6 posts tagged “photoshop”

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.

There are several ways you can show texture in your photographs:

• take pictures of textured things (my tree trunks)
• help the viewer imagine how something feels by showing someone touching a textured surface, e.g., a mother stroking her baby's cheek
• choose a textured paper or surface to print the image on (matte or glossy paper, art papers, fabric, plastic, etc.)
• add a textured frame to complement or contrast with the image
• modify the image with software

These photos show a couple of the things you can do with Photoshop Elements. These first two are the before and after images of lichen on a tree trunk. The colour change and addition of grain make the lichen look dry and gritty.

 

The second set shows what you can do with the "plastic wrap" effect in Photoshop Elements. The leaf looks like it's actually floating in water doesn't it!

 

I'm taking a Photography Art class and part 1 of last week's homework was to photograph a colour. I was assigned magenta. We were to walk around outdoors with our cameras and take pictures of lots of different things in our assigned colour.

At first I thought it would be impossible to find magenta coloured objects outside and looked around inside my house until I could find something to take outside to photograph, my Swiss Ball. Turns out what's a mauve ball indoors looks much bluer outdoors. Then I got a manicure and picked magenta polish which actually looked more like a pinkish-plum colour inside the salon. And I just happened to have my camera with me on a grocery shopping trip when I found these gorgeous flowers and ornamental cabbages.

While almost all of the images displayed here have been tweaked in Photoshop, my Photography Art instructor will see the untweaked versions complete with exposure problems and bad white balance.

 

 

 

I was in Winnipeg a week ago and took this photo of an unexpected stone head (South Pacific-ish, isn't it!) in a conservatory. I tried to include it in a blog posting but I was using my friends' Mac and Vox doesn't play nicely with the Apple Safari web browser.

I had fun tinkering with the photo in iPhoto anyway (I usually use PhotoShop Elements on my PC at home) and this is the result.

It ended up with a sort of antique look.

Today I'm using IE on my Mom and Dad's PC and can finally insert the photo into this post.

Woolly Mammoth in the Natural History Gallery at the Royal BC Museum, Victoria, BC.

No flash. And never a tripod around when you really want one... I tried to minimize camera shake by resting the camera on the exhibit sign. The photo turned out so dark I couldn't see anything in the unenhanced image except for the tusks. Luckily my camera, a 6-year old Sony DSC-S70, did manage to get the subject in focus despite the low light conditions. It must have been able to "see" the tusks. I used Photoshop to lighten the whole image up and also reduced the redness around the mammoth's eye just a little bit.

I like how grainy the image is, makes the scene seem more real somehow.