Paint, text, and more.

With this photo I used the clone tool to get rid of the white streak left by a plane. I also used the clone tool to fix any odd spots in the sky. I also added a watermark just to start trying it out.

This is a photo of my daughter backstage waiting for her turn at her ballet recital. She was all dolled up but there was not great place to take photos. All the clutter in the back really takes away from the photo. I used the paint tool to paint out the background and then the text tool to add some words to explain the moment. 

I think with more practice I could get the edges to look a little more realistic but not too bad for a first try. 

I was playing with my camera at the fireworks one night. I wanted to see how the different settings worked for fireworks. This was one of my favorite images but I thought the bright light in the top right corner was distracting. I used the clone tool to erase the light from the image and then I added some text. 

Preview to my Photo Story

So my son just turned 11 this past Wednesday and I figured I would put together a picture story of how he has grown over the years. It was fun to go back through old pictures. I did realize though that I didn't have a digital camera when he was first born so I think I may have to did out the old photos and scan some pictures in so that I can use them. This is just a snip it of what I have. I admit that I am a picture junky when it comes to my kids.

So my intention would to be to have the photos go in chronological order to show how he has changed over the years. I love the thought of taken these older pictures and applying my new editing skills to them. 

Burn and Dodge and Filters

For this I used the dodge and burn tools. I burned the background a little bit to take emphasis off the background. I found that you have to be careful not to burn too much or it makes it too unrealistic. I used the dodge tool to brighten my father's face and also to whiten the teeth of the kids. I also used the select, copy, and blur tools to take out the little tuft of hair sticking up on my father's head. I did crop in on the photo right at the beginning.

To create this blurred dotted effect I used the oilfy filter and played around with the adjustments to find a setting that created the small dots rather than blending them too much. 

For this photo I used the old fashioned filter. I did end up playing with the brightness and contrast after the filter was applied just to help the eye see the image a little bit better. 

Color Adjustments

I was trying to capture a nice sunset on this day but it was too hazy and the sun wasn't setting yet so the picture came out quite blah. I did some color adjustments to try to make a pretty sky.

                     


I've been spending the last two days at the hospital while my father had open heart surgery. When we were able to go in and visit him as he was waking, I couldn't pass up this moment. I ended up using just my phone camera for this shot but I thought it really captured the love between my parents. What the photo can't tell is that even in my dad's medicated haze and while still intubated, he lifted his hand so that he could hold my mother's hand better. Not much of a color change but I went to black and white and used the vignette technique to blur the background more.

Beginning with Gimp

Well first off, I was very frustrated because I really like the looks of the Photoshop program and I tried to download the trial but when I did, it would only open up the program but then it would lock up before I could even touch my photo. After watching the tutorials, I was considering actually paying for the program but I don't want to pay for the program if I won't be able to use it. So that led me to work with Gimp this week. 

I found Gimp to be a bit difficult to use. There are just so many steps for each edit you want to do to a photo. I actually kept the tutorial videos going and pausing for that step while I worked on my photo. Or I wrote down all the steps to each process that way I could reference the paper while I did the edit. I would hope that it would become easier to use once I use it more but I was really bumming about Photoshop. 

So here are my results. I made the photos bigger than I normally would for a blog so that you can see the detail better.

Before

After

        With this photo my daughter is actually posing with a cardboard image of Isabelle at the American Girl Doll store. First I straightened the photo which you can tell by the window panes. I also cropped the photo to get rid of the extra that wasn't part of the scene on the right.

         If you look closely you can see that there is a bit of white around the cardboard girl (look at her finger and the side of her head) so I used the tools to get rid of the white. My daughter also had some stray hair going down her face that I got rid of. I used the selection tools to copy and paste the brick wall and part of my daughter's dress in the bottom left corner. I know that the dress is not perfect but I couldn't seem to make that part any better and on a smaller scale you don't see it as bad. I wanted to get rid of that purple sign behind her. 

Before

After

       Here I merged these two photos together. I took out the wire that ran across the photo just above the rock wall and I had to fiddle with the size of the horse in order to make it fit the photo. The tail and the bottom of the legs are bugging me but I don't think it was too bad for a first try. Oh, I also took out some of the tree branches so that they wouldn't be touching the horse.

Before

After

With this one I had to play around with the selection tools to copy and add layers. I also added a border to this one to make it look more complete.