This was a good prompt for me. I have been doing abstracts with my photo's for years, so I just headed back into my files and pulled up a few.
Unfortunately, I did these so long ago that I can't be sure what I used to accomplish my effects. I can tell you that it was in Photoshop Elements.
At this point, I decided it would be more fun to make some current abstracts and it would maybe show how my technique has grown (or at least changed).
This started with a photo of a deer in the woods. I tweaked the pictures with levels, brightness/contrast and hue/saturation. I then covered it with pdpa Dusty Rose Bokeh at 60%. I erased out the deer and recovered it with pdpa Dusty Rose Bokeh at 40% and added a border.
I started this with a photo of an unusual cloud formation, tweaking it with levels, brightness/contrast and hue/saturation. I placed the picture of the Sand hill Crane's in flight over the clouds at 68% and blended it in using the eraser and clone stamp. Added pdpa Vintage Craquelure texture at around 66% then used levels to accentuate it.
This was fun, as always. I am looking forward to everyone's version of abstractions in nature ...