Kubota & Boutwell's Actions - Samples of What They Can Do

I might not have picked the best sample photo to try these actions out on to make a sample gallery but I may re-do the samples at another date to show you what they can do for you.

For now here at the samples I have:

Boutwells Totally Rad Actions Samples:

Totally Rad - Daily Grind

Totally Rad - Caffeine Jolt

Totally Rad Color Blind

Kubota Actions

Kubota Artistic Tools Vol 3

ALSO:

Towards the end of this ealier blog post of mine there are his samples of the actions posted on another photographer's blog so take a look there as well if you're interested click the link below:

http://jenweaverphotography.blogspot.com/2007/11/burning-dodging.html

Top Shot of the Night

Okay, I edited quite a bit tonight and then I got to the last shot I was going to edit of the night and...WOW! I love, love, love it!

I can say that this could be a TOP favorite of what I've edited so far from this session. There's just something about it and all of the details.

They will see us waving from such great heights,
"come down now", they'll say
but everything looks perfect from far away
"come down now", but we'll stay...



(click to view LARGER)


Thanks Lee for being my model! :)

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.

Burning & Dodging ... Some Other Favs ... Kubota & Boutwells Actions ...Other News

I've been considering purchasing some Photoshop actions. I've been reading and reading and I keep coming up with the same suggestions:
Boutwell's Actions: http://boutwellstudio.com/totallyrad/
Kubota's Actions: http://www.kubotaimagetools.com/actions.html.

EDITED THIS POST: 2/25/08
I got the Boutwells & Kubota Actions!

Here is a blog post I wrote recently where I posted links to my samples of the actions:

http://jenweaverphotography.blogspot.com/2008/02/kubota-boutwells-actions-samples-of.html


I found a blog that has a lot of examples on these actions - "Becker's Blog" http://beckersblog.com/

Here are Becker's examples on Kubota Actions: http://homepage.mac.com/thebecker/iblog/B533212817/C1640960333/E20060125154844/index.html

And here are Becker's examples of the Boutwell's Totally Rad Actions:
http://beckersblog.com/index.cfm?q=sotc&x=1&y=1




Had some time tonight to do a little of what I enjoy most...having time to really work on editing a photo in Photoshop.




Another 3 favorite from tonight's editing:







Also....just need to share how nerdy I am. I asked my husband to take this photo of me tonight. It's me holding up money from my very first paying portait shoot! I was so happy and excited about it that I had to have a photo of the moment.

I know, I know...by now you think I'm a complete loser but I just like to categorize myself as being "unique" LOL!

Being a photographer I think of capturing special moments through photos to chronicle them.

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!