Kiss n' Tell: Homeward Bound style

Hey all!  Haven't posted a kiss n' tell for a while so thought I'd do one on my recent action pack I got from Paint the Moon :)

I just purchased the Fresh Wonderland 2 set and decided to play a little.  I never thought that Annie could get any better at what she does, but she has officially knocked my socks off.... again!

I started going through some archives and found some pics of our trip home from Maryland and New York... from CHRISTMAS!  Ugh!  A*N*Y*W*A*Y.... We had decided to drive all the way through the night with as little stopping as possible.  Translated to a photographer... NO stopping to take pics.... WAH!!!  I was in the primest (ok, so I'm using my own dictionary, sue me) country for barns, rolling hills, silos, and just plain gorgeousness touched by our Heavenly Creator and NO stopping!  Kill me now! :(  I decided to get creative (working on my problem solving talents) and see how I could capture stuff while flying down the highway at 70mph.  No, I wasn't driving and shooting at the same time, though temptation did set in occasionally.

Well, caught this barn and wasn't thrilled with it SOOC (straight out of camera).  I applied two actions and a texture!  I could NOT believe how fast this changed!!!  I LOVE it now!  I even played a little bit more and added a verse and some birds, teehee!  Photoshop.... some amazing stuff!

ran the "Serendipity"action, NO tweaking :D

Thought it needed an aged feel so added "Time Worn" texture

Still felt like it needed a little pop.... that reminded me of the "Pop My Flare" action.  One of the MAIN reasons I bought the set.  I ran it, and adjusted the whole action (a new feature from amazing Annie!) by setting the opacity to 75%. 

Added "Pro Edge Vignette", something I'm addicted to!!!  Voila!  LOVED it!  It screamed for only two more things...

Birds.... Yep!  Birds :D  A brush by Shadowhouse Creations

and the "piece de resistance"... One of my favorite verses!  I love this stuff :D

Kiss & Tell: Golden Hour....

Ok, so I promised you another Kiss & Tell and this time it was on one of my FAVORITE images I've done yet!  As you may recall, I posted a senior session a little while back and indicated that I had a ton of fun playing with a certain image.  Well, here it is.  If you guessed the sunglow one, either you are ingeniously smart, or you know me too well, haha :D

This is my FAV FAV FAV for several reasons!  I have been after that elusive "golden hour" glow/sun flare for two years now (I started photoging in 2009).  Gorgeous light and sunflare were some of the primary qualities I have been yearning for and have cried tears over.  Often wondering if I really could do this whole photography thing because I just couldn't seem to grab hold of that gorgeous glow like others had.  When you are self-taught, sometimes you are blessed to find a tutorial on some technique, and if you are REALLY blessed you may find another photoger willing to share their "secrets".  In the area of sunflare and glorious glow, I haven't been so lucky.  It's been try, try again, CRY, try, try again, CRY.... you get the picture, (haha, I love puns!)  This time, I got to cry for joy!  :D

We LITERALLY went out as the sun was going down.  The Rebel would have NEVER let me get this image.  The ISO range is lousy and my shutter would have had to compensate.  Not good when there is wind or people that breath, lol!  The 5D however.... :D gave me what I needed.  SO!  When people tell you that you don't need "better gear" they are only telling you part of the story.  The photographer makes the image, yes.... BUT you can be severally handicapped by limited means.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news peeps.  I'm bummered and sorry but it's the truth.

When we got the shot I was jumping up and down (literally, just ask Alyssa.... she wasn't sure who was more excited, she or me!)!!!  I couldn't believe I caught flare and SUN GLOW!!!!!  Fast forward to uploading and I was saddened to see that it wasn't quite to my standards... yet.  I knew I had good bones to work with though and was thrilled beyond belief when I got the final result!

I can't list out my exact steps (sorry, didn't even think about writing it all down, I was just sooo excited to play, lol!) but I'll give a sorta, kinda overview.

First things first, I had to deal with the lighting issue... she was WAY underexposed!  Adjusting contrast, lighting, basic stuff then the fun began.  I hated the road beside her :(  And that dad-gum power line!!!!  That HAD to go.  So OFF with it's head :)  Content aware, as always.... I LOVE YOU!!!!!!  Fantastic on cleaning up those temporary blemishes and unsightlys ;)  Little skin smoothing, then the BAM factor!  I copied the image as a layer.  Flipped it horizontally, did a layer mask and took off where she was.  This took some time to get the right opacity on brushes, etc but eventually I got it to work.  I didn't want it to be tell-tale so I took some of the extra leaves off the right side, took a reed out on the lower left (content aware!) and adjusted a few other spots accordingly.  NOW, yes.... I didn't fix the top of the image.  I know that you can see the "duplicity" of the image but I loved the "ray" affect it had and decided to leave it.  Who knows, I may look back on this and think, "good grief!!!" but for now, I LOVE it and that's what matters, lol!  I used an action to increase the vibrancy of the color around her, and then tried several different "sunlight" actions.  I played for HOURS!  The sun glow was my favorite so that's the one I posted :)  Maybe I'll post the others at another time so you can see the difference actions can make.

Hope you enjoyed seeing the fun that goes on behind the scenes :)

XOXOXO

Kiss n' Tell: Adding a little light....

One of the things I want to do is utilize back lighting.  In order to not blow out my highlights (which you can tell in the example below was a MAJOR "my bad" moment) I will have to learn more about fill-in.  I'm going to make myself a diffuser (more on that later), play around with it and see how things go.

As a self-taught photographer, I learn by trying... then trying again, and again, and again, well you get the picture (sheesh that was bad!).  Until I can perfect this, I will have to spend the time adjusting things in post production.  I've discovered a secret....  again, PSE9 and actions (specifically Paint the Moon) came to my rescue!

One day I'll be the ninja master of my camera, light and all that encompasses photography.  Of course, then it will all change and I'll have to learn even more, haha!  Truth be told, the challenge to learn new techniques, new processes, etc..... kinda drives me so no complaints here :D

(SOOC means "straight out of camera" and KISSED.... well, that's my special little term for "after" lol!)

Kiss n' Tell: The Secret Dark Room...

Ok..... I have decided to show you all just a little of what I do.  My computer is my dark room.  In this digitalized age so much has become changeable and accessible, yet harder.  I am NOT the most computer literate person there is so post processing, programs, keyboards and mice all tend to have their way with me.

One of the best things I have "discovered" is PSE9 (photoshop elements 9) and "actions"!  I have learned so much since I started playing with my little point n shoot back in January of 2009.  I could always "see" the images in my head but they never came out the way I "saw" them.  I now know why.  So much can be altered via post processing, programs, keyboards and mice, that through trial, error, time, and $, I think I have now, finally, figured out how to change my SOOC (straight out of the camera) images into what I've always seen in my minds eye.

Here's a little sample of a before and after shot.... hope my precious subjects don't mind me spilling the beans, lol!!!!