Edit Me by ashley plus 3

This is a shot taken by Ashley over at Ashley plus 3. She's asking for editing ideas. I decided to jump in on the fun.

SOOC

My edit.

Here's what I did using Photoshop CS5:

I used control J to create a new layer

then I set that new layer to screen,

I used curves then made my adjustments,

I used levels then adjusted them,

I used brightness/contrast then adjusted them,

I used saturation then adjusted them.

For all my pics I do something similar to the above.

Then I ran coffeeshop action Glamour Glow,

I used it to repair the skin and pop the eyes.

I ran Pioneer Woman's action Fresh and Colorful,

I adjusted the opacity levels.

Lastly, I ran a noise filter to clean up some of the noise in the background.

Now it is done and I hand it back to Ashley!

iheartfaces: Anything But A Face

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Capture The Sky

It's not Everyday that we will drive for over 2 hours just to get to the nearest Bass Pro Shops. We certainly wouldn't do it just because!

Ummm...I guess we did!

 Furry

How you doin? *wink wink*

 Life

Blurred

Project 365 ~ Week 8

1. The cookie jar hubs painted this past weekend when it was raining too much to do anything else. He made it look like our puppers Kassie...sorta. I painted a mug.
2. Flowers along the side of the road. I took the picture as a passenger so no worries!
3. The prettiest wrapping paper I've seen in a while. I bought it to wrap my niece's birthday present last week.
4. I needed a sky picture for this weeks scavenger hunt. This was one I loved but I can only use 1 so I wanted to share this one here. Check back Sunday to see another gorgeous sky picture.
5. We drove 2 hours north to visit the nearest Bass Pro Shops the other day. Yeah, my mom and I have wayyyyy too much time on our hands. These birds were hanging from the ceiling.
6. Blue sparkly stuff!
7. A food I can't consume because of my stupid diet! But, it makes a great reward for the chitlins when they are here at my house. I can get lots of little chores or great behavior out of the kids if they think they can get a dixie cup(3 oz) full of Jelly Beans.

deaw kitteh paww...

i be a gud fwiend!!!

iheartfaces: cell phone

Welcome to the wonderful world of 11...ain't it faaaaabulous?

Yes, my iPhone's name really is Lily! My iPod Classic is otherwise known as Savannah! My camera goes by Zoey! I see a theme...do you?

I'm also linking up with Monday Mugs!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I came very very close to not participating again this week. I put off taking my photos and before I knew it Saturday had come. I decided the list was easy enough to get all the pics done in one day. But with the heavy rain we had hubs and I decided to head over to the mall and paint pottery. So much fun! I got home around 10:00 PM and decided...heck, it's still Saturday. I shot in my bedroom with the lights turned off. I wore one of those nerdy headlamps because it produces a white light instead of a yellow light. With my tripod, headlamp and my remote trigger I got the same results as if I shot outside during the daytime. I was proud of myself.

Chocolate

When you're on a diet this is the only chocolate to be found in the house. Cocoa powder and a few chocolate sprinkles!

 Numbers

My sewing cutting mats. I need to bust out the sewing machine really bad. I miss it.

Canned Food

Oh yeah! I consider Diet Pepsi a canned food. It's at the very top of my personal food chain baby!

 Music

We have one iPhone, two iPod Touch's, one iPod Classic, and itunes on every computer we own. Plus, we use Pandora on our tv in the bedroom and the main tv in the living room has music stations in the upper channels. Music plays here 24/7!!! Oh, and I absolutely cannot drive in a silent car! Ick!!!

Stack

This is a stack of a few of my all time favorite movies. Our movie collection is ridiculously humongous! My most favorite movie is........PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. The Colin Firth version. Just so ya know!

The Paper Mama Photo Challenge: Red

Project 365 ~ Week 7*

1. A gorgeous cloudy day.
2. My Valentine's roses.
3. My kitteh Aria.
4. Sunday assignment~book with heart.
5. Close up of a rose a few days later when it had opened more.
6. Last Saturday's Naval Parade of Flight. This was a demonstration of refueling midair.
7. A lizard in our yard.

