Artists Down Under - Australia and New Zealand - February 2026

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DOWN UNDERartists

Australia and New Zealand

Welcome everyone to another edition of Artists Down Under.

February brings Valentine’s day and don’t you just love love! I especially love watching the older couples, still so much in love after all the years they have spent together.

I also love the fact that our artists have been very busy creating images so that we can share them with you. A couple of our artists have been very busy doing a series of images for you. We also have an image from one of our artist, Margaret Kalms, that has been selected to exhibit in an online exhibition in Manhattan, how exciting for her.

Andrew Haysom has done an awesome article on two Photoshop plug-ins, so informative, a must read.

The Art Buddies have been busy with another topic in their Quotes Challenge, this month the topic was “My Australia” and they have created some amazing images to share.

The girls from the Redlands Collab have shared another image in their Chinese Whispers series.

Well that’s it from me for this month, stay safe everyone and look out for each other.

Pam Henderson

AL BAMASS ( AUSTRALIA )

LA CAFÈ

THIS SIDE OF QUIET

PRUE WRIGHT ( AUSTRALIA )

https://www.sandradimagery.com/

KONCZ ( AUSTRALIA )

http://www.artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-2/george-koncz/ http://georgekonczphotography.com/

REFLECTION OF A MYSTERY CASTLE

https://www.artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-3/mick-rooney/

artists Achievements monthly down under

artists down under facebook page

The Artists Down Under Public Facebook page has been set up to allow the artists in the group to showcase their work and to enable them to share promotional information about themselves, e.g. exhibitions, awards etc...

You can find the Artists Down Under Public Facebook page at this address; https://www.facebook.com/groups/ArtistsDownUnder/

So, if you are an artist in the group, don’t forget to regularly share your work and information here, and to let your friends and family know about the page if they are interested in viewing the latest art and news from the group.

If you are a reader of the magazine who does not have access to the page, please click the link above and request to join. When you request to join you will be asked to answer three simple questions that will allow us to determine if you are an eligible artist who may wish to join the group and therefore be able to post on the page, or a member of the public who can view, comment and like the work on the page. It’s a great place to see some great art from this vibrant group every day!

Three ADU members receive a special gift

Our very good Awake friend Diane Stafford from WhiteLaneStudio continue to give gifts as a reward for members of the Artists Down Under group who contribute to the ADU Facebook page by regularly posting their artworks and supporting other members with their comments.

Diane Stafford from Chester, UK, designs Photoshop textures and overlays for photo artists and photographers to use in their digital artworks. Diane has created another special kit just for Artists Down Under for the month of FEBRUARY.

Two artists will receive a Diane kit each. Diane Stafford can be found at https://whitelanestudio.co.uk/biolinks

The FEBRUARY lucky winners are

Diane Stafford (WhiteLaneStudio) Texture & Overlay Kit

- Colin Campbell

- Denise Hunter Logan

LIVING THE PHOTO ARTISTIC LIFE

httpshttps://issuu.com/thephotoartisticlife/docs/living_the_photo_artistic_life_-_issue_no._131?fr=sNTA1Yzg0NDE1MDQ

Congratulations to the following artists for having their images chosen to appear in the International magazine “Living The Photo Artistic Life”.

Rosa Perry

- At One With The Crows

CatBeagle Creations

- Last Keeper Of The Stars

Christina Brunton

- Ginger Cat

- Ginger Cat & Girl

Denise Hunter Logan

- Live Life On Your Terms

Maureen Maxwell

- Dubious Travel Arrangements

George Koncz

- Reflections Of A Mystery Castle

Ilona Abou-Zolof

- Rural Resilience

- Ocean Gaze

Penny de Jong

- The Whale Born Of The Cosmic Deep

- Apollo

LIVING THE PHOTO ARTISTIC LIFE

https://shiftart.com/shift-art-photoshop-challenge-results-january-2026/

whats on Margaret Kalms

January 25 to March 25, 2026

https://www.healing-power-of-art.org/art-exhibition/

While predominantly yellow and red curved stripes, the design also has greens and purples as a contrast on each side. A filigree spray of fractals overlays on top. The pattern is repeated 4 times in the ordinal directions to create a weaving like pattern.

https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artists-4/sharon-rankmore/

https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artists-1/bev-terawskyj/

https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-4/sue-masterson/

BIRD MAN

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosa_perry https://rosa-perry.myportfolio.com/artwork SEEKER

