Creating My Own Autumn Tones...

It's been a while since I've had a chance to get back into my year long photography group/class Beyond Beyond with Kim Klassen.  I'm actually a few weeks behind, but decided to play with this week's lesson ideas (I'll get caught up on the others soon, I hope).

Working in Lightroom, I've taken a couple of images that I shot in the summer and following some of Kim's tips, I've played around to create an autumn feel to them.

Before

After

Before

After

I was able to add a nice, warm glow to the images, and yet, nothing beats the wonderful fall colours I captured in these images, which I took last fall while up at the cottage.  With the incredible forecast for the next week or so, I sure wish I was up there and not down here in the city!

It's always a good idea to look up when you're surrounded by beautifully colourful trees.  The contrast of those magnificent leaves against a bright blue sky is not to be missed!

Colours of Spring

Today in Beyond Beyond or 2B as we refer to it, Kim taught us another, easier way to create colour palettes in Photoshop Elements.  I love creating these from my photos, and sometimes use them for inspiration in my fibre art or art journalling.

Raw image right out of the camera

I know I've told you this before, but I also love Lightroom 4!  It opens up so many incredible possibilities.  I've learned how to create my own presets, so that I can apply several steps of an edit to an endless number of photos.  Again thanks to Kim and 2B, I was able to create a preset today that would warm up an image and give it a bit of a hazy, dreamy effect.  The best part is that because I've created a preset for it, I can now apply that same effect the other images with literally just one click!

There are so many wonderful things that can be done when you combine the best of both of these programs.

Now and Then...Sort of...

On Saturday I went into the city to see my son, and of course my camera was in hand!  I just had to get a shot of a street car along Queen St. W.

And then I decided to play a bit and so it became an old photo...sort of...
I cropped it to take out the modern cars, but there's no denying that the streetcar itself, and the people's dress is current, so just don't look too closely.  Before adding the frame, I changed the photo to a sepia look and then added a layer of Kim's 'stamped right 1' texture at 70% soft light.  Sorry I can't give you more details on the processing, but I wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, and Sweet Shot Tuesday

Water and Ice...

I took this photo a few weeks ago while exploring along the Bruce trail.  It was a mild winter day, and the textures in the ice and the water were stunning.  I did a couple of very minor adjustments to the levels and contrast and then I added a subtle gradient mask to get a bit more of the sparkle back in the water without loosing the definition in the ice.

I added a layer of Kim Klassens "cool grunge' texture using a hard light blend mode at 15% and then finished off by creating a soft frame using an inverse selection and adding a colour adjustment at a low opacity with a soft light blend mode.

The final steps to the edit were to add the quote and my signature.  The quote uses 'Journal' font.

As much as I like the beauty of the ice and snow, I look forward to images of Spring, hopefully in the very near future!

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, and Sweet Shot Tuesday

Remembering Oatie...

I made a special fibre postcard in honour of Oatis, a four year old miniature schnauzer that recently died because of a tragic misdiagnosis.  My friend, Donna and her husband were devastated by the loss of this little fur person, and this is just a little token to let them know that I'm thinking of them.

I altered this image in Lightroom and Photoshop to create the image for the postcard.

Some might say that he was "just a dog", but I get it Donna!








Linking up with Photo Art Friday for Bonnie's 'portrait' theme.

After The Storm

After the two day snow storm last week, we awoke to the most beautifully breathtaking sight out our windows. The neighbourhood was covered with a thick blanket of snow and it was early enough that it was still pristine...no footprints or tire tracks to mar the perfect covering of about six fresh inches of snow.  Then, we realized that because it was so wet and sticky, our snowblower probably wouldn't cope well with it and we'd have to shovel that heavy stuff...'sigh'.  But, on the bright side I got lots of exercise and fresh air!

