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Fun With Images

I actually had another post planned for this evening. But after sitting around, playing with some Photoshop effects, I created this very cute image I just had to share.

Aren’t they just the cutest kids? They’re my grand kids. From left to right are Brianna (age 7 3/4), Gaige (just turned 5) and Joey (15 months).

Coincidentally, these images were taken a month ago on September’s Thirsty Third Thursday. That’s a holiday of sorts my daughters and I created. A girls night out, if you will. It happens once a month. On the third Thursday.


It just so happens that TODAY is Thirsty Third Thursday. Woo hoo!

By the way, that’s me on the left, Amy in the middle, and Shannon on the right.

We’ll just be hanging out at Amy’s place because Amy’s hubby is off learning how to be a better soldier, and we can’t leave those darling grandchildren of mine home alone.

It’s not about where we go though. It’s about who we are with. And talking girl talk. To catch up on happenings from the previous month. Things we can’t always discuss openly or even over the phone in case any of the males or children in our lives are eavesdropping.

So happy Thirsty Third Thursday!

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Show Your Photos Like a Pro

Not all of the blog reading I’ve done lately is useless. I am actually learning. Broadening my mind. Stretching my horizons.

I’ve been using Photoshop for years. But only for really basic stuff like resizing or cropping images, creating simple .gifs for my Web site. But the more I see what people can do with Photoshop (and the crazy mistakes even purported professionals make), the more I want to learn how to use it.

So I’ve been searching the Internet for tips and how-tos. Why buy a book when there’s so much free knowledge available?

The problem is, a lot of the tipsters assume I know what they consider to be basic stuff like applying a layer mask. Until recently, I didn’t even know what a layer mask was. I won’t bore you with the particulars. You’ll just have to trust me when I say Photoshop veterans who might read this post would smack their forehead and say, “Oh my God! What an IDIOT!” (Trying to use Photoshop without layer masks is like trying paint a large room with a very small artist’s brush. You might get the room painted. Eventually. After long hours of labor. But the end result will look like crap.)

Don’t know what a layer mask is? Save yourself some pain and enlighten yourself now. Photoshop Tips is just one of the helpful blogs I found.

The PhotoshopTalent.com blog is good, but a bit advanced for me at this stage. I keep it bookmarked because there’s some good stuff there I’ll be able to use one day.

The digital Photography School (dPS) blog is my favorite by far. It features posts from myriad professionals (photographers and graphic artists from what I’ve gathered so far). You can pick and choose the tips you want to try and master. Or choose stuff you don’t necessarily want to master, but that will help increase your familiarity with the software. The one I tried this morning shows how to frame and name your photos, like I did with the frog you see above.

I just picked an easily accessible image to play with. The image itself isn’t the focus here, it’s the effect. Click on frame and name your photos to see for yourself.

I learned how to frame today. It might come in handy at some point. It might not. What’s more important are the little tricks I learned while doing it that I can apply to other stuff. (NOTE: the frame is more impressive-looking at full size. Click on the frog to see what I mean.)

Know of any other great photography/Photoshop blogs? Please be a pal and share…

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I Have Decided to Share…

…some images. I have TONS of pictures floating around on this computer network of mine. And I keep taking more. After all, the more photos you shoot, the better you become, right? I just need to learn to DELETE some of them.

Anyway, I have decided to be generous and share my images with the world. Not just via this Blog or through my photo sharing sites, but on my Web site.

I figure folks might appreciate some different wallpaper images. Or images for their own Web site or Blog. Whatever. We all know I’ll never become a professional photographer. So why not just share?

The first shot you see on this post is my favorite. I darkened it with Photoshop a bit. (You gotta love the BOKEH!)

I really like this one, too.

That’s one of the benefits of having an 8 megapixel camera. The photos are huge. So you can zoom in on a specific segment of a photo, crop it, and you have a separate, very cool image. You can do the same thing with photos shot at lower megapixels, the final image will just be smaller.

