Baking for Christmas

Oh Blog, I've Missed You!
I'm still toying with the idea of moving this to Wordpress but it just seems too far down the list. Actually I think I will talk to Helen about it.
So many irons in the fire....
A December digital art project, baking, shopping, still life shots, present wrapping, shopping, decorating, shopping. I've definitely had fun shopping this year and I'm not a shopper. It's hard to stop though once I get started.
I've rented a 24-70 Canon lens these next two weeks and can see already that I don't want to return it. The only thing I don't like about it is the weight, oh yeah, and the price tag. LensRentals has a promo going where you get a week free. But this is confusing because my lens would have been $77 for a week and when I added another week it only took off $49. I even asked them about it and got an explanation that just made me shake my head. Oh well, I love this lens and I'm glad to have it through the holidays. I'm also taking some baby shots this weekend before Finn looses his baby fat.
In the mean time I'm practicing some human touch still life photos while baking kuchen, a delightful custard that's been a family tradition forever. If you want the recipe I posted it here last year. If you can believe it, my step-son decided to make it last week. Guess he wanted some really bad.

I hope you've had some 

'chill' time this (what can be) hectic season.

Vintage Playground

Vacations to my home state of N. Dak. always come with mixed emotions. 

As we drove through this little town's park I spied a 'slippery slide'! "Oh! Blake!" I cried. "I have to take its picture." Then I knew I had to climb it, so I gave him my phone with a few instructions. I hadn't seen one of these since graduating high school. 

It felt stable and I believed I could fit under the bar even though I wasn't planning on going down it.

So..... Why not, it looked clean enough but it sure wasn't very slippery. 

The park also had one of these fabulous merri-go-rounds. 

I had to give it a twirl and hubby humored me. 

We made the trip home this year by RV instead of car or plane. It took an extra day coming but we're taking several extra days going back so we can actually have some vacation time of our own. One of my nephews got married and it was the perfect time of year for going home. 

Mobile Art Monday No.46, iColorama Recipe

I found that an image with some texture works best for this recipe as I experimented on different photos. For example, NOT an image with a lot of plain blue sky. Although on the one I attempted from my garden ended up in Stackables for some more editing and turned out pretty cool.

My initial edits were done in Snapseed for basic adjustments, plus I boosted the Structure for more grittiness and crispness. You can do this in iColorama also under the Adjust Menu. Do your basic adjustments, clicking APPLY after each, then for the extra clarity Adjust>HDR>Preset 2/8, Opacity .30. Check APPLY.

Sunflowers on Chair Recipe

Load your photo if you haven't already done so.

original (edited in Snapseed)

1. Style> Edges> Preset 1/19 Overlay, Size .55. DO NOT APPLY, SAVE THIS OUTLINE VERSION TO CAMERA ROLL.

2. Style> Simplify> Preset 12/17, Opacity .74. APPLY

Style> Sketch> Preset 12/12, Opacity .44. APPLY

Now we want to add our outline version to blend in over the previous.

Effects> Blend> click Photo at the bottom right corner. Choose your outline version from your camera roll. 

It's loaded.

Preset Overlay, Opacity .40. APPLY

You may like the tone of your photo just fine but I decided to change mine.

Adjust> Tonelab> preset 8/14, Lightness .40, Opacity .75 (choose one that works for your photo)

Tip.....

iColorama has a history panel of sorts. So if you accidently hit Apply in step no. 2... 

In the upper left corner click on Steps and choose the step before it. Then you can proceed.

Here are two more edits I did with perhaps a few variations.

Have a great Mobile Art Monday!

Love my iPad Pro!

Sarah asked how I liked my new iPad Pro, the large one. So I thought I'd write a bit about it.

I actually love ‘working’ on my new Pro. Seeing is much better especially if you’re scrutinizing your work for print. 

I LOVE, LOVE LOVE the Pencil. Totally.

Now the only thing I’m not thrilled about is the cumbersome size for toting around. Which I don’t do often, but the old one went everywhere with me. (Which is for sale.)

I’m trying to get the courage up to go buy a ‘tiny’ purse. Yeah, like I think I can survive with that. I know what will end up happening… I’ll get a tote bag of sorts that the iPad will fit in along with my extra personal belongings and end up sticking the tiny purse inside. I seriously need to get a smaller purse though. My back is bothering too much.

