It’s somewhat hard to see in the picture, but the moon and a single star were amazingly bright in the sky when I shot this.
Technorati Tags: Sunset, Photography
Remember this picture, the straight out of the camera (SOC) shot of Dragon’s Teeth?
Well, I toyed around with it a bit, and here’s the final image I came up with:
First, I used some of the Pioneer Woman’s actions. I used “define and sharpen” twice, to accentuate the difference between the water spray and the sky…in the original it blended together too much and I like the drama of the sharp contrast. Then, I used the PW Black and White action, with a light opacity of about 25%. After that was done, I used the lasso tool to select the flat rock in the bottom right hand corner, and increased the brightness by playing with the levels (before I did this, the rock was just a black blob).
And…well, there it is. I’m pretty pleased with it.
I’m really trying to push myself creatively. I’ve been pretty dissatisfied with life lately…nothing in particular, just a general feeling of “blah.” And I’m pretty sure that a big part of it is that I’ve really been slacking in the creative front. I haven’t been taking pictures as much, I haven’t played with PhotoShop in months. I haven’t even been writing at all, until yesterday. And once I stop being creative, it’s really hard to start it up again. So, I decided that I need to pull myself out of the funk by stretching my mind muscles.
And then, maybe, I can stretch my body muscles and get off my fat ass once and a while. But that might be pushing it.
Technorati Tags: Photography, Photoshop, Creativity, Hawaii
It helps that the kid was super cute to start with…it’s a family friend’s son taken over a year ago at Easter, but it’s one of my faves. So cute!
Anyway, I have some posted in the Daily Picture Tab (top of the page), and I plan to keep messing around with Photoshop a LOT this week, so keep your eye out on that section for new pictures!
Technorati Tags: Photography, Photoshop, Art
I kept meaning to write, InternetWebs, honestly I did. But my life? She’s pretty boring right now. Well, not really, but boring to write about. Here, let me give you some bullets before I get to the fun part!
- JS and I saw Prince Caspian. Loved it, of course. Not as good as The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, but I was still completely engrossed in it. It didn’t have the same strength in plot as the first - I didn’t feel the urgency of the story as much. JS felt that there were some visual effects that didn’t quite carry through (ie: at one point Lucy is in the woods, and some birch trees form an archway for her. When she walks down the path, though, the trees aren’t there). But it was very, very pretty and made me want to live in Narnia.
- Tonks smelled like the inside of a teenage boy’s gym bag, so I gave her a bath. Now she’s soft and smells like puppy. In a good way.
- I finally had an adult conversation with my mom, who, as you’ve no doubt figured from my nonstop prattling on and on about it, hasn’t spoken to me much since the “forsaking of my faith and upbringing to live in sin with my boyfriend” thing. It went….OK, I guess. Better than it has. Mostly, I ended the conversation feeling sad for my mother and the guilt she has over our family’s many issues. Still, though, I only cried a bit and then got over it! GO ME!!!
- WORK (oops, caps button, my bad!). Work is totally kicking my ass, and not just me, our whole department. Blah blah boring cakes. We’re understaffed and overworked and I’m waiting for a promotion that is unofficially officially coming in July but in the mean time I’m doing both jobs and I don’t wanna.
- My dream life, lately, has been veering into That One Topic I Don’t Really Want To Discuss Any More For, Lo, It Is Still Really Depressing Me Even Though, HI! GET OVER IT ALREADY! But, I guess my subconscious isn’t letting go as easily as my logic is. I keep having dreams about babies and being pregnant.
- (LOOK! SUB-BULLETS!)
- In one, I went to the doctor for a follow up appointment. He lifted my shirt and did an ultrasound, saying everything looked great. I stammered along the lines of “WTF are you talking about, there’s nothing IN THERE to look fine.” He explained that a lot of first pregnancies include a miscarriage, you’re now 6 months along, here are some pamphlets on the birthing process. When I woke from that one, I oh so slowly lifted up the covers to peek at my definitely not 6 month pregnant belly. I knew it was a dream, but I still had to blink back tears as I rubbed my hand across my still flat tummy.
- In another, I had an adorably fat and rolly infant, but people kept taking him away from me. I woke up cradling my pillow.
BUT, in non depressing and slightly more edifying news, I finally busted out Photoshop and played with some of my images (that’s not a euphemism, get your mind out of the gutter, dirty!). JS spent a few minutes with me, explaining the basics, and we’ll probably do more tomorrow. Not that it surprises me, but he’s a great teacher and didn’t smack me upside the head when I said “OK, but how do I make it pretty?”Aaaaand. That brings me to the fun part! Here are my first ever before and after images. I didn’t do a whole lot to change the original, but I’m very happy with the results.
Before:
And (drum roll please!)….AFTER!
Not too shabby, eh? I think it’s much better than some of the overpriced photo-calendars we saw in the gift shops, myself.
Technorati Tags: Random, Life, Miscarriage, Photography
