And then there were more edits!

 This week we tackled more photo edits.  We had to

1. Post one altered photo to blog (share the before AND after) altered with clone and/or patch tool.
   
2. Post one photo to your blog where you added text.
3. Add one photo to your blog where you used the paint tool(s), show the before AND after.

So in this first picture, I am very pregnant with our youngest son, Finn and Bella is loving to kiss him through my tummy.  The fish tank gives some great color, but my stretch marks are showing, there is juice staining Bella's mouth, and the tank isn't 100% clean.

 So in my edit, I cleaned up the tank, faded the stretch marks, and took away the juice stains with the clone tool.  I also used the paint brush to dodge Bella's pink dress.  I cropped the photo, applied a cooler temperature filter, and increased the shadow definition along with adding some text.

This next picture shows Baby Finn (1 day old) and I in the hospital.  There is a lot going on in the background and I have a telephone line coming out of my head.

So I cloned the wall around me to take out the cord, as well as some of the things poking up in the background.  I also cropped the photo, applied a color focal circle filter that has a B&W edge, added some text, and increased the lighting.

In my final picture, I took this adorable shot of Bella in front of the fish tank on school picture day.  She's practicing her smile and twirls while also melting her Daddy's heart.  Again, the algae on the tank is distracting, and the lighting is a tad bit off.

Edit tools to the rescue!  I applied a glowing filter with a paint brush, sharpened the image, increased the lighting while making the shadows more rich, and sharpened her outline with the paint brush.  I also added text, cropped the photo, and used the cloning tool to take out the algae.

 It's a lot of fun to add the various tools we're learning about and it gives me a whole new level of appreciate for people that do this for a living!

Comments are always welcome :D

Filters

This week we had to manipulate our photos by adding layering effects to them.  I choose a picture of my best friend and I at graduation as well as one of my favorite landscapes of the mountains near where I live.

This is the original of Kate and I.  Awesome, we're graduated nurses who take really awesome pictures together.

I cropped the picture, made the background black and white and gave us a filtered layer of color, a layer of insta-tan, sharpened the picture, increased the shadow intensity, and upped the color saturation slightly.  I like the effects, they can be really addicting and it's nice how you can track what you are doing to your picture so you can take out layers as you go if you don't like the effect.

The second picture I choose is one of the mountains near the road off of Rt 15 near my house.  It is early morning and I just like the way the lines of the trees, mountains, and grass flow together to create different levels of interest in the picture.

 

I cropped the picture, increased the clarity, decreased the temperature, increased the saturation, upped the shadow contrast, and dodged the cloud line.  I like how the color is blue-ish which makes me think "winter is coming" (indeed it was snowing when I went into work this morning at my house).  The mist coming off the trees makes me think of the Misty Mountains and I think that is why I like this picture so much; so many literary favorites of mine I can find in one picture of a place I live nearby to.

More edit!

This week I manipulated images that started out a little dark and made them sharper, brighter.   I wanted to use my little dancer's photos, so here are the original ones.


Picture 1: I took this picture of my daughter's rehersal performance that I love, then I cropped it, brought the lighting up a bit, and increased the color warmth.

Picture 2: Another inside picture of ballet, this time in a studio that is notorious for lighting problems with pictures (my dreaded flash not going off problem).  For this photo, I brightened, cropped, sharped, and still found that I could not get my daughter's face in better focus.

So, wanting to play more with color, I took one of my favorite bright pictures of my daughter fishing.
I re-sized it and made it a B&W to really bring out the light while also sharpening the image to bring out the clarity of the subject.  I love the end result.

Happy photo editing :)

A little tweak here and there!

This week our assignment is to take a couple pics (really working on my whole staying within the number of photos assigned limit!) and edit them.  I have a lot of fun working with photo manipulation tools.

Like way too much fun.

Happy dance excited.

And did I mention my obsessive love affair I have with gif files? 

OK so the Actual Assignment (not continual giggles over gif files that speak to my inner silliness).

Photo 1: A screen shot of the Darkmoon Faire in Azeroth (another World of Warcraft moment).

 Here we are at the entry pillars with a wide angle shot that captures fireworks, nature, and sky.  The picture is pretty dark and has no real focus.  It's just an off-center, unclear subject picture.

Crop it, re-size it, slightly increase color saturation, and clarity.

 

The focus is clearly the creepy Lord of the Rings eye of Sauron watching the fireworks explode.  The definition of the animation is sharper, the colors pop more, and the sky has more depth.  See all Sauron needed was fireworks!

