This Creeped Out My Poor Husband...

I've seen the finished product of replacing an object or switching heads but never knew how to do it. Well, now I know. I found a tutorial here and went for it. Unfortunately my husband was less than enthusiastic of my results than I was. He told me that I had "decapitated our poor young'n"! Oh well, can't win em' all. I think it's pretty close to being in proportion. I'd appreciate any feedback on whether it really is or not from another set of eyes.

The original picture was a great shot but unfortunately it had my daughter's arm in the way.

Here is the picture I chose to integrate the face onto

Here is the result...

Finally, after a few tweeks on skin tone, covering up drool and scratches, and cleaning the carpet of crayon bits, it didn't turn out too badly for a first try...

So what do you think? Does it creep you out? To anyone that's done this before, do you have any pointers for me? Does the head look in proportion to his body? I'd love to hear from you.

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

Ooh! Look What I learned today...

Isn't this neat? I learned it off of today's entry of Pioneer Woman Photography. I learn so much from her. She talks in plain sentences. Not all tutorials are created equal. Some can be pretty vague at times. The only difference was for my Photoshop Elements 5.0, I had to use the eraser tool instead of the brush tool. All in all, it's pretty neat, eh?!

I'm not sure if you can tell but I also did her eyes too. Here is a close up.

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

More Photoshop Practice

Just fooling around with different crops on this first one.

Here is the Original...

First, I ran a noiseware to soften it. Then, I straighened the picture by using the ledge of the bench as my guide. As usual, before taking the shot, I again overlooked the pizza face so I had to clean her up around her mouth. Almost just as good as a washcloth, don't you think? Then, I did the eye pop that I have just learned this month.

Finally, after fixing the blowout on the left side by playing with the saturation, temperature and tint, I cropped it in tight to avoid the distraction of the restaurant window.

Since I am focused on practicing different composition possibilities, here are two other angles of the same shot.

Coming in from the left...

And finally, the right...

In the editing of the second shot, I did many of the same things.

Here is the original...

This time, however, I had the window to the left of her face and it kept drawing my eye to it. So in order to draw the eye to the subject of the photo, I copied the bench to the other side, covering up the window. And again, did a tight crop. I like this much better.

Well, thanks for looking!

Love em? Hate em? Could I do something differently? Please feel free to comment.

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

First Picture in 2009!

Before taking down the Christmas tree for another year, I was fooling around experimenting at poses with our baby, and was able to get this great shot. He was looking at my husband behind me. We had trouble getting him to take his hands out of his mouth because he is already teething in the bottom front of his mouth. Even so, I liked the potential in the picture. I was able to do the eye pop. At screen size, you can really tell, but in this small format, it doesn't seem to show up as well. But anyway, it is fun trying!

Here is the unedited version before...


...and the after


Here is a closer look...do you see the "pop"?



Okay, indulge my photoshop experimenting, I just couldn't help myself, here's some more plays...

In a sepia-like shade...

...in black and white...


...and finally(yes, I mean it this time, tee hee!) in black and white with a frame...


I think I want to take pictures of my children every Christmas as they grow up, in front of the tree to see how they change throughout the years. I wish I would have done this with my daughter when she was his age. Oh well, better late than never. In the next few days, I will probably post some of the shots I took for Christmas of them together.

Thanks for indulging me, and especially for looking!!

Happy New Year to all of you!

Denise

Yikes! What a difference a monitor makes!!

Our monitor quit working, so we had to go back to using the old one. At first I didn't really like it because it was so much smaller, but now I am glad we had to use it. I pulled up my pictures and was able to see some really orangish pictures and a lot of red eyes. As discouraging as it was to see, I never would have known there was a problem with the other monitor. So I was able to fix the pictures a little that were posted on this page and will be more cautious before posting them in the future. I really need a better camera. It is supposed to have red eye reduction but that feature doesn't seem to work very well. Oh well, as soon as I can save up for one, I will have more ability to control those things and produce a better quality photo.

It's so exciting to learn new things!!

I have been playing around with my Photoshop Elements 5.0 and have been having a ball learning as I go!

Here are a few of my plays.

This shot was taken at the local county fair back in October. It was kind of tricky to take the shot with the duck in the cage, but fun trying, and still salvageable. I love the final result.

Here is the original shot before...


...and the after

These shots I experimented with the "eye pop" to focus on their eyes. I used the tutorial from Scraps of Jacki's Life . I love the look. I think it is subtle enough to look natural, but still draws you to their eyes.

Here is the original shot of our daughter before ...

... our daughter after

My original shot of our son before ...

... and the finished shot of our son after

I am trying to find a tutorial to show me how to bring out Christmas lights on a tree. I've seen it where they can be made to almost glow. Just beautiful! You can almost catch them twinkling. I just can't quite figure out how to do it on my program. The tutorials I've seen are not for the PSE 5 that I have. Oh well, it's fun to experiment.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed looking! Remember, your feedback and/or constructive comments are very much welcome!

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

I'm back!!

So much has happened in the last year!

Since my last entry, we've had a new baby boy and he is keeping us quite occupied. Pleasantly so, I might add.

I've still been practicing my composition and have gotten some great work to add to my portfolio. I will be posting some of it over the next little while. I'd love to hear what you think. I know I can always improve. I have so much to learn still.

As you can imagine, I am able to get a lot of practice now photographing our new baby. So I am trying to take advantage while I still have the privilege of watching him sleep, grow, smile, coo, not wiggle too much, etc,. You get the idea. The possibilities are endless.


I will be sharing some of my practice shots as I go, and again, would love your feedback on composition. I love to learn, and as they say, "you're only as good as your last (photo)"

Our computer went kaput just after the new year, and we finally were able to get a new computer! Yay!! So I am finally able to use the Photoshop Elements 5.0 that I bought over a year ago. Of course, the first thing I did was purchase "Photoshop Elements 5.0 for Dummies". I'm so excited!!

Well, I'm off to collect some of my favorites over the last year since I last posted. So please, come back again soon!!

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise