Tweaking Photographs

-- 9:00 pm Friday -- Pictures moved to Flickr and should appear now without a problem, although I did have to edit the size of my template.

-- 8:10 pm Friday -- What is the deal with the missing pictures? I ran into this problem once before letting Blogger host the photos instead of storing them elsewhere. Using Flickr presents sizing problems and I don't have enough personal space on the web to host my own. I'll fix this later this evening as my time is limited right now.

I came across some tutorials for editing photos that I wanted to try out and decided to use some of the terrific shots taken by my daughter, Dee, on her first trip to Scotland 2 years ago. The first three photos are from that trip.

On the first two I used a layer adjustment method to change the photos to black and white and to enhance the brightness and contrast. I sharpened the merged files twice and resized them before saving in jpg format to publish on the blog. I thought the black borders and contrasting white text added a dramatic tone to them.

The next photo I cropped and again used the layer adjustment method this time to enhance the color. I used the screen blend mode which lightened and enhanced the colors even more. The original photo had a gray cast to it and the edits really brightened up the building, giving off a lot more detail while the sky still retains a bit of the overcast feel of the original photo. This one was also merged, sharpened twice and resized before saving to upload to the blog. I cropped out more of the sky after the final merge and I liked how that crop really created a stronger focal point for the shot, drawing your eye toward the bend in the road instead of looking at lots of extra (and unnecessary) sky. Cropping photos was part of one of the tutorials I was referencing while making the edits. Dee took some great photos and it was fun to work with them. I also had the pleasure of watching my granddaughters when she made that trip in 2005 and then again last year.

This is a photo I took of Sarah Grace when I visited Dee and the girls a few weeks ago. I love this picture of her. I followed a really simple tutorial to transform her photo into a colored pencil sketch. Very basic and very easy and a terrific subject to work with!

I used similar techniques to the ones used for the Scotland pictures above on this photo of Woody K. Nibs taken in my yard. I was able to bring out the color with the layer adjustment technique and cloned out a plastic pop-up valve that distracted from the picture. I cropped this photo as well, after merging, sharpening and resizing. The original photo looks a little drab against this enhanced version. I also added a black border to this one as well.

So I've managed to waste some time the past couple of days, but I did enjoy it, as I have been in a bit of a creative slump lately. I'm struggling with ideas for posting to the blog as well so maybe I will manage to break out of my doldrums completely.

Unfortunately, I have a million things to do that I have neglected while playing! hmmmm... the word avoidance keeps popping up in my head... I wonder why?

Now playing: Spaeth - Celtic Legend Tribute to Lord Of The Rings