Photoshop – the love story continues

Okay, okay – so I’ll give GIMP a try.  I’ll let you know how it compares to Photoshop.  Fair warning – once I’m in love with something, it is difficult to persuade me to try anything else.  But – who knows, I’m might be pulled over to the dark side of open source.

As previously posted, my daughter married last summer and I’ve been slowly but surely editing, cropping, and other fun things to the photos.  The photographer, JS Photos did a beautiful job and some of the wedding photos can be viewed Here.  Just in case you’re wondering, the wedding was held in the formal garden at the Crescent Hotel in Historic Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  We had a blast!

On with the Photoshopping.  Em wanted to give her Dad a picture of them from the wedding for his night stand as a Christmas present.  Problem:  subjects are not close enough to the camera, ugly speaker on the right and an ugly telephone pole shooting out the top of my daughter’s head.  While I’m against cloning animals and human beings, this is one instance where I approve of cloning.  Cloning (in Photoshop) is a good thing!  Your clone tool in the Photoshop menu appears as a rubber stamp icon.  Select that tool, and then select an area to replicate and the paint over the uglies.  Be very careful while duplicating or it will look fake.  A little bit a time, patience and steady hand.  Here’s the original photo.

And, here’s the corrected photo after cloning out the telephone pole and part of the speaker (had to clone trees, rock wall and grass), zooming and slight color correction.  Viola! No Uglies.  Just proud Pappa and lovely bride.

Go play with the clone tool.  Erase wrinkles, erase moles, erase people you don’t like – go for it.

GO OUT AND PLAY!

Photoshop Love – so cool stuff

I downloaded the latest trial version of Adobe Cs3 and I’m pretty sure I’m going to sell my jewelry or a small child so I can afford to buy a license once my trial expires.  (just kidding – I don’t own any jewelry). 

Here are some photo edits I’ll share with you.

This is the original photo of my great niece CC taken at my daughter’s wedding last summer.

I’ve rotated the image, zoomed in, cropped it, color enhanced it, blurred the people in the background to create depth of field that did not exist.  Cool, ain’t it!

Then, desaturate the color to B&W and sharpen and enhance contrast (added a little “noise” for fun).

I LOVE this software!  Okay – here’s another one.

Original photo of my daughter waiting in the bride’s room just before the wedding.  She was reading a card my mother gave to her.

Here’s the enhanced version.  Created depth of field on the background, desaturated color levels and filter “glow” was added.  I think it creates a dreamy look.

If you haven’t tried photoshop, go give a try at http://www.adobe.com.  Trial version is free for 30 days. 

Now I have to decide how to afford this without breaking any laws.  (just kidding……really…….I am……STOP!)

Sure fire method for never being invited to church!

Back in the early 80’s when my husband and I were first married, it seemed the local churches (and they still may) had Tuesday nights set aside for visiting folks around town.  Our first home was on a nice little U shaped street with a center alley in the back for driveways, so guests had to park on the curb in front of the house while visiting.  Church folks tended to just park at the end of the street and walk door-to-door inviting residents to attend church the following Sunday morning.  Well – I have a sure fire bet that we’ll never be invited to this church ever – Ever – EVER!

One Tuesday evening, my hubby had mowed the lawn and was quite stinky with sweat and needed to shower.  We had a little split plan home with the master bedroom on one end and the guest bedrooms and bath on the other. He went into our bathroom, peeled off his clothes and then discovered we were out of bath towels in the master bath.  Not remembering the front interior door was open with the glass storm door secured, he walked past the front door through the house towards the back bath.  When he rounded the corner going back to the bedroom he was facing the front door and came face-to-face with two little Christian women with hand poised to ring the doorbell.  “Crap!” he said, ducking into the bedroom.  I was feeding the baby and had no idea what had just happened and got up to see what was going on.  I saw the two women walking away from my front door.  They looked back and then turned and kept walking.  (I would have given anything to hear that conversation when they reported back on how their visitation went that night).  Yep!  And, that was the LAST time our doorbell rang on Tuesday Nights.