Below is my original picture, taken from a cruise ship in Miami Beach, looking back toward the city skyline at sunset.  It’s pretty, but quite unremarkable.  Once I brought it into Picasa 3.9 and started playing around with some of the new image processing features, I could create an entirely new image, just using the photograph as my starting point!

Original picture:

After applying multiple fun image processes in Picasa:

Here are the steps I went thru to create the final image.  Geeks on Tour members can watch the video.  

Original	Cropped and  HDR-ish effect added – Strong	Darken shadows so there is no detail in the buildings
Apply neon effect with color option of blue.	Apply Vignette effect to darken edges	Apply Museum matte for double border, picking up colors from the picture itself.
Apply museum matte a second time to achieve quadruple border.	Apply HDR-ish effect again to accentuate outlines.	Add text in a modern font with colors picked from the picture.

Using the exact same picture but other editing options, I also came up with this image.

See if you can create the same end results!  I have uploaded my original picture for you to use.  When you’re viewing the picture, you can right-click and download the picture to your computer so that Picasa can edit it.

This tip brought to you by Geeks on Tour

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