Working on some editing skills...

For awhile now, I've been wanting to learn how others "frame" a picture by darkening the edges. I found a great tutorial here that helped me learn how. It also included however, teaching how to turn it into sepia before adding the framing effect, so I had leave out the sepia step to get the look I wanted. It didn't turn out exactly how I had envisioned it, but in the end, I was happy with the effect.

Original (untouched)

In the first edit, I just corrected the skin tones, cleaned the food off their faces, warmed it up a little and cropped it ever so slightly.

In the next edit, I followed the steps from the tutorial. I changed it a little by playing with the color saturation and tried to age the picture a bit to make it a little more vintage looking.

In the end, I really liked their method compared to others I had tried, but I felt the picture needed a pop, so, after I was done, I layered the 'edited' original underneath and placed the sepia finished one on top, and erased the eye part from the top finished layer to bring out her blue eyes from the colored picture in the bottom layer. I think I like that the best so far. What do you think?

Hope you have as much fun as I did practicing this method. Thanks for stopping by!

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

Just practicing layers!

My Favorite Time Of Year With My Favorite Little Family...Mine!

What better way to spend a beautiful breezy fall Saturday afternoon.

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

Critters, big and small...

Sometimes the best subjects are right in your own front yard. Just a few of the little critters I'd practiced with lately...

Our daughter spotted this caterpillar next to the sidewalk by our front door. This was shot in Macro mode and is unedited. I love the crispness of the picture as well as the contrast of the bright green leaf compared to it's reddish brown colour.


We have a birdhouse under the roof of our porch that was meant for...well, birds. However, it seems to be a hit with anything but the birds.

Here is our regular "boarder" in the birdhouse.


A couple of weeks ago, I caught this squirrel in it.



He didn't stick around for very long, but stayed long enough to give a "nyah-nyah can't catch me" look afterwards...


Around here, we love the lizards because they eat the bugs. The less bugs, the better, I think. So, "Feast on, lovely lizards!"

Here is a 'depth of field' practice shot...


Here is a shot that was taken at night, also in macro mode...


Love the textures and colours up close in this shot. Would you believe, it's no bigger than my pointer finger? Our daughter couldn't understand how the little hole on the side was it's ear and that her own ears were holes too!


I don't know what it is with me and the frogs lately, they just seem to fascinate me! This one was in the same bush as the lizard from the previous shot.


Here are a couple of my favorite shots. The frogs come out mostly at night, stick on the walls and windows with their little suction cupped toes, and feast on the moths and various bugs flying around the house. Let's hope they're helping keep the mosquito population at a minimum.


Here is my latest favorite close up shot. I love the detail, especially in the eyes, it looks like marbling, don't you think?


Well, thanks again for stopping by. I'd love to know which of these is your favorite?

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,
Denise

I've Been Inspired!

I'm so pleased to have been introduced to the fantastic work of Nadia this past week. I love the whole feel of it! It makes me excited about learning all that I can to produce my best work possible, when doing a photo shoot for my clients.

I was able to purchase one of her texture sets today for my 'toolbox', and couldn't wait to show you how it turned out!

Before, in just plain black and white...



And after, created with one of the textures from her Nadia-Stalgic set #2

It gives the portrait an old-fashioned vintage look to it. I like the graininess of it. This was my first time to practice with it, so, although it's nowhere near as beautiful as Nadia's work, I'm sure going to enjoy practicing.

Well, until the next time I get bitten by the blog bug,

I'm Still Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

An afternoon at the beach...

I took the following shots back when our computer wasn't working, and so I never had the chance to post them. So, with their permission, I wanted to share them with you.

This wasn't a photo shoot, but just my observations of them as a family(personally, one of my favorite families) while we spent a couple of hours at the beach.

From new experiences...

...to droopy drawer experiences.


I thought this would make a cute picture of their son about to stand up. I didn't notice until after I uploaded the photo, that he was actually looking at his own reflection. So this shot, which turned out pretty nice, was actually quite by accident, a really cute accident.


Memories from a great time at the beach!


Great time with great friends!

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,
Denise

Is there such a thing as "mood ring" eyes?

Lately, when I look at our son's eyes, I can't really tell what color they are. I mean, I know they are hazel, but it seems as though each time I look, they're a different color. Usually depending on what he wears, they are a certain predominant color with a smidge of brown in the middle. At times, they appear predominantly green, sometimes blue, and at times, a kind of gray blue. So, when I took the following picture yesterday, in natural light, coming from the patio doors, I thought it would be a great opportunity to find out, by doing a layer mask project with my photoshop elements 5.0 editing program.

Before I begin to show you how I do the layer mask, let me just add that the only preliminary editing to the original picture that I did, was to clean up a few crumbs on his cheeks and sharpened it up slightly for crispness' sake. I did not play with saturation or light or colors, so that I could get a true representation of his eye color.

So, let's begin. Here is the original...


So first, after doing a quick clean up to the photo, as I pointed out before, I then started out by 'duplicating the layer'. To do this, click on 'layer' at the top of the screen and choose 'duplicate layer' from the drop-down menu.

What does that do? Think of this layer mask project as two slices of bread, in which the first layer, or slice, is going to be the original photo and then the 2nd layer, or slice(the duplicate) is going to be the one I manipulate without changing the original layer. This means, if I were to not be happy with the 2nd layer, I could and just delete it and I'd still be left with the original.

Okay, so now I have 2 layers. Next, I went to the 'Enhance' tab at the top of the screen, and chose, 'convert to black and white' from the pull-down menu. I made sure I set my preference to 'portrait' before saving the change. Again, this is only making the 2nd layer black and white. The original layer underneath is still in color.


Once this step is done, I clicked on the pink eraser on the left hand side of the screen. Zooming in on the eye area, I carefully "erased" away the black and white part of the iris and revealed the original layer underneath that exposed the colors.


Because it is so small here on my blog, you may not see a difference yet, so I will crop in for a closer look...


Isn't that neat? I love how his eye color seems almost peacockish (is that a word?) with the mixture of blue, green, brown and a tinge of turquoise? Almost reminds me of those old mood rings we used to get back in the 80's. Remember, I didn't enhance or enrich the colors at all so what you see is the true color of the original layer. If you look closely, you can even see my head in the catchlight of his eye! Giggle!!

In closing, before saving the new photo, you must first click on the 'layer' tab at the top and choose "flatten image" from the drop-down menu.

Why don't you try this on one of your pictures if you've never done it? It's a really fun technique. I tried it on our daughter awhile back, who has vivid blue eyes, as you can see here.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post. I know I had lots of fun doing it.

So until the next time I am bitten by the blog bug...

Leaning On His Everlasting Arms,
Denise