Merry Christmas

I sit here 2 days before Christmas enjoying a freshly made breakfast burrito and drinking my (own) coffee at the market. It's 7:30, far early for me to be out getting groceries. I've surprised myself this year that holiday anxiety has not been a part of the picture. It's a true miracle because I really can't put my finger on it. (I could guess but won't.) I think about the last 2 Christmases that I wrote about on this blog and I know I don't even want to revisit them. Somewhere along the way I took a giant chill pill this year. 

The past 2 weeks I've even done some art. Just for the fun of it. And plan to do more today, right before I clean house and start making pecan pie. The kids will be over tomorrow and I need to figure the menu for sure before I leave the market this morning. Last year the lines were clear to the back of the store and I don't plan to participate. (Although it was fun chatting with the other shoppers.)

A little art to bid you a very Merry Christmas. 

(iPad, Repix, Snapseed, Retouch, Facetune, Image Blender, Over)

A little Lightroom and Photoshop for you. Supplies by Anna Aspens and Dawn Inskip.

Portraits with the Velvet 56

My shots of my grand daughter using the Lensbaby Velvet 56…

I honestly don't remember the aperture setting, but I'm guessing it may have been 4 judging how hard a time I had getting both eyes in focus.

Other that a little exposure boost of .75 and a little eye brightening, the only thing I did to this one is remove nose boogies. AND I did change the camera calibration to camera portrait (in Lightroom). I just heard that tip this weekend and what a difference!

Being a photographer you'd think the first thing I'd do when I got her home from daycare would be to clean her face!

I used to loath using the clone/heal brush in Lightroom but with some practice you can make it work on the worst of the worst. 

Here is a close up of the before and after with all the adjustments dots I used.
(For all the other shots I used Photoshop healing brush and clone stamp tools.)

A few tweaks with Pretty Presets Clean and Creative Advanced Workflow.

Then my own adjustments to create the monochrome below.

Pretty Pastels Raw LR4: Alabaster 

Original slightly tweaked and cleaned up.

Pretty Pastels Raw LR4: Pink Skies

Pretty Pastels Raw LR4: Matt B&W

I decided to try a couple of Kim Klassen's presets on these.

KK_onair

KK_gentle

And one more…

I really was surprised I got as many as I did having to manually focus with this lens.

'They' say if it doesn't add to the photo, crop it out. Maybe that would be the case here. I thought the hair on the right was a bit distracting so I really do like this square crop.

I just love this sweet girl!

You can see my floral edit using this lens here.

It's Texture Tuesday at Kim's where there's a lot of editing with Lightroom presets. Go check out the loveliness there.

I'm also joining Lisa at Life Thru the Lens.

Texture Tuesday Feb 24

It's snowing here again and I would love to go shoot some photos. (I have some in mind.) But I think the roads are icy and I have a stinking cold which makes me not want to go anywhere today.
I've been playing with some of Kim's Lightroom presets on my portraits.

The first with my adjustments, the second with kk_toucha added.

The first with my adjustments, the second with kk_chocolate added.

The first with my adjustments, the second with kk_hazydazy added. (She was not in the mood for the upcoming photo shoot. Can you tell?

The first with my adjustments, the second with kk_chocolate added. The poor kids feet are always soooo red. I even reduced it here but since that's just him I decided not change it further.

I've had fun experimenting with these presets that were designed for still life photos. Sometimes they need a tweak if the contrast is too strong or a little luminance adjustment to compensate for over sharpening or clarity.

This was fun too, making this photo look old and tinted. Kim's textures, my frame.

My layers panel tells all.

Linking up with Kim for Texture Tuesday.

5 Portraits From the Phone

My doll of a grand-daughter loves hats. We take selfies of the two of us usually with caps on (baseball style). She grabbed this hat on the way out the door last week. She just happened to have this adorable old-fashioned looking dress on too.

iPhone photo, edited with Snapseed, PicFX, Facetune, Touchretouch (cloned out hubby's arm), and XnSketch app gave it the sketchy feel.

Another sort of portrait. This was our shadow in the grass. While in PicFX I noticed an invert filter, thought it would make a cool night scene, so after adding another filter and some bokeh, I took it into Lenslight and started adding 'stars' and light effects.

Contemplating my next move. Usually I'm still in my jammies this early. Snapseed.

These last two were shot in the camera app ContrastbyHornbeck.

This was also edited in Noir for more contrast and to darken the lower left corner.

Linking up with Random Five Friday and Friday Finds.

Parts is Parts

I must say I like this digital journalling thing. My Gelli Plate arrived a few days ago and I haven't opened it yet. (hasn't helped that I've been sick.)
I've actually been able to keep up with my online classes this fall. (Except for one...) The Art of Journalling by Amanda Taylor has been fabulous. She is an awesome teacher and her art is mind blowing. I don't know how she thinks of all the things she does. This my last assignment. But I will be doing more of this. I'll just have to go through my portrait pics to find some that will work. Fortunately my granddaughter has grown more hair the past few months because I really want to do one of her for her mom.

Life Defined kits by Christine Smith, Wendy Page, and Just Jaimee

I'm linking up with Cindy today for Show and Share.

