I’ve been having tremendous fun ever since I discovered twirling, many thanks to Bren of Brashley Photography and her Twirling Tuesday. In addition to just plain fun, it’s been a great help as I try to come to grips with the blend modes in the GIMP (they are the same in Photoshop). It is amazing how many different effects one can get from one photo.

Taking this photo of a peachy-orange deciduous azalea:

The two spun up layers are these:

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Using different blend modes there are a stunning number of very different effects, here are some examples:

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Then layering the original onto the different blended spirals using different blend modes you can get even more effects, including these rather trippy ones:

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I find it fascinating, fun and rather relaxing to take a picture and see how many different looks I can get.

If you want to give it a try Bren’s post has directions for doing the twirling in Photoshop and my post Putting a twist on it using the GIMP has directions for using the GIMP (which is open-source=free).