Sweet Shot Tuesday

My husband surprised me yesterday with a macro lens for my camera so of course I had to play with it. Unfortunately, it's the end of November in Northern Indiana and there's not much of anything pretty growing, however, I think I've discovered that even weeds can be beautiful!

Canon Rebel xti ... ISO 200 ... 1/320 ... f/5.60 ... 100 mm ... auto WB ... no flash

Edited in PSE7 ... Texture & Photo Veil from Love That Shot

The need to create...

I got my first copy of Photoshop Elements two years ago for Christmas, however, I can't say that I really understood what I was doing with it until this year. In fact, it's really been in the last couple of months that I feel like I finally know what I'm doing - somewhat.

Always before, I'd get frustrated because I'd have an idea in my mind of how I wanted my pictures to turn out, yet they just never quite got there. Although I know I still have a lot to learn, I'm at least really enjoying the process now - a lot more than I used to.

Yesterday was kind of a crummy day emotionally for me. One of the things that helped, however, was being able to have a creative outlet for my frustration. Thankfully, the Pioneer Woman was hosting an edit contest on her website. She shared one of her photos (which was really quite lovely without my any of my editing help) then encouraged her readers to edit it any way they'd like and post it to her Flickr site. After sifting through the many, many entries, she'll post some of her favorites on her blog. I have no grand ideas that mine will get chosen, but that doesn't really matter to me. What does matter is the fact that being able to create something awakens my heart in ways other things don't.

Here is the original photo:



Like I said, I almost felt bad doing anything to it because the original is so pretty, but nonetheless, here's my clean edit (before any creative actions were added):



And here's my final creation (the one I submitted):

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To her a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, her very breath is cut off from her. She must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency, she is not really alive unless she is creating." (Pearl S. Buck)

Show Us Your Skills

This week's Show Us Your Skills edit showcases Amanda's lovely daughter. A picture like this one makes me pine for warmer weather! It was a fun picture to play with though ... when you have a beautiful subject, you can't go wrong!

Here's the shot we were given (SOOC):



Here's my clean edit with a crop:

Here's the clean edit with the Everyday Element's Florida action plus a photo veil and texture from Love That Shot:

And because Amanda challenged everyone to try a black and white edit, here's my clean edit with MCP's Take My Color Away action from their Complete Workflow action set. I turned on the Chocolate Wishes layer to give it a slight brown tint.

Thanks for visiting ... I'd love your feedback!

To see more edits, visit the Everyday Elements site!

Fix-it-Friday

This picture makes me happy because it reminds me of summer! It's getting cold where I live, but when I look at this picture, I can almost feel the warmth of the sun.

Before edit:



After edit:



Edited in PSE7 using these steps:

1. I opened the image in Camera Raw and made the following adjustments:

Exposure +60
Recovery 40
Fill Light 10
Clarity +10
Vibrance +5

2. Once I opened the image in PSE's full edit mode, I followed these steps:

-Levels Adjustment Layer - outside sliders in (Black-10; White-250)
-Levels Adjustment Layer #2 to brighten the face - Grey-1.61; Black-10
-Photo Filter Layer to cool - lowered opacity to 75%
-Brightness/Contrast Layer for color boost - lowered opacity to 20%
-Levels Adjustment Layer #3 to brighten the face a little more - moved grey slider to the left some; inverted layer mask (Control-I); brushed over the face with a soft white brush
-Flatten
-Saved

3. At this point I ran a few creative actions and added textures for interest:

-Ran Everyday Element's Florida action - turned on the Sunlight layer
-Flatten
-Added an Olde World Texture from Love That Shot - soft light & overlay mode - erased texture from boy
-Ran MCP's Touch of Light/Touch of Darkness action - used the darken layer to bring out the colors of the boy's shirt as well as some of the darker greens in the background
-Flatten and save

To see more Fix-it-Friday entries, visit I [Heart] Faces!

Sweet Shot Tuesday

My Sweet Shot for today is one I took of my son, Andrew, this past weekend. It's hard for me to believe that in just a few short weeks, Andrew will celebrate his 13th birthday. The years have just gone so fast! What a great kid he is, though! I'm so thankful to be his mom!

