Week 16 good to WOW edit Family/Friends

I love seeing all the edits people share on Thursday of the photos they shared on Monday for the photo challenge Jill and Ashley sponsor called Good to Wow.  Especially since a lot of really great photos do become WOW!  So much fun to learn from each other.  My edits didn't take quite as long as sometimes because I only started with 2 photos!

Original:

Simple Edit:

I cropped way closer (yeah for no longer relying on a 3MP camera!).  Adjusted a little bit in ACR.  Used Ashley's Nice and Easy, minor adjustments.  Removed Redness from mine and my husband's faces.

Black and White:

I tried the Presets for ACR Elements from the CoffeeShop Blog.  Very easy to use!  Couldn't find adjustments I liked, so I brought it into Elements and used CoffeeShop's Classic BW Action instead.

Before and Afters:

Sunflower Original:

Simple Edit:

I brought it into ACR but found I didn't really want to change any settings.  Ran Nice and Easy and sharpened for the web.  It was good to lighten her face, but I kind of miss the deep blue.  I resisted the temptation to wash her face with photoshop.  She did receive a bath shortly after this picture was taken in real life.

ACR Mocha Latte Preset:

I ran this on the edited version and the original.  Turned out better with the original photo.  I did make a few small adjustments.

CoffeeShop's Chocolate BW Action (I removed the creamy layer):

Not too fond of how this emphasizes the dirt on her face, but liked this better than the ACR Preset.  I'm not as informed as to what to change in ACR to adjust to what I like.  However, I find it really cool that I can get some presets to use with my ACR (don't have lightroom) and that they are so easy to use.  Thanks, Ashley for sharing and Rita for making these presets.

Before and After:

Oh!  And I had to experiment with the spot light:

Not sure this is the best image to use or that I got the placement right, but very handy to know what some of these filters do and how to adjust them.  You do not know how long I used Photoshop Elements to basically make calendar pages.

Now, go see some other edits on the subject of Family and Friends.  I can promise you there are some great ones!

Some Animals!

When we were out of town last weekend, we went to the zoo on Friday.  I was planning to use one of the photos to join in "I heart faces" pet challenge this week.  Alas, even with the extra day to enter, I wasn't ready.  That works out fine since they only let you enter one photo, and I took a whole lot more than one photo of animals last weekend.  This way I don't have to pick my favorite.  I also don't have to compare my photography to all the truly spectacular photographers that participate in the "I heart faces" challenges.  Enough said.  Here are some animals...

Elephants

Bats--Not my favorite animal!

Giraffe

I loved the giraffe.  We don't have one at our local zoo.  I don't think it is possible to grasp the sheer height of this animal without another picture.

Giraffe and another animal

I cannot remember what the other animals were, but they were the size of large goats or deers.

Lorikeet

Lorikeet and my son

My husband was also able to feed the birds, but his bird was molting so was kind of frightening looking.

Still a Lorikeet

Lion

Hippopotamus

Hummingbird (this was accidental, I was taking a picture of the flowers)

Some kind of Cat

Since I'm not linking to a photo meme, I don't know if anyone will actually look at these, but I wanted to edit them and doing a blog post is a good motivator for me.  I am very pleased at how much I have learned about editing photos since my first week in joining Shoot and Edit at Jill's and Ashley's blogs.  I might never develop an eye for what makes a photograph art rather than a memory--those kind of photos that draw you in with everything and make you want to hang them on the wall even when you don't know the subject.  I am okay if I never do--I just don't think of myself of an artist.  However, I sure am having fun learning and trying.  Thanks for being along for the ride.

Sweet Battleship Textured Flower

Happy, happy Tuesday!  I have a blissfully empty week ahead ending with a weekend away for a women's retreat, so it is definitely a happy week for me!

I think my sweet shots have been almost all of my daughter, so here's a collage of my boys:

Sweetly (and seriously) playing Battleship while visiting my dad.

I was glad to get enough light from the sliding glass door. Though I've apparently been seeking light and avoiding flash too avidly.  When I picked up my camera today my daughter thought it meant we were going outside. :)

And for Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday:

Just one layer of Serendipity Soft Light 100% opacity.  I brushed some of it off of the flower because I like the bright colors, but a very simple edit overall.  I really like the coloring and darker edges and scratches/texture in this new texture.  Terrific!

