Photo Nerd-Out: Photoshop

I never claimed to be a whiz at Photoshop, but I was never really incompetent at it either. I took a class on the software in college - back when I had grand plans of becoming a graphic designer - and haven't touched the program much since then, mostly because I just didn't have the money to buy it.

When I started delving more deeply into photography, I realized that using Picasa as my editing software just wasn't going to cut it any longer, so I got an older version of Photoshop on the cheap. Because of the class I took in college I had an idea of how to get my photos to look halfway decent, but wasn't confident that I could use the program to its fullest potential. Plus, I prefer my photography to have a more natural look, so I usually try to avoid over-Photoshopping by all means possible.

As time wore on, I realized that although my photos were getting better SOOC (read: Straight Out of Camera), I found that it's still useful to know some of the basic fixes in Photoshop to make the shot really pop (and to establish my photographic style). Plus, I just bought a fancy new Mac Book Pro (I have named her Fiona - a post is coming on her soon, I promise!!) and installed Photoshop CS6, and I wanted to test its true editing prowess.

I did some digging and discovered some great editing tools - one of them was the super-duper-awesome Color Range Tool. Essentially what it does is lasso the area you want just by clicking on it with your mouse. It's not always perfect, but it's a heckuva lot easier than constantly having to use the magnetic lasso tool every time when you want to select a certain area to edit (especially when you have a cat demanding attention at the same time you're trying to lasso a subject...).

Once I began discovering new ways to edit in Photoshop, I started thinking about some of my past photo shoots and what I could do to spruce them up with my new-found knowledge. I remembered some photos from a wedding I shot last year that were a bit underexposed in the foreground. At the time I tried fixing it the generic way by increasing the exposure overall, but it made the background severely overexposed. I didn't know how to fully fix it, so I spruced it up as best I could and called it a day.

Armed with my newly acquired photo editing skills, I decided to go back and re-edit a couple of the photos that had the issue I described above. The results:

Notice the difference? Still not by any means perfect, but a lot better than they were before!


For this next photo, the exposure/colors/everything was to my liking - except for an annoying light pole that looked like it was hanging out on the bride's shoulder like a parrot. It bugged me for the longest time that I didn't know how to fix it, until one day I re-remembered the following magical Photoshop button:

Clone. Stamp. Tool.

I cloned. I stamped. And made the evil lamp fly away.

Now there's nothing distracting from the bride and her rock star bridesmaids! :)

Even though I'm more adept at Photoshop than I was before, I still don't claim to be an expert (don't even get me started on layers, eesh!) but at least I'm learning more and more everyday. And who knows....maybe someday I can call myself a whiz. ;)

It's All in the Details: Wedding Favors Edition

For this edition of the "Wedding Details" series, I decided to practice shooting some favor boxes. This is a great way for brides and grooms to say "Thank You", and to stretch their creative muscles in making them their own!

Plus, it was an excuse for me to make a cute craft. :)

First I tried photographing them with a turquoise/teal backdrop. I liked it, but it wasn't really popping for me.

Then I tried the yellow backdrop, and I hit gold (pun SO intended!).

By the way...aren't those boxes the cutest?! They're 99 cents at World Market, and they have all kinds of different colors. Amazing what some ribbon, paper and tape can do to make them wedding-worthy!

New *Borrowed* Toy: 35mm 1.4/f lens

One of my many photography goals is to try out some new lenses to test their capabilities and to see if I could work them into my repertoire. Since I'm too frugal to actually buy new lenses at this point (especially since the ones I'm looking at are $1,500+ each!) I rent them for a far more reasonable rate from my friendly neighborhood camera shop.

One of the many lenses on my list to try out was the 35 mm 1.4/f lens. I got a bit frustrated at a past wedding when my 50mm 1.4/f didn't do the job in confined spaces, so out of desperation I used my kit lens - which still provided some great pictures, but I would have preferred using a prime lens. 

All in all, I enjoyed testing out this beauty of a lens, which allowed a larger field of view as well as the ability to get up close and personal with my cats. Very versatile and just so darn cute. And the bokeh is to die for! :)

...drat. Now I want one....

And now some test shots with this beaut:

Brian and I blundered into Taste of Lincoln Avenue, which really wasn't as tasty as I was hoping. At least I found some cool looking signs at one of the craft tents.

I made cupcakes for my dad's birthday. He's 61 years young.

The cupcake cups were supposed to be turquoise and polka-dotted. Turns out that red velvet cake batter bleeds through them like permanent marker on a white sheet of paper. 

Lesson learned.

And for once in his furry life, Sokka was a pretty willing modeling subject! 

Awwwwww you can see the freckles on his nose. 

:)