Sunday, April 6, 2008

Workin' On My Skillz

Ok, I've not been posting much, I know. I have a confession to make. I've been with another blog. (GASP!) Yes, it is true Pioneer Woman has been stealing my time away from this blog. (Did that sound weird? Oh well.) It really shouldn't be that big of a surprise. I did mention, however briefly, my diversion to Pioneer Woman in my post about Bar-b-que Weiners. Not only does PW (that's Pioneer Woman - I'm lazy) cook, but she does take beautiful photographs. She also shares some great tips for those amateur photographers (like myself) who like to play in Photoshop. While I don't have any cows or Wranglers to take photos of I do have a very cute three year old (if I do say so myself). So just to show that all my PW reading has not gone to waste, I will share a little bit of what I have learned from good ole' PW. (I don't know if she's old, I just like using a little southern twang now and then - it keeps those west coast readers on their toes.) Sheez, that is the last time I'll use parentheses, I promise. (I think.)




Here is just a sampling of what I have learned:





A photo SOOC (Straight out of the camera - see, I really am lazy.)





Now, the same photo edited.




Besides the obvious black and white conversion and crop, I sharpened his eyes so that they sparkled a little more and added the "burned edge effect". Try to ignore the fact that the entire photo is a tad out of focus. Good thing I'm not taking any of this too seriously otherwise I would have felt bad for have not taken a better photo of a constantly moving three year old who has taken to actually putting his hand in front of the camera like I'm the papparazzi. Next time I will try hiding behind the bushes when he comes out of the 7-11. I hear that works.

3 comments:

Shama-Lama Mama said...

Oooh, I am so jealous. I want so bad to spend a few hundred hours with her new photo blog and try out all her tricks. But of course I have to unpack and, you know, download HAWAII pictures and everything.

Is it bad to tell the hubby that the kids were just relentless and didn't let me get ANY work done, and really just leave them in their high chairs and play on photoshop half the day??

Yeah, it probably is.

sigh.

Shama-Lama Mama said...

Oh, and you will be happy to know that those Hawaii pics are loading into Lightroom as I write this! YAY! And gosh, I totally forgot about that plethora of Easter Egg Hunt pictures!

Bad Mama! Bad!

Welcome! said...

I heart the PW blog too. She's a time-sucker for sure!