Wednesday, April 25, 2012

goofing with fantasy


I'm still pretty awkward with this kind of edit, but having a new baby in the house in inspirational.  I know this is a pretty clumsy attempt, but I kind of like it and I can come back when I get better and both cringe and feel proud.  Since I spent a fair amount of time (that could have been spent on SLEEPING or CLEANING or even SEWING (two baby quilts in s l o w progress)  playing with this I figured I'd put it up.  Layers and brushes- of course I cut the kids out from the background.  Added sky in a layer below, then trees and grasses.  Butterflies went below and on top, then the fairies on top.  Added the glow edge for a frame, and a glow layer style to soften it all up.  Lots of blur brush on edges.

I guess this is like scrap booking without glue?  I confess, I like it because I can sit and work on it, I don't have to get up and hunt or go to the store for stuff I don't have- I can just search for brushes and images online.  So, let me give credit to Midnightstouch Brushes, Linda Rae from Deviant art for her grass brushes, and unfortunately I don't have the name of the fairy artist- the rest of the brushes came with photoshop elements.

Time to get up and move......to the kitchen, for food!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012



I sure am a better photographer since I started messing with elements.  On the top left is the original, the right is tweaked just a little...and since I still haven't learned about distracting backgrounds, a new one put in.  I think it turned out at least as nice as your average school portrait.  Especially done bleary eyed after night shift when I shoulda been in bed, but felt like doodling instead.

I found a great new outlet- I LOVE restoring battered and old photos but have pretty much exhausted my supply.  Looking at a profile on tipsquirrel (an awesome place for tutorials) I saw on Janine Smith's profile that she got much of her expertise volunteering for an organization called Operation Photo Rescue (OPR).  They use volunteers across the internet to restore photos for people in disaster hit areas.  I've finished my first photo for them and hope they ask me to do more more more!

Meanwhile, I still haven't tried out "actions" in elements.  Its a series of somewhat automated fixes that you can rapidly apply to photos without having to go step by step.  Especially for when you want to do the same thing to several pics without having to go through all of those steps over and over.  If you have (at least version 9 or above) elements, the guided edits are pretty much the same thing.  Trouble is, except for lomo (which is a very cool effect) I don't much desire to use them.  And they seem very complicated to install.  Still, so much bru-hah about them, I'm going to get around to it one day.  I guess it took a couple years before I could see the point of brushes.

Happy editing!

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

I haven't lost interest...




I'm having a creative renaisance, or late mid life crisis, or something.  I had a total hip repair in January and by December it was so hard to walk anywhere I started knitting and crocheting, broke my sewing machine back out of it's decade-plus hiatus.  I discovered I kind of LIKE those things. As for sewing, it was cool to see all that expertise, the hard learned techniques and slowly aquired knowlege didn't slip away but sat right in that sewing part of my brain, ready to be used again.  Then after surgery came therapy, and then back into night shift work and I've been busy with things other than blogging, man,

Honestly, I've been so taken with the needlecraft stuff that I pondered, should I start another blog for that?  I've already photographed one sewing tutorial and could do another in a jiffy, my personal pattern pieces already cut out (sewing is FUNNER than back when I thought you had to go to the store for a pattern every time, though I do miss fabric stores).  But my attention does wander, and if I started a needle works one, then (probably any minute) GARDENING will be what I'm all about, then cooking or house renovation and so on. 

Should I dump this and do a what Barb's doing blog?  Incorporate it all?  I think that question has been corking up production here for a few weeks past the halt the surgery put on everything.  I have a certain fondness for this place and don't want to pull the plug yet. 

Also I've been feeling like I should be out there taking fresh photo's to edit, but I just haven't.  Night shift really sucks the life out of your life, unless you don't let it.