Needless to say, I also took some pics.  This one was tinkered with in Lightroom, to bring up the blue tone in the sky just a bit and then I added Kim's kk_wonderfulmagic_scripted texture using a screen blend mode.  I decided to use the Sweetly Broken font for my text since I believe that's what Kim has used in some of her text around the border of the texture.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday

Looking Down...

Today's challenge in Beyond Beyond was to do a photo shoot from above so I set up this little still life and climbed on my chair!


In Lightroom I did some minor tinkering with highlights and shadows before using Kim's "Barely Colour" preset.  I then took it into Elements where I added three layers of Kim's "Anna" texture from her Downton collection. The first layer is at soft light 15%, then colour burn 14% and finally multiply at 11% with a gradient mask.  I also added a Jerry Jones texture to get the soft framing which I thought was pretty with this particular image.

A screen shot of my processing is here for your reference.

Dreamy Image

I explored Kim Klassen's tutorial on creating a 'dreamy' look to your image, and here's my result:

I used an image of my journal and Twinkling H20 watercolours, which I had been working on earlier.  I had used my 50mm 1.8 lens so that I could get that sweet depth of field.

I added a gradient using a soft pink to pick up some of the colour in the journal and the one paint pot.  In Lightroom, I edited Kim's texture, Edith, changing it from a gold colour to a pink tone and then added it with a soft light blend mode at a low opacity (around 35% or so).  The text was added using the font Sweetly Broken, and I picked a very soft pink shade from the image for my text colour. I also had to add a bit of a drop shadow to get the text to stand out enough to be legible without having to go to a darker font colour.

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday

Puppy Love...

Last spring, our neigbours got Buddy, a Shih Tze puppy.  From the first day they got him, as they tried to walk past our back yard (we're on a corner lot), Buddy saw Casey and just walk in through our fence to visit with her.  It was love at first sight for all of us!  Casey was about to turn 12, a senior for a dog her size, and here was this tiny puppy that just wanted to jump up on her and give her kisses...so adorable!

As you can see in the top left image, Casey was quick to get in on the pouncing fun.  Although we certainly see signs of her age at times, when Buddy's around Casey just becomes like an over grown puppy herself.  It's so fun to watch them wrestle and play and I really think he helps to keep her young.  However, notice the very centre image...that's Casey's way of imposing a short break to get a little rest.  Has she captured an adorable little sleep toy or what!

These days its a bit of a tight squeeze for Buddy to get through the fence, but they still play regularly, and right now they are loving the snow!

This photo collage was creating using the print module in Lightroom 4.  I then exported it to  PSE 11 where I added a subtle soft texture called Cora, by Kim Klassen, at a soft light blend mode and lowered the opacity.  I put a layer of the digital scrapbook paper with the musical notes over the lower part only, and again lowered the opacity to allow the text to show through.  The final step was to use a variety of heart brushes to stamp on the little hearts on the last image as well as over the text area.  Love is in the air...

Linking up with Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday and Photo Art Friday.

Not Your Average Chipmunk...

I don't often take video, but in the summer, when my little friend Charlie was coming to visit for peanut treats, I decided to document it by using the video camera on my iPhone.  You may be getting sick of hearing this, but Lightroom is amazing!  Today in Round Trip, I learned that you can very easily capture jpeg images from video you've shot.  That's how I got this wonderful series of me feeding and patting my little chipmunk friend.  

You might also enjoy an older post in which I've included a short video of my giving one of the chipmunks a bit of a back rub.  This particular chipmunk would come up on my lap to be patted even if I didn't have any peanuts for it.

It's quite amazing, but we've taught our Golden Retriever, Casey, to leave the chipmunks alone.  All I have to say if one comes up on the deck is, "Leave it Casey.  That's mom's friend." and Casey will just watch it and not bother it at all.  They have become so used to one another that the chipmunks will sometimes go up and sniff her paws while she's sleeping.  If she notices she just lifts her head and looks at them.

And it would seem that she can tell the difference between chipmunks and red squirrels (which can be very annoying and destructive) because she'll chase them away if they come on the deck.  She's one smart dog!

