So here is my daughter looking contemplative :o)
and here is a friends cat:
For more great entries head on over to IHeartFaces!
Poker Forum at a Glance
7 years ago
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Week 36
The challenge this week over at IHeartFaces is "Contemplative" and with a bonus category of pets. I had a hard time picking a picture......... I kept coming back to this one (after checking the rules and seeing that they had made an exception for the "before and after challenge" so I could post this pic again). I took this pic and it was really a throw away pic, until I did some editing. I just LOVE how it turned out!!! Every time I see it I just smile and wonder what big thoughts were going through her mind...... she is ALWAYS thinking about something big! ;o)
So here is my daughter looking contemplative :o)
and here is a friends cat:
For more great entries head on over to IHeartFaces!
So here is my daughter looking contemplative :o)
and here is a friends cat:
For more great entries head on over to IHeartFaces!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Fix-it Friday!
Friday again! :o) I was able to get in a few minutes of editing time over our lunch/quiet time/nap break to do this week's FIF. This is an adorable pic to begin with.....
Here is the original:
I am trying to learn to use a lighter hand with my PSE so for my first edit I:
Lightened the shadows and played with the contrast
Adjusted the brightness and contrast
Dodged the catchlights
Sharpened the eyes and added a soft light layer to them
Adjusted Hud/Saturation to my liking
Added a soft light layer at 35%
Adjusted the shadows/highlights again
Reduced noise
Crop (Cropping is not my strong point but I wanted to crop to emphasize her beautiful eyes...... )
Warming filter 14%
Sharpened for the web
and here it is:
I then did a B&W using THIS method (only I put my gradient layer at 93% opacity to preserve a little of the color and because I liked how the eyes looked....):
And a sepia version using a the "recipe" in the above link for adding a chocolate tint but making the chocolate layer a saturation layer. The results were much different than anything I have done before with the added brown layer.......
Head on over to I ♥ Faces and see all of the other wonderful edits of this adorable picture! :o)
Here is the original:
I am trying to learn to use a lighter hand with my PSE so for my first edit I:
Lightened the shadows and played with the contrast
Adjusted the brightness and contrast
Dodged the catchlights
Sharpened the eyes and added a soft light layer to them
Adjusted Hud/Saturation to my liking
Added a soft light layer at 35%
Adjusted the shadows/highlights again
Reduced noise
Crop (Cropping is not my strong point but I wanted to crop to emphasize her beautiful eyes...... )
Warming filter 14%
Sharpened for the web
and here it is:
I then did a B&W using THIS method (only I put my gradient layer at 93% opacity to preserve a little of the color and because I liked how the eyes looked....):
And a sepia version using a the "recipe" in the above link for adding a chocolate tint but making the chocolate layer a saturation layer. The results were much different than anything I have done before with the added brown layer.......
Head on over to I ♥ Faces and see all of the other wonderful edits of this adorable picture! :o)
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Week 35 Challenge
Back to school is the theme of this weeks photo challenge at IHeartFaces...... I am just sliiping in under the wire time wise, but accidentally deleted my first edits of a pic for this week. *Sigh* So, here is my entry. I had an awful time picking a picture but ended up with this one of my 4yo at the table doing her kindergarten. :o) I edited it to give it a vintage feel and even tried a texture for the first time ever!
Monday, September 7, 2009
Punchinello and the giants
(* Warning: This is one of those "unsafe" posts and is VERY long....... I actually wrote it over a week ago but my first draft was a bit too graphic. :oP I even had a photo-shopped pic of myself with my "tattoos". Total overkill but very therapeutic! *rolling eyes*)
Have you ever read the stories/watched the movies about the Wemmicks by Max Lucado? Wemmicks are little wooden people created by Eli, each one is unique and special. Now, as you can probably guess, these stories are allegories teaching little lessons to kids. Anyhow, in the first story, we find that the Wemmicks have a system to rate each other. Now if you are a "good" wemmick and the others like you they bestow on you golden star stickers, and if you are not as good you get black/grey dot stickers. We meet Punchinello who is a very nice little wemmick but he is rather clumsy. No matter how hard he tries to please the other wemmicks and earn a star something goes wrong and he ends up getting another dot. The poor guy is covered in dots and doesn't have even one star..........As you can imagine he is pretty disheartened when all his efforts gain him nothing, in fact sometimes people give him dots just because he is who he is and already has so many! One day he sees a beautiful wemmick walk by named Lucia and she has no stars or dots!!! Someone tries to give her a star because she is so lovely but it falls off........ Punchinello follows her to find out her secret and learns that her dots don't stick because she spends time with Eli. The more time she spends with Eli the less she cares about stars and dots (what all the other wemmicks are obsessed with) and the less they they stick. All she cares about is what Eli says and he adores her. It takes Punchinello some time but he eventually starts spending time with Eli and his dots start disappearing......(I am really shortening the story here but I am sure you can find a copy of the book or movie if you want to find out what you are missing! :o)