Per feedback from comments, I've edited this post to add:

The text definitely needed to be softer and have some texture, so I put it under the texture layer and lowered the opacity.  I like it better, do you?  Keep the gentle feed back coming; I still have a steep learning curve to climb.  I'd love help climbing it faster.

Week 16 good to WOW SOOC Family and Friends

I feel like I'm saturating my blog with pictures of my family, but I forgot to ask my friends if I could post them or their children.  That is really too bad because I have a photo of two of my friends at the park that I really like.  My husband says it looks like one of them is threatening the other with the dark sunglasses, stroller between them, and the angle of the baby bottle, but I know they were talking about household chores, raising children and our last Acts Bible study class.  Actually, come to think of it I did take the photo with my telephoto and was standing hundreds of feet away by the swings with Sunflower.  Maybe she was saying "Give me the secret of your clean house or your baby will never see it's next bottle, grrrr!"

That said here are my Straight Out Of the Camera shots.  Sunflower on the slide:

1/100   f/5.6   150mm    ISO 200

And our obligatory family Easter photo:

1/125   f/5.6    22mm    ISO 200

I set the camera settings and then handed the camera to my SIL.  No one was interested in me checking how the photos came out and trying again.  At minimum I would have made sure SnapDragon was a little closer to the rest of us--preferably in front of me.  As it is I have 3 photos identical to this with a horizontal orientation and two more vertical ones.  I think I would only have one of each if the camera hadn't been in continuous shooting mode and she pushed the button long enough that it shot each photo three times (which made it so I don't have to do any head swapping).  I would have liked to have experimented more, but we got what we need.  In the future, so I don't have to boss people around (my kids don't count), I should really get myself a tripod.

Sorry.  Back to the scheduled program.  Make sure to check out other SOOC family and friend shots over at Jill's blog this week.  On Thursday head over to Ashley's to see everyone's photos go from great to WOW!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday--April 24th

I didn't actually plan on doing this week's hunt, especially since I didn't start it before we left town which means I would have to use my husband's laptop and only iPhoto for editing (and I didn't think that would happen).  However, after a few days of pictures, I thought I had some perfect shots for some of the prompts (not technically perfect, but fit the theme perfect) and I commandeered the laptop for my own enjoyment.

Reflections--

The tide pool reflected the rocks above quite clearly.

Guess What This Is?--

Maybe you know, but I had to look at the sign.  It is a gerenuk.

What's Inside?--

I wanted to spend more time getting a better picture of these plastic eggs, but that I did not have time for.  It is what immediately popped into my head for this prompt.  When my oldest was three he was given some plastic eggs at church but told not to open them without his parents.  We asked him if he knew what was inside.  He looked at us, shrugged, and said "baby birds?"  No, chocolate.

Playtime--

            One of my children's favorite things to do when playing is climbing trees...

Apparently this is also true for bears.

Lawn and Garden--

Since last week I used a lot of lawn--grass was in every shot--here is something from the zoo garden.

I hope you have a stupendous Sunday!  Be sure and check out Ramblings and Photos for more photos.

Week 15 good to WOW edit Easter

I so don't have any time. I have to go pick up SnapDragon in 5 minutes and when I get back we are driving down to spend the weekend with family. But I finished my edits on Monday, so I want to share! You'll have to go back to the original post to see the befores.  Once we reach our destination I should have a chance to come visit your blogs, but I won't be able to upload and play with pictures.  This is probably a good thing.

I did not edit my photo of a cross, but in my previous post, I did use textures on another version of it, if you feel disappointed.

These are all basically the clean, simple edits. I am particularly pleased with how different my middle son's photo is now.

I also did some creative edits which I liked. I particularly liked Golden Vintage on some of them. Rather than make my post super long, since I promised I wouldn't, I made a collage of them for next year's calendar for the grandparents.  I'll probably add names, later, but for now:

If you want to see more photos of my not so perfect Easter shoot, please feel free to check out my real life blog.  I found after editing I actually had other pictures that I liked a bit more than these.

Don't forget to check out Ashley's blog for other Easter edits!


Have a Blessed Easter Weekend!