Friday Fix-it and 5 Question Friday

This weeks photo was taken by Andrea Riley. It was a beautiful picture to begin with. I had trouble coming up with something unique and different with this edit as there were so many sample edits on iheartfaces. In many ways I feel like I just did the same thing as so many others.

I started with curves, levels, contrast and saturation. Then I ran Coffeeshops Ice Pop. I fidgeted with the 3 layers until I got this result. I ran the reduce noise filter. Lastly, I cropped in a little.

SOOC by Andrea Riley

My Edit

1. Have you worn the same outfit more than one day in a row? I will occasionally wear jeans twice before washing. It depends on how desperate I am for something to wear. I never wear a shirt twice.

2. If you had to choose any LARGE city to live in, which would it be? New York...but only if I get to be rich and live in a posh penthouse!

3. Fly or drive with the kids on vacation? Well, I don't have kids so my answer can't be based on experience. Generally, I prefer a road trip. You see so much more that way. I'm sure everyone with kids is cringing at my answer right now.

4. What is your idea of "spring cleaning"? Spring what??? Okay, no...for real...my answer is...to go to the beach so I can't actually see the dirt and filth that is my home. Anyone else vote for the beach?

5. What is the best book you have ever read? Pride and Prejudice!!! You needed to ask?

Before and After

So, the other day I shared this photo along with a few others from this impromptu photo shoot with my niece. I mentioned that they were photoshopped up the wazzu. I wanted to show you just how much. On my niece Allyson, I did my usual bag of tricks. I fixed the levels, contrast, saturation, slight fix to her skin, popped the eyes and lastly, added a smidge of warmth. Oh yeah, and I corrected her clothing. She was wearing shorts under that tutu skirt. As you can see in the before some of the shorts peaked through. I used the clone tool to remove the undesired clothing.

The big change happened to the background. As in...I removed it completely. This was a tedious job that I did to 6 pictures. Sheesh, it was a lot of work for 1 photo let alone for 6! I started by adding a new layer in a solid red. I chose red because it was so bold and easy to see. Then I dropped the opacity down to about 25 so I could clearly see Allyson and the bike. Then, using a mask I removed the red from her and the bike. Then I pulled the opacity back up 100%, brought the picture size up to 100% so I could really see the details and slowly went around the picture making any corrections to the red layer. I tried to get the red as close to her body as I could. Then I simply changed the red to a white. I had to go around and check for any weird spots but for the most part it looked good.

I chose this instead of trying to grab her and the bike and place them on a white background because I never feel like the magic wand tool or the quick selection tool grab the object perfectly. It's hard to explain but I've never liked that way of moving an object. Either way, the job got done! Have a look...

After

 Before

After...again!

Perceptive Perspective

Window Light

This is Lucy. I was shooting my Valentine's roses for my 365 project when my mom decided she wanted her kitteh to have a portrait session. I was using just the light from the dining room window. The white poster board helped a lot with reflection. I loved this shot a lot because of Lucy's face reflecting in the table.

Here's another favorite.

Don't you wish you lived here?

Okay, maybe you don't want to live here but maybe you want to visit? San Diego definitely has it's ups and downs but Saturday was sure a huge UP! It was a crystal clear, gorgeous sunny day. Watching the Naval Parade of Flight was a free bonus. We chose to watch it from Point Loma. The views were spectacular. The traffic...not so much! Everyone and their brother came out to see the free show.

These are a few of the pictures I took from our vantage point.

Thank heavens for CS5!!!

I don't see my niece Allyson nearly often enough. She came by my house the other day with her mom. I took the opportunity to shoot a few pics of her. It helped that she was dressed cute and had the most gorgeous haircut.

Ummmm...yeah...so these are photoshopped up the wazzu. We don't have too many great places here for portraits. I had her get on hubs motorcycle. It sits next to the house. So, we had the side of the house in the pic as well as the neighbors house. I gave the background a solid white. It was tedious work to make it look right. All I can say is that if you have the opportunity to shoot someone with a beautiful background then do it! It's much harder work photoshopping after the fact.