All this to say that lately I have felt like punchinello, only instead of plain dots mine are tattooed with names/labels.... I have always struggled with this. From the time I was little I seemed to hold tight to every negative thing that was ever said about me, they were like badges that I couldn't get rid of. It's not as if I wasn't ever given "stars", I actually received lots of compliments. It's just that they didn't stick........ I usually couldn't even remember them. Well, God has used my husband to help me slowly get over this tendency. It's not as if my dots fell off but more that they slowly faded. I quit seeing myself as defined by all these negative things and was slowly shifting my focus off of me and onto God. But now I feel like I fell asleep in a tattoo parlor and am now, once again covered in tattoos...... Those labels that had not quite faded are now as dark as ever and I have new ones...... In fact, I feel like my badges are the names of giants that surround me. Each giant has a name and, in case you happen to squeeze past the giant without noticing him, his name is tattooed on my dots. When the tattoos fade the giants shrink, sometimes disappearing altogether...... They inhibit me from developing friendships. They have a variety of names...... "Not good enough", "Bad Friend", "Harsh", "Judgmental", "Ruthless", "Self-absorbed", "Immature", "Ignorant", etc...... Some that were given by implication, some that were given outright, but the new ones were all given by someone I considered a close friend. I think that's why they are all so dark and ugly. I reached out, with love and the purest motives, to try and help a friend and received in return a formidable pack of giants and dark, ugly labels. When the new ones came they brought back some of my most recently departed giants and caused my shrinking ones to have growth spurts. I find myself withdrawing from everyone....... I mean seriously, who would want to be friends with someone who walks around with her credentials tattooed on her face and is surrounded by giants........ Um, yeah. No one.........
I will say that, though I am in the beginning stages, God is teaching me through this. He is teaching me to look past the giants and to keep my eyes on Him. He is re-establishing with me the importance of rejecting the current fads that focus on self-esteem, self-worth, and feelings and focus on Christ-esteem and Christ-worth. He is teaching me that, though my beliefs may not be what is popular and at times I feel very alone in them, I am not alone. I need to hold fast to the truth despite what is popular in this "enlightened" age. Growth is often painful and this time in my life is no exception but He will prevail.
He alone is good!
Have you ever read the stories/watched the movies about the Wemmicks by Max Lucado? Wemmicks are little wooden people created by Eli, each one is unique and special. Now, as you can probably guess, these stories are allegories teaching little lessons to kids. Anyhow, in the first story, we find that the Wemmicks have a system to rate each other. Now if you are a "good" wemmick and the others like you they bestow on you golden star stickers, and if you are not as good you get black/grey dot stickers. We meet Punchinello who is a very nice little wemmick but he is rather clumsy. No matter how hard he tries to please the other wemmicks and earn a star something goes wrong and he ends up getting another dot. The poor guy is covered in dots and doesn't have even one star..........As you can imagine he is pretty disheartened when all his efforts gain him nothing, in fact sometimes people give him dots just because he is who he is and already has so many! One day he sees a beautiful wemmick walk by named Lucia and she has no stars or dots!!! Someone tries to give her a star because she is so lovely but it falls off........ Punchinello follows her to find out her secret and learns that her dots don't stick because she spends time with Eli. The more time she spends with Eli the less she cares about stars and dots (what all the other wemmicks are obsessed with) and the less they they stick. All she cares about is what Eli says and he adores her. It takes Punchinello some time but he eventually starts spending time with Eli and his dots start disappearing......(I am really shortening the story here but I am sure you can find a copy of the book or movie if you want to find out what you are missing! :o)
All this to say that lately I have felt like punchinello, only instead of plain dots mine are tattooed with names/labels.... I have always struggled with this. From the time I was little I seemed to hold tight to every negative thing that was ever said about me, they were like badges that I couldn't get rid of. It's not as if I wasn't ever given "stars", I actually received lots of compliments. It's just that they didn't stick........ I usually couldn't even remember them. Well, God has used my husband to help me slowly get over this tendency. It's not as if my dots fell off but more that they slowly faded. I quit seeing myself as defined by all these negative things and was slowly shifting my focus off of me and onto God. But now I feel like I fell asleep in a tattoo parlor and am now, once again covered in tattoos...... Those labels that had not quite faded are now as dark as ever and I have new ones...... In fact, I feel like my badges are the names of giants that surround me. Each giant has a name and, in case you happen to squeeze past the giant without noticing him, his name is tattooed on my dots. When the tattoos fade the giants shrink, sometimes disappearing altogether...... They inhibit me from developing friendships. They have a variety of names...... "Not good enough", "Bad Friend", "Harsh", "Judgmental", "Ruthless", "Self-absorbed", "Immature", "Ignorant", etc...... Some that were given by implication, some that were given outright, but the new ones were all given by someone I considered a close friend. I think that's why they are all so dark and ugly. I reached out, with love and the purest motives, to try and help a friend and received in return a formidable pack of giants and dark, ugly labels. When the new ones came they brought back some of my most recently departed giants and caused my shrinking ones to have growth spurts. I find myself withdrawing from everyone....... I mean seriously, who would want to be friends with someone who walks around with her credentials tattooed on her face and is surrounded by giants........ Um, yeah. No one.........
