Polaroid

Oh my goodness....I think I'm addicted. :)

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I just learned out to do a Polaroid effect on a photo. Not sure this is rocket science, I just never have tried to do it before.



P.S. I think I am going crazy! I have lost my compact flash card for my camera. I think it was last in the computer and one of those cute little kids moved it. Or, I moved it and can't remember where I put it....Either way...uggggh!

White Balance edits in PSE

Oh my...I have been trying to learn some valuable editing skills in PSE. Today I feel like I hit the "mother load". My goal is to still take great sooc images, but if I don't and get a shot that I think is worthy of saving, I want to be able to keep it. So, here is the before (obvious white balance issues):




After a few clicks, here is the after (I think much better):




After a little sharpening and cropping:



(Now I am not saying this particular image is all that fantastic and that I have been dying to edit it so I could print and frame it. But if the original was in focus and composition was good, just think of the possibilities) :)

One more texture

Adding Texture

This is getting fun!



Another photoshop skill I have been wanting to use is adding texture. There are some beautiful photos out there with texture. I don't ever want to get caught going overboard with it but here is how you do it - at least this is what I taught myself to do.

I started with my texture photo (from flickr) and my edited photo.



I then drug my texture on top of my photo and made it the same size (or larger) as my photo)

On the texture layer I reduced the opacity to 50% and changed the blending option to Pin Light (you have several options). I then erased (on the texture layer) around the face/skin/ears.

Then I flattened image and added a watermark. Whala....







Another texture

Making a Watermark

I have been wondering for a while how to best watermark my images. So guess what, I finally figured it out...I am not going to take the time to screen capture each step but here they are (keep in mind I use Elements 6.0):

1) Create a New blank file, and make it approximately 6 inches wide, 2 inches high, 300 dpi, with a transparent background. This will make a brush that will watermark a pretty large image, but you can always make your brush bigger if you want by making your blank file bigger.

2) Add graphics you have and text (using the Text Tool) in whatever format you want.

3) With the Marquee tool, draw a box around (select) everything you want in your logo.

4) Once it is selected (you'll see the marching ants), click on Edit, Define Brush from Selection.

5) Name your brush and click on OK.

Select your brush tool. Your brush should be the last brush in the brush pull-down menu. You can always change the size of your brush too to more closely match the size of your image. You can also change the color of your brush.

Here is a visual and description (afterall, I am a visual learner myself).

This is where the brush tool is located:

A description of where the brush options are and how to change them:

This is what the color selector looks like:

6) As a side note, I always save the file I created as a .psd so if I want to go back and change/add anything later, I don't have to start from scratch.

ETA: I have changed my logo several times since origially creating this tutorial. It has been super easy to go back and open the .psd file and change fonts and add/subtract text.

Here is an image. I can't believe it was so easy.

White Balance Test

The assignment: take pictures in different settings using all different white balance options.

Here are the results (I only included the top 3-4 choices, the others were awful).

FULL SUN the white balance setting that is most accurate is the "Sunny" setting.


The best WB setting for SHADE is either 5000K (I don't even know what that means) or Auto. It is definitely NOT the shade preset. This was completely in the shade. I am a little suprised by the results. What do you think?

The weather was finally cloudy (not that I really wanted it to be, but I did want to finish this assignment). I think the best is 5000 K or Auto, but definitely NOT the Cloudy WB.

The most accurate WB setting for an inside shot looks to be "incandecent". That being said, it is really cool. What do I do about that?
Try #2 (I tried to get a more perfect exposure here and the results to me indicate that Auto wb is the best option)

Try #1

To summarize here are the settings I will shoot most and the WB setting I should use.

Full Sun = Sunny white balance

Shade = 5000K

Cloudy = hummm not sure Auto WB looks a bit cool and 5000K looks a bit warm but I think it is one of these

Inside = Auto

Glass Eyes

I am far from a photoshop pro. I am more like an experimenting amature. I don't know if the way I do things is the "right" way or not. All of this photoshop stuff is self-taught. I believe in taking a correctly exposed picture to begin with and am not crazy about the idea of over processing a photo with Photoshop. That being said it can really help good pictures be great. I have a super old version of Photoshop and rarely use it. I mostly use my Elements 6.0 and that is the program I used for this example. This is a little trick I learned for eyes....

Open the photo....


I thought this was a decent exposure but when I looked at it on screen, I liked it a little lighter so I changed it in Enhance - Adjust Light - Brightness/Contrast . Move the scroll until it looks realistic.



Then I used the quick selection tool (which can be found in your tools bar):



and I selected around each eye.



I then went to Enhance - Unsharp Mask. Again, scroll until you like what you see. It is easy to over do it here. You don't want your baby to look like a fake plastic doll... I usually like the "Amount" to be around 50 and the "Radius" to be around 3.0.

Whala...You have an improved photo (I think in this example I overdid the eyes...see what I mean?)