So, once in a rare while, I have a few hours to “not do anything”.  Meaning, I can sit in front of my 30 inch screen, and just goof around with stuff.

Tonight I played around with the Photoshop actions from PanosFX .  All three of the ones I used are free, and he has a boatload more.

The first one, above, is called Cube.  Need I explain what it does?  Yes, I need.  This is only one of them.  You can have cubes with multiple photos, and even with each face subdivided like a Rubik’s cube.

OK, it’s cute, but how often would you use it?  I don’t know.  Here is one that does look like I would use it more often.  The colors, texture, and a bunch of other adjustments are available when you run the action called Sketch.

This one happens to be simulating canvas (click on the image to see it in Picasa).

But the one I like the best is called Out of Bound.

It makes the image appear as if it’s coming out of the paper, escaping the bounds of the photograph, as it were.  You have the choice of leaving the background visible, like I did on the image above.

What’s the matter?  Not looking like it’s “coming out of the paper”?  How about this one?

It’s neat, really, and it’s not that much work to make it look like that.  Obviously some picture lend themselves more then others to this kind of treatment.  You can see these a little better on Picasa (click on any of the pictures, then click Slideshow).  Eventually I’ll do a Smugmug album of some of the ones I like.

Well, that’s it.  Goofing off disguised as a small creative effort.  Hope to do more soon.