It's a Matter of Point of View...

One of my goals this year is to learn more about photography and specifically about using my camera to it's full potential.  My top priority was to get out of 'auto' on my DSLR camera (and stay out!), which so far is going well.  I've also switched to shooting in 'raw' and I'm learning that it gives me a lot more wiggle room in Lightroom.

Today's photo collage is a study of point of view.  The subject is an fun little assemblage piece that I created a few years back at my friend Sandra's Open Studio.

The collage itself was created, literally in minutes, using the Print module in Lightroom 4.  If you've been considering it, you've got to go ahead and get Lightroom and then take Kim Klassen's Round Trip class.  You won't regret it!

An Odd Still Life...

I've been spending a lot of time in Lightroom these days, learning the ins and outs of the program thanks to Kim Klassen's Round Trip online course.  The more time I spend in Lightroom, the more I'm loving it.  My image files are finally getting organized in a logical way and I can find them within seconds instead of having to search through endless places on my hard drive, sometimes never finding the shot I was looking for...they were in a real mess!  Once I finish adding keywords to all my archived photos (something I'll be working on a bit at a time over the next couple of weeks...or months) I will be able to find any shot with a few quick key strokes!

Today I've been experimenting with the 'develop' part of the program in which you can do some pretty amazing processing of your images and save presets of multi-step adjustments to be used over again.  I've only been at it for a short time, but I am already loving the capabilities of this software!  I can't wait until I actually know what I'm doing!  It also works seamlessly with Photoshop Elements, so I can add textures, text, etc. and then pop back into Lightroom again to catalogue the finished image.  So fabulous!

Today's image is a silly still life of an apple, an orange and a frog (I needed a third and the frog was within reach).  I really never intended to do anything with the shots I took...I was just goofing around with taking raw images and doing some processing in Lightroom, but I kind of like the end result.

This photo is being linked to Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday, Photo Art Friday and Orange You Glad It's Friday.

Organizing the Archives

As you know from previous posts, I recently got Lightroom 4.  What an incredible piece of software!  Anyway, I've been busy learning how to use in, in part thanks to Kim Klassen's online class, Round Trip.  So, I've been spending a lot of time going through my archived photos to do a bit of organization (OMG what a mess my photo files are in!) before I import them into Lightroom.

This morning, I came across this picture of Spencer, our little basket baby.  Spencer was a 'free' kitten (and then came the vet bills for shots, etc. LOL), picked up at the Bait and Tackle shop in Magnetawan (near our cottage).  He just loved this tiny basket (not sure how big it was, but certainly a lot smaller that a standard 6 qt basket).

Spencer became known as our 'puppy cat' because he followed our dog around everywhere and behaved much more like a dog than like our other cat.  He'd even run to answer the door!  Sadly, he got sick and passed away when he was only six yrs. old.  Thank goodness for photos and these happy trips down memory lane!

Idleness...

It's been a while since I've posted any photo art, and since I got PSE11 (upgraded from 9) last week for my birthday, I thought it was time I played with some of the new features.  I spent way too much time working on the text in this image.  I'm sure there is an easier, faster way to write on straight lines while using the 'draw your own path' tool, but then again I guess I could have just written it straight and rotated it too...so much to learn :o)

I took this shot a couple of years ago, but since I've been organizing my images in Lightroom 4 (got that for my birthday too!) I came across it and just had to use it along with this quote.  I found the quote while working on a fibre art piece that uses my rust dyed fabrics.

original image

I cropped the image slightly, did a minor levels adjustment to the image, then added a couple of layers of textures.  I used Kim Klassen's new texture, kk_minus43 (you can see it, read about it's name, and get on Kim's free texture list here) and Bonnie Zieman's PDPA Beauty is... texture (you can see it and download it here).  I'd tell you more about what I did, but I don't remember and unfortunately didn't take a screen shot of my processing this time.  Sorry!


These photos are being linked to Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday, and Photo Art Friday.