Photography Homework - Last Class

Last week the whole class went together on a photography "field trip" to downtown Duncan and here are the photos I finished for the final class of our course.

Generally speaking, I don't enjoy taking pictures of buildings. Mostly they're square and boring. And there's always crap in the way like hydro wires, parked cars, garbage cans, distracting window reflections, ugly signs, and dirt. Also, the buildings in a town or city are all packed in close together so you can't get far enough away to take decent overall shots unless you stand in the middle of the street and risk getting run over or rent an airplane to get an aerial view.

On Saturday afternoon I looked at my photos from the morning's efforts and didn't like any of them. Three days later I looked again and thought I might be able to salvage enough to show in class if I spent a few hours in Photoshop Elements. Here are the results. Not so bad I think. And I learned a bit about using Photoshop Elements at the same time.

Perspective: I cropped off the messy stuff that was on both sides of this shot and applied one of Photoshop Element's special effects to the building to emphasize the texture of the stucco. It's like a painting now.

The Gate: I cropped the photo so that the gate fills most of the image. Then I jazzed up the colours by turning up the saturation. Maybe a little too much (the leaves almost went neon on me) but I like it.

Veronika`s Window: Cropped a little bit. Used the cloning tool to get rid of the edge of a sign to the left of the window. Increased the contrast.

Local Colour: Created a duplicate layer that I converted to black and white. Then I cut out the part of the layer over the sign so that the sign in the original coloured layer showed through. I missed a little spot in the "A". Changed the colour of the sign to bright red. Flattened the layers together.

Outsider: Cropped. I don`t remember exactly but I think I might have increased the contrast and also turned up the saturation a little bit. I didn't like the windows or the bush at the lower left but I thought I could make them less noticeable in b&w. So I created a duplicate layer and converted it to black and white selecting a softer lower contrast b&w than I had for Local Colour. Cut out the sections of the b&w layer over the sign and the sculpture. This took a long time. I had to learn how to use the lasso selection tool to do it. Flattened the layers together.

Imagine That: Cropped.

Seeing: Cropped.

Window View: Cropped. Increased contrast a little bit. Used the cloning tool to get rid of the distracting reflections in the dark window. Can you see the cat?

Photographer: Cropped a little bit. Used the cloning tool to remove a pole that was sticking out of the top of Randy`s head.