. . . I picked these for you for your birthday!
My birthday was yesterday, and we celebrated it last night with barbecued hamburgers, french fries, potato salad- YUM! My daughter made the most delicious homemade chocolate cake any of us have ever tasted; she is an amazing baker! It was my first birthday in 7 years where my whole family was together, and, since that time, we have added two adorable little boys to the family. It was a wonderful day!
We spent just about 24 hours in Monterey this week to take our daughter’s family to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Hundreds of photos were taken; here is one of just a few of sea creatures- the gorgeous jelly fish. Truthfully, I took just as nice shots with my point and shoot camera on my last visit. I think they are almost impossible not to photograph well in their beautifully lit tank. This one I edited with a texture, so that I would have something to post for this week’s Texture Tuesday (a couple days late). I used Kim Klassen’s teatime texture.
Miles and his mama looking out across the bay before sunset.
My grandbabies are here!!! Not much time for blogging- but here’s a quick tribute to Henry’s curls (photo taken yesterday on the beach at Monterey):
He is so cute I could just eat him up! Really- the cuteness is just overwhelming! Seriously CUTE!
Somebody stop me!
Kim presented a mixed bag of Lightroom and Photoshop tips, as well as some iPhoneography tricks.
Here is my grandmother’s sewing basket (decluttered!) and with some of her mother’s buttons in the foreground- and her darning egg. I desaturated the image and then added the kk_desert texture, which did a great job of masking the scratches on my old dining room table by adding new ones from the texture.
I don’t usually do much with my iPhone photos. I use the camera when I don’t have my regular camera, and I do edit them in Snapseed and PicTapGo- but then they tend to stay on my phone or go straight to Facebook. I decided that I would use an iPhone image for this blog post, so took a shot of flowers by my doctor’s office. I loved the tip Kim gave us about adding a black and white filter in PicTapGo and then fading the adjustment to just slightly desaturate the image. However, I went with a punchier edit, because it was the bright colors that attracted me to the flowers in the first place. I cropped in Snapseed and played with the Bright adjustment in the Drama filter- but ended up just leaving that alone. In PicTapGo, I warmed up the image a bit, added some “crispity-ness”, and then went full strength with color burn. And here we are!
O M G- this is so much fun!
I remember trying this when I was first learning Photoshop- and then totally forgot about it until I started seeing some orbs on Flickr recently. The link for directions was thankfully provided- I have no idea where I found them originally. Bill Barber has them on his blog http://www.billbarberphoto.com/tutorials/how-to-make-an-orb/– thank you, Bill. This time I made the really simple process into a Photoshop action so I can do it again. I warn you, it is very addictive!
Bill suggests flowers with lots of stems and leaves as good subjects- and I found the same to be true. The first photo above is a macro of a rose from my Mother’s Day bouquet. The second is the bouquet itself with some leaves and stems and some negative space. I like it better. I have no idea how Photoshop chooses the color for the background to the orb!
BTW, I discovered that the filter will not work unless your image is 8-bit. My latest Lightroom external editor settings were set to open images in 16- bit in Photoshop. I have no understanding of what any of this means. I read or watch tutorials and reset my Lightroom/Photoshop settings constantly. So right now- it’s 8-bit again- whatever. . .
We are having a bit of touch-ups and repair done on our house in preparation for selling. One item that needed painting was the wrought iron railing on the porch and steps leading to the front door. After the railing was painted, the front porch plants (and front porch pig. . .) were returned in a new arrangement by the painter. Here’s a quick snap and edit done after dinner last night. I textured the photo with Kim Klassen’s breakfree texture, and it will be this week’s nod to Texture Tuesday (but on Wednesday…).
The theme for this lesson was Critiques and Possibilities. We were led through Kim’s thought process as she edited one of her own photos- this was so interesting, especially as she reshot the photo a couple times.