Canon Rebel xti ... ISO 200 ... 1/160 ... f/5.6 ... 55 mm ... WB: daylight ... edited in PSE7

For more sweet shots, jump on over to:

Show Us Your Skills

I got very excited when I saw this week's Show Us Your Skills edit challenge because I love playing with flowers! This one was truly gorgeous before any editing but I had fun playing with textures and photo veils in this edit.

Here's the shot before my edit:



And here is what I came up with:

I edited in PSE7 ... here are my steps:

1. Levels Adjustment Layer - pulled the outside sliders in just a bit

2. Hue/Saturation Layer - yellows +10; greens +10; magentas +10

3. Brightness/Contrast Layer - lowered the opacity to 25%

4. Flatten

5. MCP's Touch of Light/Touch of Darkness Action - darkened some of the petal edges as well as the center of the flower

6. Love That Shot's Serendipidity photo veil - soft light - erased off center of flower

7. Love That Shot's Paris texture - soft light - overlay - erased off flower

8. Slight sharpen

9. Save

To check out more lovely edits, visit the Everyday Elements blog.

Love That Shot [link up]

I really, really want a macro lens and am hoping to get one for Christmas. But since I don't have one in my possession just yet, I had to get down real low so that I was just about eye level with the water droplets on this kale leaf. I tried to make sure my focal point was right on the water droplets and as a result I love how much of the plant is actually blurred including some of the background droplets, making it look like glitter or sugar!

Canon Rebel xti ... ISO 200 ... 1/500 ... f/6.3 ... 250 mm ... no flash ... auto white balance
Edited in PSE7

Sweet Shot Tuesday

Love sunsets...
Love trees...
Love pictures of sunsets and trees!


The only editing I did was to boost the sunset colors just a bit and to sharpen.

Show Us Your Skills [11-6-10]

I love this week's picture featuring Amanda's niece and her cello. It makes me want to drag my kiddos out to somewhere pretty and have them be my models - again!

Here's the before-editing shot:



And here's mine:

I had a lot of fun "playing" with this picture but I'm not sure how I feel about how it came out. I'm thinking maybe her face is too light? Any thoughts?

My steps for the edit...

1. I used Amanda's tutorial that showed how to give a picture a clean edit

2. I used the MCP Eye Doctor action on her eyes

3. I ran the Everyday Elements Oxford action

4. I cropped the picture some

5. I used the free Touch of Lightness/Touch of Darkness from MCP on the background foliage

6. To bring out the fall colors, I used MCP's Paint on Pop action

7. Last, I gave the picture an over all sharpening using the High Pass Filter

Fix-It-Friday

It's that time of the week ... Fix-It-Friday time! I didn't get my edit posted yesterday ... to be honest I wasn't even sure I was going to officially participate this week. I'm not feeling real confident about my edit this week. Nonetheless, here's what I've got...

SOOC:


My edit (done in PSE7):

The specifics of what I did to it are a little fuzzy but I do know that I ran several adjustment layers (levels, brightness/contrast, photo filter) ... used the healing brush on her face a little ... ran an Everyday Elements action (Florida) and applied a photo veil from Love That Shot ... sharpened and cropped slightly.

I'm already looking forward to next week's Fix-It-Friday!

Sweet Shot Tuesday

Today I'm sharing my current favorite picture of my daughter, Katelyn, taken during her recent fall break from school.

I love it because not only is she (in my unbiased opinion!) gorgeous, but because after practicing on this picture, I feel like I final got a handle on some editing issues I've been struggling with.

This picture represents beauty and a turning point!

Show Us Your Skills

I've loved participating in the Everyday Elements Show Us Your Skills link-up and although we were out of town this weekend, I couldn't wait to dive in and edit this morning!

I started with the SOOC shot shown here:



And my final edit:

I ran various adjustment levels in PSE 7 then finished with the Everyday Elements Florida action (one of my all-time favorites!) and an Olde World Texture from Love That Shot.

Thanks for stopping by to see my edit!