My first storyboard practices! Fun!!

I belong to a great group where templates and tutorials are shared.

Here's what I came up with for my very first one.


Isn't it a hoot? I love the different expressions from his first experiences with the different baby foods. I chose to do black and white because I knew that the colors would all be assorted in the backgrounds and clothing. So I did that for uniformity and so that it would not be too busy on the eyes.

And here is the second one.

This was just some of my favorite of our son's baby parts that I didn't want to forget. From his little nose, hands, feet, to the little natural swirl in the center of his forhead. So yummy! Again, I chose to do the black and white so that I wouldn't have to worry about matching colors.

If you think you might be interested in joining this group of ladies, let me know and I will be glad to send you an invite(the group is a mixture of beginners, professional "wannabees" like me, and professionals already established in their photography careers).

Well, thanks again for stopping by!

Leaning on His everlasting arms,

Denise

More Practice On Layer Masks...

The other night, I caught this interaction between my husband and our son. It was a sweet moment where he was discovering Daddy's hands were just like his, only bigger. The more I looked at the picture afterwards, the more I wanted to capture the moment without the background details and just focus on the affection between them. It was a long shot, but I wanted to pretend that it was a formal photo shot on black velvet rather than on our quilt.

First, before doing anything special to it, I just cropped it in pretty close so that I could also include the look of wonder in our son's eyes as he held his Daddy's fingers. Then, I added a new blank layer and simply used the paintbucket to make it black. Then, in order to reveal the black "velvet" underneath, I clicked on the top layer, and because I have PSE 5.0, I used the eraser tool to erase away the quilt. To soften the edges on the hands and our son's face, I just used the burn tool selectively where the "velvet" would have cast a shadow or touched the skin to soften the edges. Then, to save the new picture, I flattened the layers.

It's a little rough looking on the bottom of my husband's thumb, but practice makes perfect.

Here it is in black and white. This is what I would like to mat and frame maybe include a caption of some sort...



My second practice photo was taken outside in a truck. Cute, but the sunlight was kind of bright on his face...


...So, first, I fixed that as best I could. Then I repeated the above steps and finished with the burn tool this time concentrating on the folds and shadowing. While I was doing that, I discovered that by using the larger diameter coverage, I could enrich the colors of his shirt and jeans. Looked much better that way. Again, before saving it as, I flattened the layers. I really like the way this one turned out even better than the hands portrait.

The black and white version actually looks like it was originally taken on a velvet backdrop. Neat!! I am pleased with how it turned out.

Well, thanks for taking a peek at my experiments. I really have fun with it. It gets my adrenaline going!!

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

They were just a-passin' through!

Look who was passing through the neighborhood on Wednesday morning. Yup, my feathered friends, "Mr. and Mrs. Sandhill Crane". Remember them? I love it when they visit. With not a care in the world, they let me get up pretty close, as long as I approached them very slowly. Love it when that happens!

Here are some shots I got of them.

Enjoy!!

In the words of Jed Clampett, "Y'all come back now y'hear?"

Thanks for visiting!

Leaning On His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

This is so much fun!

I'm still not real steady with the magnetic lasso tool, so I thought this would be an appropriate picture to practice with.

Here is the original...

Here's the after...

And in Black and White...

Not too bad but there's still room for improvement. I need to find a way to make her not so hazy. It's most likely because it is a point and shoot camera, but maybe not. If anyone has suggestions on remedying the haziness, I'd love to learn the technique.

Thanks for stopping by!

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

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