.

Mr. Cat is oblivious to the activity.  I've often admired vintage botanical prints, but they are so expensive.  I'm so pleased with these.

They took some touching up with Photoshop to get them to a standard 8x10 image as well as a little adjusting of brightness and white balance since I wanted to print them on cream-colored cardstock.  I even flipped one of them so the bird would be facing the left instead of the right, a process which involved multiple layers and careful erasing so the text wouldn't be backwards.

Let's have one more gratuitous shot of the French doors.