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.

Week 7 Photoshop

The first photo is of Isabelle.  She is a 4 year-old Hatian girl who is beautiful!  She was wearing a bright colored shirt, and holding a flower to match.  Her beading in her hair added to the color of this photo.  What I did in photoshop, was crop the photo to take some extra background noise away.  I think used an artistic enhancement of a brush stroke, to make it seem as though this photo is a painting.  I think I like the artistic flare that it added.

The second photo is of my daughter during a dance competition 2 years ago.  I cropped this to minimize the huge stage, and optimise her as the center.  This photo was originally in color.  I used the reverse black and white option, then utilized the smart brush tool to add her back in color.  I think this helps her to stand out in the picture, while not adding too much color.

Landscaping

As I am sure lots of people had the same issue, I had a hard time finding some landscaping in the winter that wasn't boring...  There is so much, but not much color contrast.  I also work 5 days a week, and natural lighting is very limited when I get out of work.  I tried to capture interesting pictures that had sunlight as well.

The first photo, is one that I took while in NYC last summer.  My intent was to capture this building, as well as the road signs at an interesting angel.  This helps to show how really small we are...

This next photo is a view from my deck.  I have many tall trees surrounding my property, and in the summer, you cannot see through all the leaves.

This photo is on the driveway to our horse barn.  I really liked the way the sun was casting shadows, and the diagonal rule of thirds seemed to apply.

This photo is of the covered bridge on Route 30 in Dummerston, near our horse barn.  I had a hard time finding a spot to pull the car over, and get an unobstructed view of the bridge, as well as capture a pleasing angel.  It was starting to get dusk, so the lighting seems to give this photo a monochromatic feel.

This last photo is a picture of the uninterrupted pastures at the horse barn.  The snow is glazed with ice, and the sun's reflection was beautiful.  This also is a picture using the rule of thirds.

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