Week 51 good to WOW Happy New Year

I didn't have a chance to take a picture of it, but IF I was going to post a picture representing our new year it would be a photo of our I-800a approval...our year will be waiting for referral, then I-800 approval, then travel approval, then traveling to China to bring home our child...nothing else represents what we expect to be a HAPPY NEW YEAR for us as well as the latest step in this process.

I do have a collage of some of my edits from this year.  I only joined in March, but since I didn't always limit myself to one photo...this is not all my photos; I promise!

I'm hoping you can click it to make the collage bigger, but I'm having some problems with blogger photos.  Going through the photos I thought it would be more obvious on how far I've come, but I couldn't quite bear to add the really bad edits to the collage.  Just know I have learned a ton by having a challenge each week and a new editing tool to try out.  I cannot believe how much I did not know...and there is still more to learn.  It'll take a lifetime, and I expect to enjoy it immensely!

Thank you, Ashley and Jill, for doing this challenge.  I really loved it!

Week 50 good to WOW Edit Holiday Traditions

I haven't even had a chance to look at the other edits and at this point I imagine every one is enjoying their Holiday time, but it will hang over my head all weekend if I don't just do this...so here are my edits from Monday.  I do love this picture even though the focus is a little softer than I want, but it does capture my Sunflower during the holiday...

Original:

Edit:

I basically took it back to the lightroom import presets, sharpened, and cropped.

Ideally I would take the picture again, but Sunflower now wants to see the picture as soon as I snap, so I only have one chance.  After looking and asking her to go back so I could take another, this is what I got.

Yeah, I know.  The tree isn't in the shot at all, but we do get the head of sleeping dad instead of his feet...

Then for fun...

Converted to BW...the preset I used had split-toning to add a yellow tinge;  I changed it to red in the spirit of the season.

I hope you have a most blessed Holiday Weekend.  As for me and my house we will be celebrating Our Savior's Birth with Joy and Thanksgiving!

Week 49 good to WOW Edit Bokeh Lights

So...I am a little bit busy, as are most people during this season, and I should be doing something else, but to not participate in Shoot and Edit this week when we only have a few more weeks left...that would make me sad.  Just looking at the thumbnails over at Ashley's I know there is some gorgeous bokeh light shots out there.  I cannot wait to look at them...though I will.

I have not had much time to experiment with bokeh myself, though we do have our tree up, but as is typical for a Thursday morning I had a half hour at our church while waiting for a meeting to start...kid free and camera in hand.  Only one tree to play with, but still fun.  Oh, and I had a can of coke with me.

Original:

1/200  f/1.8   ISO 200   50mm  (Most of the 30 min. I thought I had my 35mm, and was wondering why I couldn't get as close.)

Clean Edit:

Straighten a little, crop, remove pine needle, boost clarity and contrast.

Fun Edit:

A retro preset I got from Adobe Lightroom Share

So the coke in the white cans might not have a reputation for tasting very good (I found the first sip of the first can really did taste and feel different) but they sure are pretty...and still get me the caffeine I crave.  One tip, though, they balance a lot better on cotton batting when they still have something in them.

And I think there should always be an ornament self-portrait:

And then a left over from our Holiday photos a few weeks ago:

I told her I just wanted 5 more photos...and all 5 have her with her hand held up counting down.  She always makes us laugh.  The doctor takes her staples out tomorrow.

Week 48 good to WOW Edit Holiday

Today I am guest posting over at Ashley's blog Ramblings and Photos...the first photo blog I started reading.  Please do visit me over there.  I have learned so much about editing photos from her weekly tutorials, and I really enjoy using what I've learned.   All of her tutorials really came in handy with this week's photo:

Original:

Edit:

Since my tutorial is kind of wordy, I'll skip all the steps I did with this photo.  Suffice to say that I used almost every tip we learned in this last year during Shoot and Edit, plus I cropped to a 5x7 aspect ratio because that is the size I'll be printing and it framed them better.  Last year at this time my family would have just gotten the original...and been pretty happy with it.

If you are someone who, say, just bought Photoshop Elements, starting with the first of Ashley's tutorial posts and working your way through them is a great way to learn your new program and how to edit photos to boot.

Week 47 good to WOW Edit Thanksgiving

Just a quick post to share my Thanksgiving edits as I have a busy few days ahead...busier than normal.

Nothing too exciting.  I straightened a little and adjusted some sliders in LR.  I should possibly have straightened a little more but I didn't want to cut the flowers; sometimes editing cannot fix composition issues.

I thought it would seemed a little too busy, so I converted to BW with Lightroom's preset Creative Look 2 and added a little cream/orange to give back the warmth.

I cannot wait until next year to take more Thanksgiving photos!

Have a fantastic Thursday!

Week 47 good to WOW SOOC Thanksgiving and Monday Rewind

The long weekend was so wonderful, it is hard to get back into the swing of things, but Monday eventually comes and with it Shoot and Edit.  I never did post my edit for last weeks photo on gratefulness (and it only had 3 views on flickr, so I'm sure no one minds), but I thought I would start with it today.

For those that didn't have a chance to see it:

SOOC   ISO 100  f/1.8   1/200 sec   50mm 

Ultimately it came down to me being grateful for many, many things...but that my thankfulness goes to God, the provider of all good and perfect gifts in my life.

First I did my usual edits...fix exposure, take down saturation for this photo, noise reduction, sharpening, and a creamy white vignette.  My theory was it would create something soft in keeping with the sweetness of my little boy praying (even if this shot is actually posed.)

But I felt like it just wasn't quite right and that it had actually lost the mood created by using one lamp (and external flash) to light the scene, so I tried again.

