OnOne Pro Phototools - Ummm...Can I Say Awesome!!

Ummm...Mike...what can I say... except...THANKS! This is so awesome!!


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Click here: http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=28

Thank You to My Photoshop Angels

Julie & Cathy,

I felt I had to make a special thank you post to both of you for really coming through for me with my Photoshop issues this week!

Seriously - I really appreciate you trying to solve my issues and I finally have something I'm satisfied with!

You are both great friends and I appreciate your support! Having friends like you both that come through in a pinch is a wonderful thing!!

It's nice to know that you've "got my back" for something as important to me as my photography work is great feeling.

Thank you both!

More Wedding Snaps

Here are few favorites of shots from the wedding. Unfortunately it was a bit dark in the ballroom so I had to bump up the ISO. I only had the on-camera flash (which did pretty well considering) because I didn't want to bring the external flash with me.

Bumping up the ISO left some of the further away shots grainey so I worked with the photos in Photoshop on some filters and coloring to enhance them the best I could.





The crowd around the bride and groom was very distracting so I duplicated the layer, applied a gaussian blur (around 40? I think...can't remember) and then I used the eraser tool to erase the bride and groom so that they were the only area that was clear.







I'm working on the photoshoot mentioned in a previous post which can be read by clicking HERE. Trying to catch up....(which will never happen).

For this photo I spent a lot of time burning & dodging. It was a simple color shot of the fenceline. I converted to B&W using the black & white feature in CS3, worked with the levels, shadows & highlights, and then went to work burning & dodging the light and dark areas. I applied an unsharp mask twice and then for some reason I decided to start to burn the edges. It created a feeling (in my opinion) if looking at this scene throgh and old window where that glass has become cloudy on the edges. I really love how it came out. Hope you like it:



This is a color shot of the same farm with a few sheep out in the pasture. It was such a strage day...some parts of the sky blue some parts of the sky white. I had such a tough time with every shot that day. I did a lot of burning to the sky to try to bring out the clouds...not sure if it looks unrealistic but I like it no matter what. I used the hue & saturation tool in photoshop to individually saturate the reds, the yellows, and the greens.



For this shot I took a basic scene of a bale of hay and some farm land and converted it to B&W, used the history brush to color the bale of hay, and then worked with "burning" to make the sky more defined. Before I worked on the sky it was almost cloudless.

GRAY DAY

Well...I was hoping it wouldn't rain today...but it did. So, I took advantage of the gray clouds. I shot some dreary sky scenes to see how they would come out. The shy was pretty boring so I enhanced it!



I pulled into an area of the park I haven't visited in a few weekd to see how the leaves were changing. I took this from my driver's window of my car. I'll be stopping here again soon.



I thought it would be funny to capture some of my roadside stops...I always talk about how I pull over when I see something I want to capture so today I snapped this:

Worked on Restoring Old Family Photos Yesterday & Today

I spent countless hours this weekend restoring old family photos. I scanned each one and on them all in Photoshop. Photoshop is a godsend for this type of project!

They photos were in great condition so they weren't too bad to work with. I was impressed with home well they were preserved - with some being close to 100 years old!

I'm happy to have done this work for my family and I know they will treasure them.

(click to view the photos larger)

Not Much Going On....

Not too much going on in my photographic journey today...had a terrible headache the entire day...

All I've been working on is editing the photo shoot of my friend's children that I mentioned in my post below.

I separated the photos into 2 folders...usable and not-usable...much less confusing this way. Then I stared editing one at a time. Got a decent amount done but I still have a little ways to go until I finish (but I enjoy the process).

I'm so happy with the shoot that I can't complain at all about the editing. I can't wait to finish and send the gallery to my friend to see the finished results of her 2 great kids.

We've discussed doing a fall shoot at a pumpkin patch or an apple orchard and even one of the family. So, we're both looking forward to that coming soon!

Played with Panorama Today

Wasn't insprired at all while driving home from work for any photographic opportunities (I couldn't think of anywhere different to photograph).

So, I went home and set up the tripod to try out taking shots for a panoramic stitching.

I didn't have any kind of "breathtaking" scene so I just took a 360 degree view of my back yard.

This is how the panoramic stiching of about 10 photos came out in Photoshop CS3. Click on the image to view it a little larger (I saved it at 3 feet wide so this sample doesn't give it much justice)....



After this exercise I'm excited to try this out with a beautiful scene. If I create enough of them I'm thinking of making a "panoramic" section on my website.

I also worked on converting a few photos to Faux IR (infrared) again (I love this technique!) These are 2 favorites that I converted:



This is my "creep-ified cornfield":




If you'd like to see more of my Faux (fake) IR conversions click HERE. If you like this kind of photo editing there are many more conversions on the site that that you might enjoy!

Booooo Hoooooo

Bad weather...so no photo hunt today.

Just staying in all day getting some editing done on my backlog of photos...so that is a positive! I'll be tied to my desk chair all day!