I will say that, though I am in the beginning stages, God is teaching me through this. He is teaching me to look past the giants and to keep my eyes on Him. He is re-establishing with me the importance of rejecting the current fads that focus on self-esteem, self-worth, and feelings and focus on Christ-esteem and Christ-worth. He is teaching me that, though my beliefs may not be what is popular and at times I feel very alone in them, I am not alone. I need to hold fast to the truth despite what is popular in this "enlightened" age. Growth is often painful and this time in my life is no exception but He will prevail.
He alone is good!
Friday, September 4, 2009
Fix-it Friday
Another Fix-it Friday is here!!! :o) When I first saw this pic I thought it would be easy..... I was wrong!!! I had a horrible time getting the colors right. I am blaming my nearly antiquated PS Elements! :o) I do not have any actions installed on it at this time, maybe they would have helped but, then again, maybe not.
Here is the original:
Here is my first edit in color: My first was actually much better than this but I accidentally erased it and can't duplicate what I did. Grrr..... >:o(
My B&W: I followed the directions from Kimi Kreations (which I found through I ♥ Faces)
My Sepia/chocolate tinted: Also found through the above link
I am not totally happy with these but they are the best I could do (esp with my limited time today) For more great edits go to I ♥ Faces :o)
Here is the original:
Here is my first edit in color: My first was actually much better than this but I accidentally erased it and can't duplicate what I did. Grrr..... >:o(
My B&W: I followed the directions from Kimi Kreations (which I found through I ♥ Faces)
My Sepia/chocolate tinted: Also found through the above link
I am not totally happy with these but they are the best I could do (esp with my limited time today) For more great edits go to I ♥ Faces :o)
Thursday, September 3, 2009
School & such
Well, we have completed our first week of school and started our second!!! Overall it is going well..... except I have the hardest time keeping my little man busy and quiet! I love how laid back and fun this curriculum approach is! If the first week is any indication, it is going to be a GREAT year!!!
I am very thankful that the first weeks of school are just review though, as it gives me time to work out all of the bugs (such as keeping above mentioned 2yo out of mischief!!!). The kids are loving school and so am I. I am finding that I do a lot better with a schedule. O.k. so I really already knew that, but have not had the motivation to make one until now. On top of school I got a part time job!!! Did you fall out of your chair reading that? Haha! That sounds so much more official than it really is........ I get to take my kids and go hang out with a friends sweet kids for 1-2 hours, 2-3 days a wk. Definitely won't be raking in the big bucks but I should be able to earn either a new lens for my camera or new editing software in 6 or so months! :o) Yay!!! I have always felt so selfish if I spend money on myself. My hubby just works too hard to earn it so I hate to use it for myself (much to his frustration). It will be kind of fun to have money that I don't feel bad about spending. :o) Now, we'll just have to see if I can do it............. :oP
On another random note: I cut the kids' hair this weekend. The girls ended up much shorter than I had originally intended but looks cute. It was just getting to be too hard to take care of. I am sure that it would not have been so bad if I would keep up on trimming it but, anyhow, it is done and the girls love it. :o) LM got his done too.... his hair doesn't get long it get's BIG! Before you know it he's headed for an afro and the only hope is the clippers! He loves to get his air cut like Daddy's though....... actually he loves to do anything that Daddy does. Such a boy! :o)
O.k., enough randomness for today. I need to get ready for work! :o) LOL!!!
Sorry this post is so scattered..... :oP Seems it has just been that kind of day! I actually wrote this hours ago but, the one chance I had to get on the comp, my internet was too sporadic to get this posted. Oh well, such is life!