I inherited my hubby’s iPad mini that has a crack in the corner but I leave it at work for appointment scheduling and swiping credit cards. It has no cellular data plan so it doesn’t do much good to tote around. Perhaps I should switch my data plan from my Pro to the mini. Then I’d be tempted to edit on the mini more (on the run) and that would be going backwards. Besides, it already drives me crazy having stuff on a desktop and laptop and now I’ll spread it around on 2 iPads? 

Do you see my hair getting thinner? And grayer?

By the way, here is a great case my friend Kathy turned me on to. Mostly because of the pencil holder, and the price is quite right.  Which brings up another thing about that pencil. No-one told me you had to charge it which could be a problem sometimes. It comes with an adapter that you plug into your iPad charger. My question is where am I supposed to keep it and not loose the darn thing? It is very small. So far it's staying at the house but I may need to invent something that attaches to that case. Here's another thing you need to know.... How do you tell how much charge the battery has in that pencil? Swipe down from the top to reveal the notifications and it will show there. I hope on the next update they will add it to the menu bar like the other battery. No reason they can't. (Well I guess I don't really know that do I?)

And while you're at it this is nice to have too. A nifty little jump drive that can plug into your iPad or computer.

And don't forget the pencil!

Hope your summer is going well. It hit 100º yesterday and I'm already picking giant squash.

Ranunculus

The garden is going crazy right now so it's hard to keep up with processing my photos. And if I get them done it might be awhile before I get around to posting them anywhere in cyberspace. (You can check Flickr for a few recents.) 

But I bought these luscious red ranunculus at the grocer last week and have tried to 'use' them up.  And I found this great window for $11. Some ideas I haven't gotten around to doing yet but I've had fun processing these. 

Some shot with my Canon and processed in Lightroom. I've used presets plus some tweaking.

Of course they were red but look so good desaturated. Some have even turned orange as they've aged.

Pretty Presets, Color Lux, Champagne

My own Preset, Crystal's Porch.

Pretty Presets, Clean and Creative Workflow

Pretty Presets, Color Lux, Honeydew

Pretty Presets, Clean and Creative Workflow

Kim Klassen, KK_Shadows

Preset 300v1 (I've had this for years, not sure where it's from.)

Oh, so hard to pick a favorite!

Kim Klassen Light & Airy Film Preset with some added light effects.

I've cleaned this one up and sent it to my iPad. I rarely edit my Canon photos there but love to do it once in awhile.

Monday I'll be posting some I did with the iPhone and edited for Mobile Art Monday. 

See you then and have a great weekend!

Dreamy Flowers

Since I promised some before and afters yesterday, let's get to it.
It took me awhile to like the hazy look on my flower edits. But for some it's really quite nice. These flowers were edited with nothing but a Lightroom Preset I've put together. I've named it Dreamy Flowers for obvious reasons, but perhaps it should be Dreamy Vintage. You can download it here. Copy it to the folder where your other Lightroom Presets are. If you find it's making your photo to yellow, move your temperature slider to the left a bit.

A vignette was added on this.

Friday Finds - Safety Zone 1

Last year I began to revamp my flower beds. More on the reason why, later. Like I need one...
I had amassed quite a clump of lovely red and mustardy colored yarrow in an area that the bermuda grass was taking over. So it was rescued and moved to safe ground awaiting it's final destination. One of my mother's yellow daylilies was also moved to safety zone 1.
One day as I set out to shoot a few flowers I was amazed to FIND how perfectly placed everything was. I couldn't have planned this in a million years. I believe they've found a new home.
Lightroom edits.

 I coudln't resist doing one in a vintage style.

There's only one lily bud left to open now. Makes me rather sad.
Linking up with Friday Finds.

Beyond Beyond Day 1

Beyond Beyond has begun. The first assignment was to shoot from many angles, take your time and assess. I didn't take much time because I was packing to leave town and figured I'd work on it on the road. But in the end decided to just take my iPad, which was a good decision. When you go to visit the grand baby, you don't get much 'me' time. Which is totally fine with me.
I was pleased with the outcome and just happened to have this photo of my mom laying nearby. She's second from the right, 15 years old.
I found that I liked the angled photos but I also like the straight ones too. I believe if I had used all angled photos, this would not have looked very good at all. I may do a scrapbook page but for now a Lightroom template will do. Texture used was by Kim Klassen, 2701.
You can still sign up for the year-long class of awesome inspiration here. You won't be sorry.