This time I brought up the exposure with an adjustment brush in Lightroom only on his face and the wall leading towards him and noise reduction.  Then I took it to Elements, ran a soft layer--masked off of his face and hands, used Pioneer Women's Black Beauty to convert to black and white, and saved.  Back in Lightroom I added the dark vignette and cropped a tiny bit.  The seat of the rocking chair was kind of glowing through the vignette so I used an adjustment brush to lower its exposure and brightness.

So now that I am caught up for last week...though no one is keeping score...here is my photo for today.

Thanksgiving (SOOC):

I wanted to take more pictures of this scene, but my aunt wanted me to take the plates back to the buffet table and get out of the way for dinner. 









And just to make this post really, really long because that is my favorite thing to do, here are a few more snapshots of our thanksgiving...the ones without brother-in-laws, sister-in-laws, aunts, uncles, and cousins...it is a blessing to have family.

Wednesday extended family dinner at a local Chinese restaurant -- Thanks Uncle B and Aunt H!

Thanksgiving breakfast with Oak's extended family here at our house...No one will play w/ me!

My Dad's Sister sets a beautiful Thanksgiving table

Lots of tasty food--okay, I'm not big on the traditional turkey meal, but the appetizers were superb and my cousin did do an excellent job smoking the turkey.  We brought the green bean casserole.  Almost too easy to count as contributing, especially since Oak made it.

Let's Eat!  Huckleberry said he was thankful that the aliens had not attacked and taken over the planet...then he said, I'm just kidding...okay, I am thankful that hasn't happened, but I'm really thankful for my family.  Most everyone said a variation of family...I said photography.

Pie and whipped cream...the left overs made a perfect breakfast for me Friday.

Time to go home...jammies for Sunflower and a coke for Oak to prepare for the hour long drive.

The next three days were spent with a trip to the zoo, working on pictures, taking apart electronics, playing games (mostly Wii and DS) and basically relaxing as a family...oh, and an experiment in Christmas pictures which should show up next week :)  I love my family.

Week 45 good to WOW Edit Family

I didn't link my straight out of the camera shot on Monday because I kept hoping to be able to try again...once I'd figured out the angle I needed and where to put the children, that last move caused Huckleberry to hit his back on the kitchen table and SnapDragon to bang his knee on the chair.  Once the boys were crying, Sunflower certainly wasn't going to pose anymore.  Someday I do plan to try this again.

Original:

Edit:

All I ended up doing for the edit is lens correction and converting to BW with a preset.  Mostly what this photo needs is a retake...take it with a wider angle lens, dress the kids differently, a slightly different angle to get all of SnapDragon's face, and a much deeper dusting on the photo.  Still I'm happy with the idea and hope to have a chance to perfect it at some point.

A Little Bit of Everything

I finally started shooting in RAW.  Before I only used it when I was going to be in a low light or bad shooting conditions and needed all the data I could get.  But I've finally gotten fairly aggressive in my deleting (so I won't run out of space so quickly) and I want to please my photography teacher.  It puzzles me what SOOC means with a RAW file and Lightroom's import settings, but I set all the sliders (except white balance) to 0 for my "macro" for shoot and edit.

SOOC:

Edit:

Crop, Blacks +7, Brightness +10, Clarity +25, Vibrance +10 and sharpening

As far as I can tell the biggest down side to shooting in RAW is all those presets designed for RAW now work on my images and every picture has 10 ways it can go that I like.  Fun...but time consuming!

Even when hiding the beautiful fall colors in black and white 

or 

giving Sunflower some "fashion" colors.

Jelly on her face and all.  

Of course I can still do clean and simple edits.

Still Life

In order to please my photography teacher I also bought a speedlight for my camera...okay, mostly to please myself, but I really do like getting A's even in ungraded continuing education classes.   But today we have our first lab and he is bringing in all of his Canon gear to show us lighting set-ups etc.  I figured I have the money set aside I might as well buy it now and benefit more from his knowledge (his Canon speedlight wasn't going to work on my Nikon).  So of course, I did play with it a little.  I think I might get to really like it.  (I also bought a diffuser and a cord to take it off camera.)  Besides learning how to use it, the biggest downside is that it is heavier than my camera.

Now I know I have a lot to learn, but I am really excited about the idea of being able to take pictures in lower light settings without losing details.  While shooting pictures of Oak in the kitchen, Sunflower fell out of her bed.  I went up to check on her and she was instantly happy...sitting on the floor.  Since I'd carried my camera with me, I was able to take a picture even though the only light on was the hall light behind me.  The hard part was focusing.

No editing...but I did leave the LR import preset.  What do you think?

Of course, there are some little quirks I need to understand a little better.  One is that my camera does not support high speed sync...but if the flash isn't mounted all the way in it can stop talking to the flash just enough that it doesn't force my shutter speed to 1/200 but still flashes...makes for a funky photo.

It has something to do with having two shutters to get higher shutter speeds, overlapping, and some such stuff...but I did think I'd gotten a very broken flash for a bit.  It might be fun to play with someday, but in the meantime I experimented with basic ttl and some pears...after all everyone takes pictures of pears and we happened to have some.  Oak said this was a good example of pictures I can take 500 of for experimentation and then delete them all.

(I added the grain in lightroom because I like to play, but the colors and details were just right with the flash)

I told him that if I ever made money selling pictures of pears...as some people do...I would not share the profits with him...anything else, yes, but not pears.  So I am now planning to go into the pear portrait business.  I think I need some French text.

I am linking up with This or That as that is exactly what this post is.