Last Fall Portraits

They say Fall arrived yesterday, according to the calendar. It's still quite green here but the mornings and evenings are starting to cool. I even wore jeans to work today but the sandals will stay til the first snow. The girls keep the air conditioner on all the time. (even winter, roll eyes) You'd think they were the ones old enough to have hot flashes. I never have them at work for this reason.
I went to the archives for these and made a story board. This was a self shoot and a blast I might add. I really need to do it again soon. Maybe in the sunflowers tomorrow....
I used these textures of Kim's on various photos. kk_grungeframed, kk_cecile, kk_totalgrunge. Erased on the face areas. Also did some edits for Beyond Beyond. I have a great set of Local adjustment brushes that I cannot find where I got them or I would tell you.
Linking up with Kim for Texture Tuesday.

Is it a Photo or a Painting?

I have a new favorite app. Repix.
I have a deep love for texture-y painterly funky photos and this app makes it possible. This is what I've done the past 3 days.

My first attempt after watching Geri's tutorial here at the end of her interview with the maker of Repix, Ilkka If you like this type of editing you'll want to spring for the in app purchase of the master collection for $4.99. If you buy them onesie twosie it amounts to $11. It was soooo worth it to me. My DIL wants this on a canvas for her wall. that was worth the $5 alone. (Taken with my Canon 7D)

Second try: I found a photo of my hubby taking a photo of me taking a photo of him taking a photo of me.

This was too much fun! I had to find some more portrait pics. Fortunately I had imported my last photo shoot of Hallie to the iPad a few days ago so I found another I thought would work. (Canon 7D)

And a selfie I took at the Arboretum amongst the poppies and larkspur.

Tonight however, I went a step further. (iPhone)

Here is my before.

This is my first edit in Repix.

Hmmmmm, I decided to open it in Snapseed and play a bit with the Tuning adjustment. 

The results:

It perked it up quite nicely, but that wasn't enough for me. 

I wanted to try a Drama setting. The result:

I liked how this brightened up her face. 

But wait there's more. Retrolux: (without a light leak)

Then I reloaded the drama version and tried out a Grunge setting with the texture turned down:

It's hard to say which version is my favorite. I love them all. Now to try it out on some flowers.

Good-by, Not

Nearly 2 years ago my friend Cindy decided to start a 'girls only' photo group for more personal support among the girls at our local camera club. A couple months ago the threatening news of her possibly moving clear across the state reared it's ugly head. This wasn't welcome news to us, however it was great news for her family.
This week was our last official meeting. Cindy decided to get all mushy on us and told a story. When she was quite young, her mom took her and her brother to a store and gave them each some money to buy a gift. (It was Cindy's birthday.) Her brother was so excited about his gift for her he couldn't even wait to get out the door to give it to her. It was so beautifully wrapped and she was careful to preserve every piece. As she unwrapped it he told her that he bought it because she was his shining star. At this point she showed us the necklace. Then went on to pull gifts from her purse for each of us and tell us that was how she felt about us. I believe we all had tears in our eyes.

Thank you, my friend. You've been such an inspiration and encouragement to me.

Thank God for FB and other technology. Perhaps we'll do Google Talk or Skype after they get settled in.

All photos processed in RadLab.

Angie in Lightroom4

My friend and neighbor of 14 years found out she had cancer just before Thanksgiving. Being a nurse and working with those types of patients, she knew exactly what she was getting into as far as treatment. (Although this is never news anyone wants to hear.) I encouraged her to let me take some photos of her before she got to the hair falling out stage. On Thursday I got a text from her with a picture of a fair amount of hair in her sink. I quickly texted back, Let's meet at noon tomorrow. I really intended to do it outside but it was sooo cold. Fortunately the light from my dining room windows was good. Shooting portraits is not my thing. I feel very uncomfortable shooting people unless they can 'make their own music'. But we had a good time and I was very pleased with how they turned out. All processed in Lightroom.

My friend Sarah's recent self-portrait inspired the close-ups. I used my Canon Nifty 50mm 1.8. A fabulous lens for portraits. It's also great for extreme macro closeups if you take off auto focus.

After I did my initial processing, I made virtual copies and played with some presets. I have a lot of free presets that are wonderful. Recently I purchased 4 sets from someone and currently I'm not impressed. I'll try them out on some other photos and let you know the true verdict.

This is my favorite of all. I like her smile and I love the strong contrast of this one. Preset is Mono Architecture Pink. (I think this was freebie from someone on Flickr.)
I noticed that different presets really can change the mood of the photo. In the trio below I'm a little partial to the middle one because of the dramatic feel, even though it shows a lot of texture in the skin. ( maybe I forgot to smooth out this one.)
1st. The Baby 1Lp (I'm sorry I had to pay for these, I was disappointed in the set. That's what happens when you impulsively buy on sale it seems. This is the only one that worked on any of her photos.)
2nd. ST High Contrast 3 (an oldie, not sure where this from either)
3rd. redrex vintage BW (LR2version) These are some great presets at Adobe Exchange, it is old but it works fine in LR4.

For those that prefer the more 'normal' portrait style. I like the antique feel of this one.

Matt's Cutting Edge -Matt Kloslowski (with green reduced in the curves) This is also an old preset.

Every Monday is preset day on Lightroom Killer Tips, so I'll be checking out some new ones.

I also use a wonderful adjustment brush set from Pretty Presets for sparkling eyes, smoothing skin, etc.

I added a few minor touchups in Photoshop. 

And one last funky shot for the artist in me. Bad Ass Film(LR3)

This may turn out to be Lightroom Week here on my blog. It looks as though I need to clean out my preset closet and get some updated ones. Just like it's hard to part with that old favorite sweater... however, I have some more resources that I itching to try out.