In case you didn’t read this last week, I am in the midst of decluttering my house in preparation for putting it on the market next month. Major change is afoot in our household as we decide what to let go of and what to keep. So far, we have donated about three truckloads of “stuff”. And, truthfully, unless you were intimately acquainted with our house, you would never know it. There is lots left! It takes a bit of courage and faith to put your house on the market without knowing exactly where or when you are moving, but we know in our hearts that this is the time. We no longer need a big house, stairs are a challenge to arthritic knees- it is time to downsize and, most likely, relocate to a less expensive area. We wish our friends would join us- come on, you guys!
I went through my grandmother’s sewing basket (I have sooooo many family heirlooms) and decided to photograph this simple spool of thread for my project (and yes, the sewing basket is a keeper- at least for now).
SOOC
This was actually the second photo I took. In the first, the black surface of the dental cabinet was too dusty- so I got out the Pledge. I noted that the thread itself was pretty dusty still, so used the cloning and healing brush in Lightroom 5 to fix that up a bit- plus repair the nick in the black glass.
I had originally conceived of the photo as a black and white, so, although I played with it in color, I quickly went to black and white. I used a high contrast black and white preset from the Clickin Moms Paparazzi collection called Documentary (one of my favorites). I bumped up clarity and added a vignette.
I hadn’t planned on adding text, but something about my current state of exhaustion and my love of photo-editing led me to add a few words. So into Photoshop I went- using Traveling Typewriter and Quilted Butterfly fonts. Done!
We have our first strawberry! This was taken moments after being picked- you can still see dirt from the garden.
Three of my Rapunzel group drove over from Petaluma yesterday to meet me for lunch at Sailor Jack’s. We missed Darlene, Marie, and Nevin, but had a delicious lunch and great conversation as always. Plus, it’s my birthday month- so there were PRESENTS!
After lunch we came back to my house to have a Skype conversation with Nevin. Our group originated in Petaluma when our children were babies, and now only four remain there. Marie is in Sacramento, Nevin is in Irvine, and now we are planning to move, most likely to Arizona. Thank goodness for the magic of the internet, making it so easy for us to stay connected.
I took this shot of Claudia, Georgia, Jan and myself right before we Skyped with Nevin.
I edited this in Lightroom 5 beta, which I downloaded today. I tried the new, much praised cloning and healing brush, but had a bit of trouble with it- so went back to Photoshop, where I’m more familiar with the tools. I’m going to have to watch a tutorial, I guess. I did like that all my Lightroom 4 presets (in the Develop Module AND the export window) were absorbed automatically into the new program (not so with Flickr, Facebook etc). I only imported photos from the last month into my new catalog; I want to make sure I know what I’m doing before I totally commit. I’ve been thinking about the new Photoshop Creative Cloud and have decided for now to just go with the new Lightroom- and keep CS5 until it seems unworkable. By then, it will be easier to make a decision to go with the cloud or not.
I think these are the last apples for awhile- but no promises!
The Mother’s Day flowers are still going strong! Here are some shots in black and white (some split-toning in the first).
Note to my photo friends:
Life has been very busy lately, and I haven’t had the time or energy to visit blogs and comment as much as usual. We are in the process of getting our house ready to put on the market in June, after my daughter’s family visits. I am spending my days cleaning out closets, cabinets, and drawers, while my husband works and organizes the needed repairs. To complicate matters, I’ve been having vertigo for several weeks- so I’m not driving, reading, or spending much time on the computer (yay- more time to clean out closets!). I really appreciate you all for visiting my site and leaving such nice comments- please know that I will be back to my usual routines soon!
I’m multi-tasking today- another apple photo for Beyond Beyond AND I converted it to a black and white in response to today’s Texture Tuesday challenge. It somehow seemed WRONG to take the beautiful colors out of the apple photos, but, being pressed for time, that is what I decided to try- and I’m happy with the result.
Editing notes: In Lightroom, I used a bit of a matte curve (just slight) and added grain to soften the image. After converting it to black and white, I darkened the shadows a little and added some yellow to the highlights and purple to the shadows (low saturation). In Photoshop, I added a layer of Kim Klassen’s anna texture, 100% opacity to the background, 50-100% brushed off the apples.
A beautiful Mother’s Day bouquet sent by my beautiful daughter and her beautiful family!
melinda anderson photography 