HAUNTED PASSAGE

DENISE HUNTER LOGAN ( AUSTRALIA )

LIVE LIFE ON YOUR TERMS

https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-3/margaret-kalms/

http://artofwoman.com.au

https://photos.kogekar.com/

https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-2/hemant-kogekar/

https://andrewhaysom.myportfolio.com/ https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artists-1/andrew-haysom/

CIRCLING THE VOID

http://www.artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-4/penny-de-jong/

UNDER THE EYES OF MY DISAPPROVING AUNTS

DENISE CAUCHI ( AUSTRALIA )

Australia and New Zealand artists

DOWN UNDER

SOME PHOTOSHOP INSPIRATION

SOME COLOUR CONUNDRUMS AND TK

MAGIC MIXER AND TK GRAYSCALE

By Andrew Haysom

This month’s article covers a bit of colour theory, and whilst it might be a little bit out there, I hope you’ll get something from it, if nothing else perhaps an introduction to two cheap, and useful, Photoshop plug-ins.

The diagram in figure 1 shows two sets of blue and yellow colour swatches. The first set are shown at 100% saturation with the brightness varying from 20% to 100% from left to right. The second set are shown at 100% brightness with the saturation varying from 20% to 100% from left to right.

[Fig 1 – Blue and Yellow Colour Swatches]

SOME PHOTOSHOP INSPIRATION (CONT .....)

So, what can we notice about these colour swatches.

For each pair of yellow and blue swatches in both sets of swatches, even though the brightness values are identical in each case, the blue swatches always appear darker than the equivalent yellow one.

There also appears to be a much smaller range of brightness between the 20% Brightness and 100% Brightness swatches for the blue than for the yellow.

Often the terms brightness and luminosity are used interchangeably when referring to light in a Photoshop image, but they are different things. Brightness should be used to refer to the defined pixel brightness value (as seen in the HSB colour values, for example in the colour picker) and luminosity refers to the “perceived brightness” – that is, how our eye and brain combination perceives the brightness of different colours. As we can see from Figure 1 the luminosity (perceived brightness) of the blue and yellow swatches is quite different despite the actual brightness values being the same.

This is true for all colours, but yellow and blue show two of the most extreme differences, which is why I chose them for this example.

Things get more interesting when we use some of the various techniques available to us to change these colour swatches to black and white (monochrome).

[Figure 2a – Black and White conversions]

Figure 2a shows the result of converting the swatch page to monochrome by adding a HSL Ad justment Layer and moving the Saturation slider all the way left to 0%.

The first thing you’ll notice is that for both sets of swatches the blue and yellow rows are identical. So, converting the image this way has removed the luminosity differences between the two colours. This makes this method my least favourite way to remove colour.

SOME PHOTOSHOP INSPIRATION (CONT

Figure 2b shows the results of using a Black & White Adjustment Layer and choosing the preset “Maximum Whites” – this converts the image to actual brightness values (where black = 0% brightness and white =100% brightness). This again removes any distinguishment between the colours. Again, probably not a great method for black and white conversion, but perfect if you’re wanting to create a mask based on brightness values.

Figure 2c shows the results of using a Black & White Adjustment Layer and choosing the “Default” preset. This is a very viable way to perform a black and white conversion, and you can change the brightness of each colour by moving the colour sliders.

It is apparent here is that there is very little difference between the converted B=20% and B=100% for the blue swatches when fully saturated, so deeply saturated blues will always look quite dark, even with low brightness values. Even the yellows look dark when fully saturated.

Figure 2d shows the results of converting to monochrome using one of the most widely accepted methods for creating true luminosity data, creating a Solid Color Adjustment Layer, setting it to 50% grey and blend mode Color.

Here, there is even less difference between the saturated blues at the different brightness values, and increases in saturation seem to have a greater darkening effect, and again even the yellows look very dark when fully saturated.

Figure 2e shows the result when using NIK Silver Efex Pro with the default Neutral preset, it appears identical to the luminosity data produced in 2d.

In Silver Efex Pro there are colour sensitivity settings in the Film section, and obviously choosing different film types will affect how your colours translate, figure 2f shows the same Neutral preset but with the Blue Film Sensitivity slider moved to 70%. This creates a much wider range of luminosities in the blues, and when editing in Silver Efex small changes to the Film Sensitivity sliders can have pleasing results.

The impact of saturation and hue (colour) on the luminosity is also a very good argument for isolating the various changes you make. For example by changing the blend mode of a dodge/ burn layer to luminosity so that the dodging and burning does not affect the colour

As we are talking about colour and black and white conversions, it seems appropriate to also introduce two new Photoshop plug-ins I’ve recently been using.

