Look Up...Way Up...

Kim's challenge this week for Texture Tuesday was to have us looking up.  This is the perfect time of year for this as the colours in the autumn trees are spectacular!  I added three of Kim's textures to this image: Just Stitched, Trust, and Warm Sun.  I love that bit of zigzag 'stitching' at the sides. I brushed away some of the texture from the centre of the image so that the colours of the leaves were a little more intense in the centre.  

This next image, of my dog Casey snoozing on the dock, was taken a couple of weeks ago, the day before we closed up the cottage.  Bonnie's challenge for Photo Art Friday was to use her Leafy Landscape texture to create our 'photoartography' (that's my new word for today...Have you read the book Frindle?...just saying...).  I started by adding a gradient map to take the original image to black and white.  After adding the texture, I added a 'sponge' filter and bumped up the hue/saturation levels. 

Notice my signature?  That's another neat trick Kim taught us in Beyond Layers!  And, I just found out that Kim is starting the third session in January!  I highly recommend it if you want to learn more about how to use Photoshop Elements or CS!

These photos are being linked to Our World Tuesday, Texture Tuesday, Sweet Shot Tuesday, Photo Show Off,  This or That Thursdays, Photo Art Friday, Shoot, Edit, Submit, Fabulous Friday, and Photo Friday Link Party.

Beautiful Black and White

My niece has the most incredible black and white portraits of her children hanging over the fireplace in her living room.  They are large close-up images of their faces, and they totally capture the character of each child.  This week's challenge in Beyond Layers is to explore black and white photography so I've taken a couple of photos and using Photoshop, I've transformed them to black and white.

This first one is a close up of my youngest great niece's face, focusing on her bright, beautiful eyes:

Mouse over photo to see the 'before' image.

This next one is me, taken while skiing:

Mouse over photo to see the 'before' image.