Week Nine - Filter this.

I applied a "straw wall" filter to this picture, then cut out the globe so that it showed through clear. The straw layer is 66% opaque.



This next one I did a similar process, except I used a sepia filter and I erased the rabbit out instead of cut. There is 100% opacity.

Week Nine - To dodge or to burn?

I tried to just use dodge and burn to fix this slightly dark picture, but I instead ended up brightening just the color on the tree, then burning it to look more natural. Here are the results:

Week Eight - Playing with colors

I'm having quite the time converting Photoshop tutorials to PSP7, but they are very similar for the most part! I find myself assuming that the options will have different name, or just not exist altogether, but that is actually rarely true. I don't quite understand what they all do, so I mainly just move sliders around and see how the colors change. That is how I decided to turn this photo from a mid-day picture to a sunset picture (or at least try to...):



To get it I mostly just played with color, adding a bit of red and a little green. I also darkened it a bit. Everything else I tried faded the picture or made it look too fake.

The next set I have is... "crop-inspired":



I wanted to crop the antenna out at first, then I just kept going. I also messed with the colors a little bit to make the scene more fantasy like. The road is darkened to make it stand out a little, and the saturation is a bit blotchy for that "drawn" effect ... does that make sense?

Week Seven - Cropping and stuff

My idea was to combine two of my "lighting week" pictures. I did this because I thought it might be cool to directly compare the lighting, and all of my lighting subjects were taken from (virtually) the same angle. I went through my folder and picked which set of pictures had the closest angles.


I'm using Jasc PSP7 instead of Photoshop, so the process I used to do this is probably slightly different than the rest of the class would. I chose my pictures, then created the crescent selection and cut it from the "morning" picture. I then added two more layers behind my "morning" layer. In the furthest one I pasted the "night" version and aligned it to match with the front. In the middle layer, I altered the selection to be about 20 pixels smaller all around. After that, I inverted the selection and pasted yellow into everything but the crescent. Voila! It turned out much better than I first anticipated, mostly because I didn't know if the pictures would line up properly.

Week Six - Landscapes

I have to admit- I misunderstood the assignment and read last night that we have a landscape picture due! I considered my options... I couldn't take a picture at that moment (too dark out) and there wouldn't be enough time later. I settled on looking through old pictures that I have taken. I'm not sure if I will get credit, but I am going to post anyway!

These pictures were taken at my camp in NY over the summer. I am still a little unclear about what exactly a landscape is, though. Is it solely nature/land, or is it any sort of view representing that which you can see from a regular "human-eye" view? I chose these two pictures, because the first has a man-made dam in it and I'm not sure if that is appropriate. I think it's a very good picture though! The second is a beautiful sunset-time sky through the trees, and if that isn't a landscape... well then I am VERY confused :)

Week Five - Rule of Thirds

This dorm room stifles my creativity! OK, enough with the excuses, I actually think these shots are kind of cute. Learning about the rule-of-thirds was eye-opening in the sense that I always noticed the different feeling an off-center picture provides, but the science behind it is fascinating! I often take things for face value when I first encounter them, something I should work on...
I took about 15 versions of these pictures, with different lighting and placement. The pictures with low lighting were too blurry and the pictures with medium lighting had funny shadows. The flash reflects well off of the (slightly) shiny shoes, which is cool. After all was said and done and I had chosen my favorites, I was uploading to blogger and noticed my foot in the top right corner of the second shot. Darn it! My inability to "fill the frame" nicely came back to bite me again. About the rule-of-thirds... I'm unhappy with these pictures in general, so I don't have a favorite. Maybe if the bottom one had text or something in the blank area (and no sock :( ) it would be interesting.

Week Five - Framing Slideshow

I thought the first was kind of funny, looking at a contact lens case through a pair of glasses...

The second is a rule-of-thirds framing job I guess. Kind of cool? Haha.

The third was courtesy of my boyfriend, when he saw me walking around struggling with this assignment. He did a good job setting it up!

The fourth was when I finally sucked it up and went outside... it wasn't as cold as I feared! I like that the house is able to be seen through the spokes.

I walked into the fifth, the bottle was just sitting there already with the window behind it. I tried it with a flash as well, because I didn't know if only using the light from the window was going to mess it up, but when I used the flash it illuminated a sign that was next to the window... completely destroying the shot. Funny though!

The sixth was my Mother's idea. I used the flash, because it made it so much sharper. Without the flash it was fairly boring and dull.

The seventh is funny, because it was a picture I took during our macro lesson. It didn't quite fit the assignment, but I really liked it so I left it on the card. Turns out it is perfect for the framing assignment!

Week Five - Research

In looking up different composition techniques, "filling your frame" grabbed my attention right away. I thought about many of the pictures I've taken. I never figured out what wasn't quite right about many of them, and this technique answered my question! A lot of my pictures have something in the background that I didn't think through before I took the shot, so it off balances them. There will be a random splash of color that doesn't fit, or clutter behind my subject that takes attention away. I read a short bit about it here.

(I made sure not to read other blogs before I wrote my own, because I knew I wouldn't be able to think for myself if I did. Now it's time to go check everyone elses to make sure I didn't accidentally copy!!)