They are TK Magic Mixer and TK Grayscale from Tony Kuyper. Tony has a few other plugins I use as well, but these are best left for their own articles. You’ll find Tony Kuyper’s plug-ins at his website here;

https://goodlight.us/panels-and-videos.html

TK Magic Mixer and TK Grayscale are only available as a pair, both plug-ins for US$12, so they are very inexpensive.

SOME PHOTOSHOP INSPIRATION (CONT

TK Magic Mixer provides both colour adjustments and black and white conversions via the Photoshop Selective Color adjustment layer.

TK Grayscale provides black and white conversions using the Photoshop Black and White adjustment layer.

[Fig 3 – Tony Kuyper Magic Mixer and Grayscale plug-ins]

Both plug-ins provide “Randomize” buttons that allow you to just cycle through many “random” colour or Black and White conversions, this can be a very effective way to adjust your images if you’re not exactly sure what look you are after.

Both plug-ins provide buttons for the Red, Green, Blue colour channels and the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow virtual colour channels. These allow you to create “looks” based on these colour channels.

Both plug-ins have a built-in feature for ensuring you do not clip your highlights or shadows, and both plug-ins have the ability for you to save and recall presets you like.

Both plug-ins have forward/backward buttons that allow you to cycle back and forth between “looks” you have generated.

The Photoshop Selective Color adjustment layer can be tricky to use effectively, but the smart sliders in TK Magic Mixer automatically adjust to maintain image brightness (as you move one slider, the other two adjust automatically). There is an independent brightness slider in the panel to adjust brightness and a unique contrast slider that adjusts contrast between the different colour channels.

Am I the only one who is addicted to buying Photoshop add-ins?

Keep experimenting!

Andrew Haysom

https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-3/kevin-sims/ www.kevinsims.co.nz

)

https://trish-hoskin.myportfolio.com/ http://www.artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-4/trish-hoskin/

CULROSS VILLAGE

http://www.artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-3/maureen-maxwell/

DOWN artistsUNDER

Australia and New Zealand

DIGITAL ARTISTS GROUP

A COLLABORATIVE GROUP OF PHOTO ARTISTS

CHINESE WHISPERS #98

“Key To My Heart”

STAGE 1 STAGE 2

Our clever editor Pam turned four random elements into a quirky and wonderful story for Valentines Day. This is our 98th collaboration and, after all this time, I find it increasingly difficult to challenge Pam. However, no matter how challenging our collabs are, what is really important is how much we learn from each other and the fun we have.

Maureen Maxwell

art by ILONA ABOU-ZOLOF

WHISPERS OF TIME

CRAFTED SOUND

DREAMING FORWARD

ORDERED MEMORY

https://colincampbell.myportfolio.com

https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artists-1/colin-campbell/

CLOUDS

https://www.flickr.com/photos/88165766@N05/

https://www.artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-3/karen-waalwyk/ PAINTED GNU

PREENING CRANE

https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artists-3/lynsey-stirland-mitchell/

JANE TOVEY ( AUSTRALIA )

https://www.juliepowellphoto.com/ https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-2/julie-powell/

http://www.artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-4/pam-henderson/

https://artistsdownunder.com.au/artist-3/kim-ricci/

art by CHRISTINA BRUNTON

MYSTICAL

ASIAN WOMAN

DOWN artistsUNDER

Australia and New Zealand

A COLLABORATIVE GROUP OF PHOTO ARTISTS

QUOTE CHALLENGE by the Art Buddies

A bit of background first:

In our Art Buddies group, we’re a vibrant mix of ADU members from across Australia, each contributing individual talents and viewpoints. Our ‘Art Buddies’ team includes Christina Brunton, Denise Cauchi, Ilona Abou-Zolof, Marie Helyar, Marina Hobbs, Robyn McLauchlan and Ngaire Danvers. We gather regularly on Zoom, taking turns to set our creative challenges.

Challenge: “My Australia”

This challenge was set by Ngaire D’Anvers.

“My Australia”. Create something that shows what you think of when you think of our lovely homeland.

Our Art Creations:

We hope our creations motivate you to share your own interpretation on the Artists Down Under Facebook page. Your artistic expression matters to us, and we are excited to see what you create!

artists photographic challenge theme: monthly artistic down under VALENTINES

artists

DOWN UNDER

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