Final Project revised: A view of Haiti in Photographs

This is my revised final project.  This is a view of Haiti in photographs.  This was an amazing experience spending a week working in Haiti this past January with both of my sisters.  A humbling experience that made me realize how much we have in this country, and how much we continue to misuse what we have.  Haitians have nothing, and are proud of what they do have and keep it very clean and neat.

Haitians want to work, but there is no work to be had.  They are also very appreciative for what others do for them, but never expect it.  I will continue to pray for Haiti and their government, that people will now be able to see the beauty Haiti has to offer.

Week 13 Portraits

This week was amazing for me!  I have often wanted to take better portrait shots, especially of my family.  I really enjoyed looking at, and utilizing all of the tips that were given to us!  There were so many ideas!

So, I used multiple tips that were talked about.  first of all, I found interesting subjects: my daughters of course!  I also took multiple shots, used many different angles, kept all of the shots simple, set up the shots before I introduced the subjects, and experimented with expressions.

I was kind of sad that I could only post 4!  I had so many that came out the way I had hoped!

 First, is Kira.  She is my 8 year-old.  I introduced a prop for her, in this case a pacasandra bundle.  I also angled her shoulders, and shot from above her eyeline.






Next is Haley.  I had her looking off camera, giving her space to look into.  I also angled the shoulders.

Last is Tylynn.  For this first photo of her, I dot down on my hands and knees.  I used a different angle, and also gave her space to look into.

This one is my favorite.  I used a different viewpoint for her, trying to create an interesting angle.  I stood over her, while altering my depth of field as well.

So much fun!  It is easy when you enjoy the subjects you are photographing!

Final Project - A View of Haiti

Here is my video of my photo story.  I added 30 images, because it was very hard for me to narrow my 285 images down to only 10!  Many photos in this story are of the pre-school where I worked for the week.  I did physicals on all 30 children, and we did home assessments to see where many of them lived.  Most of the children live in a cinder block 1-room home without running water, or in tents with many other family members. 

I had a lot of fun manipulating my photos, and used a lot of the quick select tool and clone stamp removing cinder blocks, power lines, car mirrors, and furniture out of pictures.  I cropped most of them, and added a lot of text as well.  I used artistic filters in 3 of the photos, and fixed a few with lighting, shadows, and saturation.

This was such a humbling experience, and I am truly blessed to realize how much we really have in this country.

I hope you enjoy!

Week 10 Clone, brush and watermark

This week has been a little difficult for me.  My computer is having major issues, and I am away at a dance competition for 4 days.  So, it is taking me MUCH longer time than I have to spend on it of course. 

I really did like getting to know how to use these tools, and I think I am OK with how they came out.

First, I am showing you a area of rubble in Haiti.  This is the before picture.

I decided I wanted to add a more pleasing view.  I used the clone stamp to add more greenery to this photo.  There is not a lot that is green in Haiti.

Next is the watermark project.  First, the before pic:

Next, I added the word "Dancer" by selecting the text tool, changing the font to 72 pts, making it bold, and decreased the opacity.  I was a little frustrated with this, as I really wanted to manipulate where the wording was, and also wanted to make it bigger than the maximum 72 pts allowed.  I am sure there is a way to do this, but I could not figure it out.

For the next project, I had a bit more fun playing around with.  It took a while to achieve the look I wanted, but this is a tool I will be using in the future!
First, the before pic:

Now for the colored version.  I selected the natural brush, and color hue was a periwinkle color.  I wanted to color just the pink leaves of the poinsettia.  I painted the blossoms, and had to use the eraser tool when I accidentally went outside the lines.  Then I used the paint bucket tool to fill in all the white background color.

Pretty cool!

Week 9 Filters, Dodge & Burn

This was a fun week for me.  I feel like I am really starting to get the hand of what Photoshop can do!  I think it helps that I purchased a book called the missing manual from Photoshop Elements 9.  I am able to actually look up the information and retrieve it easier that trying to remember which tutorial I read it in.

My first picture is the original version of the supermoon I took last week.

Next is the picture with the filter applied.  First, I increased the brightness and the contrast of this photo.  Then I applied the texture filter "mosaic tiles" set the tile size to 35, and grout width to 5.

My second photo is of my youngest daughter Kira in a karate tournament a couple of weeks ago.  She is doing a one-handed cartwheel.

First I cropped the photo, to make Kira bigger, and decrease some of the unecessary background.  Then I applied the stylize filter "glowing edges".  I increased the edge width to 3, brightness to 16, and smoothness to 5.  I think this is a very cool picture!

Next is for the dodge and burn option.  This is a photo of one of my nurses newborn baby still at the hosptial.

 

The dodge and burn tool took me a few tries to actually figure out what I was doing.  Once I got the hang of which brush stroke size to use, and to only hit over the area once and wait to see desired effect, it was much easier to work with.  What I did was utilize the dodge tool at the 300 brush stroke size, to lighten Calvin's neck line, hand, forehead areas, as well as his mother's chest and shadows.  Then I used the burn tool to darken the background floor, his mother's fingers, and cheek to increase the balance of light.

 

Supermoon

I could not resist taking a photo of this moon.
I used my zoom lens (70-300) and focused in
on the moon using the night portrait setting.

Once I save it, I edited the light a bit, by increasing
the light balance.

I had a bit of a hard time finding a setting that would allow
me to take a photo in the dark, but this one seemed
to work the best.

Week 8 lighting

I am really beginning to like Photoshop!  I never knew there was so much I could do!
The first photo is of the original landscaping photo that I used.  It is a picture of an untouched pasture at our barn, with the sun glistening off the snow near sunset.

The Photoshopped edition of this photo looks completely different.  I did several things to the lighting.  First, I adjusted the lightness of the shadows to 16%, increased the darken highlights, and increased the midtone contrast.  Then I decreased the brightness, and increased the contrast for a more dramatic effect.  Finally, I decreased the hue to the red tones to create the pink sunlight.  Then I increased the saturation to broaden the hue, and left the lightness at neutral.  Here is the final product:

For my next project, I took a simple photo that I used in my macro project.  I wanted to see if I would be able to manipulate the color with these settings.  Here is the original photo:

The manipulated photo came out with different tones and contrast.   First I decreased the lighten shadows option, increased the darken highlights, and increased the midtone contrast to 98%.  Then I increased the brightness and increased the contrast.  I changed the hue to purple, and increased the saturation and decreased the lightness.  The final product came out with more of a 3D effect.