I am very thankful that the first weeks of school are just review though, as it gives me time to work out all of the bugs (such as keeping above mentioned 2yo out of mischief!!!). The kids are loving school and so am I. I am finding that I do a lot better with a schedule. O.k. so I really already knew that, but have not had the motivation to make one until now. On top of school I got a part time job!!! Did you fall out of your chair reading that? Haha! That sounds so much more official than it really is........ I get to take my kids and go hang out with a friends sweet kids for 1-2 hours, 2-3 days a wk. Definitely won't be raking in the big bucks but I should be able to earn either a new lens for my camera or new editing software in 6 or so months! :o) Yay!!! I have always felt so selfish if I spend money on myself. My hubby just works too hard to earn it so I hate to use it for myself (much to his frustration). It will be kind of fun to have money that I don't feel bad about spending. :o) Now, we'll just have to see if I can do it............. :oP
On another random note: I cut the kids' hair this weekend. The girls ended up much shorter than I had originally intended but looks cute. It was just getting to be too hard to take care of. I am sure that it would not have been so bad if I would keep up on trimming it but, anyhow, it is done and the girls love it. :o) LM got his done too.... his hair doesn't get long it get's BIG! Before you know it he's headed for an afro and the only hope is the clippers! He loves to get his air cut like Daddy's though....... actually he loves to do anything that Daddy does. Such a boy! :o)
O.k., enough randomness for today. I need to get ready for work! :o) LOL!!!
Sorry this post is so scattered..... :oP Seems it has just been that kind of day! I actually wrote this hours ago but, the one chance I had to get on the comp, my internet was too sporadic to get this posted. Oh well, such is life!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
I ♥ Faces
I ♥ Faces is having a non-contest challenge this week. It is a "before and after" challenge in which each person has the chance to showcase their pics at an earlier date and then a pic from the month of August. The idea is to see how each person has improved........ I have only known of I ♥ Faces 4-6wks so wasn't going to enter this challenge, I feel that I have progressed so much since i found their site though that I decided to take the embarrassing plunge.....
I have loved photography as long as I can remember.... My first camera was a Polaroid that I earned selling cards and wrapping paper..... For those that knew me then, don't panic! I am not going to post any of those pics!!! I have slowly upgraded through the years...
I got Photoshop Elements about 4 yrs ago but, up until the early part of this year, the only thing I could do with it was fix red eye and crop. I would also occasionally try to paint out distracting backgrounds.... I knew nothing of layers, opacity,actions, etc.... I didn't even know there was a photoshop that wasn't in the elements family!!! I had a Nikon coolpix that I loved for macro but HATED for kid pics. It was just too slow! So here is a before pic with my first attempts at editing:
(Hmmm.... not so great. I think all I did was too lighten shadows.........)
Here is one of my more recent color edits.... and also the start of pics taken with my new DSLR. My wonderful hubby bought it for me after my coolpix died!
One of my first B&W's........ I tried to compensate for the lack of contrast by "hand tinting" and diffusing the glow. Um, BAD idea!!!
Here is my most recent B&W done with a technique I just learned through an I ♥ Faces entry....
I am still struggling with a near fatal vignette addiction and a heavy hand with my PSE but, after reading through the other before and after entries, I have hope that I will recover and my skills will improve. I also am still strictly shooting Automatic but an hoping to change that soon! :o) Through I ♥ Faces, and the many blogs I have discovered through them,I feel like I am learning new things every day!
Head on over to I ♥ Faces
to see more Before and After entries..... Most are a lot less wordy than mine! :o)
I have loved photography as long as I can remember.... My first camera was a Polaroid that I earned selling cards and wrapping paper..... For those that knew me then, don't panic! I am not going to post any of those pics!!! I have slowly upgraded through the years...
I got Photoshop Elements about 4 yrs ago but, up until the early part of this year, the only thing I could do with it was fix red eye and crop. I would also occasionally try to paint out distracting backgrounds.... I knew nothing of layers, opacity,actions, etc.... I didn't even know there was a photoshop that wasn't in the elements family!!! I had a Nikon coolpix that I loved for macro but HATED for kid pics. It was just too slow! So here is a before pic with my first attempts at editing:
(Hmmm.... not so great. I think all I did was too lighten shadows.........)
Here is one of my more recent color edits.... and also the start of pics taken with my new DSLR. My wonderful hubby bought it for me after my coolpix died!
One of my first B&W's........ I tried to compensate for the lack of contrast by "hand tinting" and diffusing the glow. Um, BAD idea!!!
Here is my most recent B&W done with a technique I just learned through an I ♥ Faces entry....
I am still struggling with a near fatal vignette addiction and a heavy hand with my PSE but, after reading through the other before and after entries, I have hope that I will recover and my skills will improve. I also am still strictly shooting Automatic but an hoping to change that soon! :o) Through I ♥ Faces, and the many blogs I have discovered through them,I feel like I am learning new things every day!
Head on over to I ♥ Faces
to see more Before and After entries..... Most are a lot less wordy than mine! :o)
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