Here’s another example…

That’s a neat, colorful, textury shot. It’s just a small piece of this photo…

If you’d like some FREE WALLPAPER or just want to see the rest of my wallpaper images, just follow one of the links I conveniently place in the first half of this sentence.

Let me know what you think! And be sure to tell your friends. About this Blog and about the aforementioned FREE WALLPAPER.

By the way, HAPPY FALL!!! It’s my favorite time of year. The colors fascinate me. Can you tell?

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Local Photoshop Disaster

There’s a fun little Blog Shannon told me about a while ago called Photoshop Disasters. It is on my blog roll (the list of other people’s blogs that I like).

As its name implies, it features examples of less-than-perfect graphics obviously altered using Photoshop (probably) or some other image editing software.

Back on Monday, August 18, Towson University was featured.

On August 14, another local — Michael Phelps — made the spotlight. Not because of anything he did, but because someone took certain liberties adding a smile to his face that doesn’t quite fit the moment. Is it me, or is his head way too small, too?

There’s another funny one HERE; funnier yet is that it came from an actual real estate listing.

You also see stuff like this missing nipple shot.

Get the picture?

Photoshop is a very cool program. But it is REALLY easy to get carried away.

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Seeing Life from Different Angles

Most folks who read this blog already know me. And know how much I like to take pictures. I hesitate to call myself a “photographer” because I think of photographers as professionals who make money from their craft. “Amateur photographer” might fit. Or “aspiring photographer” maybe.

Shannon, one of my biggest fans, disagrees. She says if I take pictures like I do, I’m a photographer.

I doubt I’ll ever make money at it, but I do enjoy photography. I like looking at pictures, too. A lot. That’s what I like about Web sites like Flickr. You get to look at all kinds of images, good and bad, from people all over the world. It is a great way to learn.

One of the coolest aspects of photography is that it makes you look at the world in a different way. Here’s a good example for you (it is someone else’s picture, so just follow the “example” link). Who looks at leaves that closely? Me. Because I see what others have done using leaves in images.

The lady who took that photo has a whole set of pictures I think you might enjoy. She has titled the set, Phoetry. A great name, if you ask me, because pictures like those in her set have the power to take me away, even if for just an instant, and let me appreciate simple beauty.

Here are some pics from another person, a guy in this case. He calls his collection, Rural Poetry. Another apt descriptor.

Then there are shots like this one from a lady who likes taking pictures of her pet rat.

If you are bored one day and have time to kill, take a look at Flickr. You can start at my page, if you like. Or the Flickr home page. It is easy enough to navigate around. I bet you find at least one shot that moves you (if so, send me the link), probably more.

I hope you have a great Tuesday!

PS – I did walk yesterday and plan to do something today, too. If you were wondering…

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Mind Like a Sieve

I forgot to walk today. Or do any other form of exercise. Seriously. I got so carried away with work, it totally slipped my mind. That’s dedication. Commitment.

It is more like stupidity, really. How can work occupy my mind THAT much? It wasn’t just work, though. There were other distractions, too. Sherree, the wonderful lady that cleans my house, was here today. And CeCe had diarrhea. And I had to go to the pharmacy to get some prescriptions filled. I had to eat lunch, too.

So exercise slipped my mind. Jeez…

I have some pictures to share, which is why I logged on to my Blog in the first place. The first one is a neat one, un–PhotoShopped (except for cropping) that I had forgotten about. Until it popped up on Hubby’s computer screen. His screensaver is a program that cycles through photos.

It was one of those things I saw, and liked. So I took a picture. It makes a really cool photo, doesn’t it? This really is a good example of the world through my eyes. I am always looking at shapes, and lighting, and color contrasts, etc.

Here’s another picture I took. This one is PhotoShopped a bit. I cropped it. And made the sky bluer.

The SOOC version, except that I cropped it, too, is below.

The difference isn’t too dramatic, but it does make a difference. The bluer sky makes the building stand out more. The red bus adds a nice splash of color to the picture.

So which version do you like better? The one I blued-up or the SOOC shot? (Remember, SOOC = straight out of camera, i.e., unedited.)