Community Expert

Something for the Weekend – Part 263 – ‘Fixer Upper’

Forum|Forum|26 days ago
July 17, 2026
104 replies
1243 views

Thanks to all who took part in our previous ‘Jewel in the Crown’ challenge. There were some great creations made from the starter object.

This week, we have something different. Our starter image this week is a guest house building in the grounds of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, England. The abbey and grounds, which are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are well worth a visit. These guesthouses were built in the 12th century but fell into ruins in the 16th century when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.

The challenge for this week is to use your image skills to restore these guesthouses and make them suitable for habitation again.

The “rules”:

Use the starter image as at least part of your own image entry.
Anything goes, as long as it meets the forum rules on decency, copyright, etc.
Anyone, and everyone, is welcome to have a go, whether you are a complete beginner or a Photoshop expert. This is not just for our forum “regulars”.
The challenge is not limited to Photoshop. Any Adobe software can be used.
There are no prizes apart from the chance to practice, show off your skills, or bring a bit of humor and fun. Don't be shy, join in and have a go!
The starter image is made available for you to use in this forum challenge only.

To download the starter image, click it then, when the image opens in its own window, right click and choose “Save Image As/Save Target As” (or similar depending on your browser).

When posting back your image, please use the reply button in this first post and use the 'Insert Photos' icon at the bottom of the reply box. If posting a comment on someone else’s entry, then please use the reply button next to their image post. Have fun!

Dave.

This topic is closed to new replies. Start a new post to keep the conversation going.

Show previous replies

Jill_C

Community Expert

Maybe a whale or two in the moat would make the place look more appealing.

Jill C., Forum Volunteer

davescm

Author

Community Expert

Who knew the river was that deep! 😄
Dave

JR Boulay

Community Expert

Doesn’t the river flow under the bridge???

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

didiermazier

Community Expert

Summer of 26 in Fontainebleau

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

It’s a nice effect and the perspective works as does the overall colour. Nicely done. I am not sure of the ETE 26 significance but the colours are perfect for the fire. I’ve been reading about the air quality issue on the US East coast from the wild fires. There’ll be huge areas that look every bit as bad as your background! That includes @jane-e so I hope things are not too bad for her. At least JJ and Prof Norman don’t have to breath noxious atmosphere now. I love it when their old threads get bumped — it brings them back to life.

jane-e

Community Expert

Hi Trevor,

The smoke on the East Coast was pretty bad and we were told to stay indoors. When I walked the short distance from my car to my doctor’s office, I had trouble breathing. Here are two pictures of the same scene — before and after the wildfire smoke.

But it was worse in Colorado where a friend’s niece died fighting the Snyder fire.

https://www.vaildaily.com/news/vail-area-womens-hockey-community-mourns-loss-of-emily-barker/

Jane

R

ronald pottkaemper

Community Expert

davescm

Author

Community Expert

It’s funny how some reflection and repetition makes the place look like it came from a different culture 😊
Dave

JR Boulay

Community Expert

The Trump family has decided to disfigure the Albanian coast, Yorkshire should be on its guard too!

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

If we are going down this road, then I guess it’s alright to share this. I did it a few days ago, but didn’t post because I know it upsets Lesley, and she is too nice for us horrible peeps to go upsetting. If you see this Lesley, I emailed it to my old mate Don and he laughed his socks off. He said of course it was alright to share on the Photoshop forum… Then he made a really funny joke about rendering me to Guantánamo Bay. He does love a laugh.

Leslie Moak Murray

Community Expert

Haha! Thank you (I think😁).

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

I’ve mentioned the PSD Text Effects here before. They are easy to use having easy to access Smart Object layers that you change the text to what you need, and the effect is rendered with your text. I have collected a few, and while they are OK, they are flashy, but have zero emotional content.

Yesterday, I came across Dan Perri who creates movie titles. I wish I’d found him before, because his work is incredible. Lots of titles that we all recognise, and while they are raster, we can use them with Flux Kontext simply asking FK to change the text. It works perfectly.

Check out Dan’s web site here. Click on a title to see it full screen, and hit Escape to back out of it. I hope it inspires you as much as it has me. You can see the thinking that went into them, and they really work. My favourite is Gangs of New York. The diverse font styles and sizes represent the eclectic architecture of NY and the wide range of nationalities of its people. My OCD had problems with the smeared texture, but I am sure it would have less impact if it was cleaned up.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

I can see that I missed a trick here. The first half was Firefly, but while it generated eight seconds, the last third had nothing much happening. So, I manually ‘deconstructed’ tower and triangular end wall on the left third, and used Morph cut in Premiere Pro which gave it that eroding look. It was generated at 720P and then used Topaz Video to 1) expand it with an 8 X Slow Mo, and then up res it to 1080P. That was way too slow, so I increased the speed in PremPro so it was running 2X the original generation. It is way easier to reverse footage in PremPro than Photoshop. It is also way easier to change speed, and… everything in PremPro.

At the end, I didn’t much like it, so I didn’t spend too much time finishing it. It’s all good experience though, and I am learning heaps as I go. In fact, as we have said so many times before, Dave’s SFTW threads have been a huge learning aid for me. It’s ten years since I’ve done any client work, and I am bored with photography, so these threads are an amazing incentive to create. We teach ourselves, and we learn from each other (when people respond to ‘How did you do that?’ questions). It’s great that the threads are going to be pinned as Announcements going forward, and let’s hope that lots more people see them and join in.

davescm

Author

Community Expert

That’s very good Trevor. It reminds me of one of those house restoration programmes on TV. Thanks for describing the steps you took to make it.
Dave

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Run Indi. Run! Whoops. Wrong movie.

Zero Ai again (other than Harmonize, which is too useful not to use).

davescm

Author

Community Expert

The ancient version of bowling… 😁
Dave

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

This idea came after seeing Dean’s ancient architecture. Which has just given me another idea. :-)

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Obligatory manual edit.

davescm

Author

Community Expert

I hope he checked what was on the other side of the wall before making that jump. 😁
Dave

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

I was thinking about when Eddie Kid jumped The Great Wall of China.

D

DeanUtian

Community Expert

Another classical architecture interpretation.

Used Firefly - Gemini 3.1 (w/ Nano Banana 2)
Prompt: Maintaining the character of the reference image, change the building to look like a classic roman colosseum

Cleanup and adjustments in PS

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

For a moment there, I thought that I could hear Pink Floyd, but I think that was actually the Amphitheatre at Pompei. Looking at the background behind that structure, it’s a convincing reminder of how incredibly good ‘Remove Background’ is. Only, for goodness sake, don’t let Dag know that it uses Ai. ;-)

D

DeanUtian

Community Expert

Yes, just looked it up and see Pink Floyd performed in 1971 at the Amphitheatre in Pompeii. Here’s a blurb about an exhibition about that 1971 event.
https://pompeiisites.org/en/exhibitions/pink-floyd-live-at-pompeii-the-exhibition-by-adrian-maben/

Maybe the SFTW263 ampitheatre can attract top artists too.

D

DeanUtian

Community Expert

Replacing one set of ruins with another.

I have taught a history course that looks at ancient Greek temples. This has many inaccuracies. But, that’s poetic licence. The Firefly Gemini prompt was:
Maintaining the character of the reference image, change the building to look like a ancient roman temple.

Then did Photoshop edits. Anyone see the SFTW references?

davescm

Author

Community Expert

It fits rather well, Dean. We do have a few such temple like structures in the North East of England. They are usually called architectural follies - which gives me an idea for a future SFTW challenge. 😊

Dave