(No fireworks, angry eye!)


Original Picture #2: Kid's in front of school.  Good lighting, bright eyes.  Arrangement a little off, but kids are still cute (natural eye color, no edit; they really are that bright).

Edited picture: Cropped, res-ized, color saturation slightly increased, shadows increased to give more depth.  Eye pop way more, colors are much more bright, focus is more on children, especially Katie Rose's little devilish smile in the middle. 

As always, commentary is welcome.
And more gifs for your Saturday viewing pleasure.

Happy dance before getting called into work...

Landscapes

This week we had to take landscape photos, so I went a little wild and took over 200 pictures of which I narrowed my favorites down to 39 and then edited about 10 of those.  These pictures were taken between Monday, October 8th to today, Saturday October 13th from 6 in the morning to 6pm at night, in rain, with snow on the mountains, and finally some bright sunshine!

I had a lot of fun and am fortunate to live in an area with some great mountain and lake landscapes that alternated between fall foliage to snow on the mountain peaks in the same shot.  I took pictures of Mount Mansfield, Camel's Hump, Lake Champlain, the University of Vermont, and White's Christmas Tree Farm.

 My partner and I had a blast tracking down "the perfect shot" which for me actually ended up being a happy accident on my way to pick up my daughter for ballet.  My partner saw something that I thought would not make a good shot and took an early morning frost and fog shot that I fell in love with.  Since there were a lot of pictures that I ended up liking, I made a slideshow of them and the ones that I tweaked to submit for the assignment are below.  Enjoy!

Edited Pictures (Official submissions):

Lake Champlain, early afternoon  (2pm, before a rain storm)

 

Mount Mansfield, early afternoon (1:45pm, clear sunny day)

 

Camel's Hump, mid-morning (11am, clear sunny day)

 

Roadside Mountains, Early morning

Early morning rain storm

Early morning frost 

Afternoon rain storm

UVM, post-thunderstorm late afternoon

 

Framing

This was a hard photo assignment for me.  I like symmetry and everything centered in pictures.  I don't know if this is because when I center framed pictures, I had even borders to crop the pictures for the year book or just because I like equal distances between the subject and the borders of the picture.  I have OCD, so this plays into it as well.

I also realized I was hyper-aware of lighting around me this week while I drove to work (so.many.shifts.).  The lighting at night was amazing.  I cursed my lack of a tripod or time to stop and take some pictures nightly.  I also took an amazing mental image of the porch light in the rain behind a tree.  Some day!

So here are my framed pictures for the week taken in Colchester, Essex, and Shelburne, Vermont of rocks, water, and barn tops.

Week Four Lighting Pics

Technology is besting me today, so I am uploading my lighting picture assignments here.

I took pictures of my youngest son, Finn in three different lighting areas. 

Lighting: Inside, Natural Light
The first is inside with natural light.  I like how he is off center,  and the color is bright and shades to the right as the room get darker the further inside you go.  And Finn's cute with all the blue highlighting his big blue peepers.

 

Lighting: Outside, Natural Light

The second picture is of Finn outside in the grass with plenty of sunshine beaming down on him in a blue blanket which makes it look like he is in a bright sea of blue.  His eyes look more green in this photo as the bright grass in the background compliments the bright color scheme.  And did I mention he's cute?

 

Lighting: Inside, Flash Photography

 The lighting in this third photo is done with the camera flash only.  It was really dark and stormy outside, so I wasn't even sure how this one would turn out, but with the bright blue painted walls, my little blue eyes blondies really pop.  Bella is really happy to be hugging her baby brother (AKA "Finny Boy"), but we're not so sure how Finn's taking it ;-) 

And while I know Azeroth isn't the real world, we do take pictures, so I was looking over several screen shots and noticed that even the World of Warcraft has different lighting and colors schemes to be considered when taking that "Epic Screenshot".

Picture 1: Heroic Level Dungeon with demons, fel fire, and toxic magic that poisons the world.

Picture 2: The Dwarfen District in the capital City of Stormwind, where engineers, blacksmiths, and dwarfs hang out (with their elven wives).

Picture 3: Late at night in Stormwind, after an Ice Crown Citadel epic frost mount dungeon run.  The colors are almost monochromatic and even our mounts are kissing.

Picture 4: A wild maypole dance in the middle of Stormwind during the Midsummer Fire Festival.  Fire dancers, fire works, and fiery weapon enchants make for fun late night game play.