Figuring Out Photoshop Secrets

Last night, in a fit of exhausted sleeplessness, I started randomly clicking links on my blog list, and then clicking links on the blogs to see where I'd wind up. Fun for me, it actually paid off when I linked out of this bio to one of her shared free resources. Ever since I started taking photos, I've been amazed by eyes, but I could never figure out how to bring them out the way I had seen so many professional photographers do.

But now I know! And working off this gal's instructions in Photoshop, I found a bunch of new buttons and figured out a WHOLE LOT of new stuff. Now, I'm feeling a bit insecure over my first attempt with this, so if you want to leave an encouraging comment, I'll take it! I think I had some issues with my lighting levels because my face was almost completely shadowed in the original.

Sunday Texture

“The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today, I got enough done that I had a little time to play at the end of my productivity.

I created this image with a texture from Barb Henry. I like the vintagey look on it - antiqued love that is still new.

The florist at Peter and Sarah's wedding (coming soon!) was engaged, and she wore this lovely ring as she pinned the boutonnieres onto the groomsmen. I love how everybody loves weddings when we're at one - and I wonder at how far we grow away from them as the years pass.

Handy New Concepts

In my adventures around the photographical community I've been discovering, I have seen lots of technical terminology that I've heard but never really knew. I used to be so intimidated by *real* photographers that I would just ignore anything anyone said about the technical end of things and keep doing my thing - capturing the pictures I love, by hook or by crook. Thankfully, I own a very forgiving - I might even say benevolent - camera, that automatically seemed to know what I wanted.

Lately, however, I've been absorbing new terminology like "aperture," "exposure," "dof," "bokeh," and "lightbox" - the list goes on and on.

One of the handiest little concepts I've absorbed recently has been the "orton effect," a shooting/editing technique involving a composite of two differently-exposed images. This shot was taken with a cell phone and edited with the orton effect.

I've already been able to use this concept for my most recent wedding:



On the left image above is cropped out of a photo of the entire wedding party. The the shot on the right is the same cropped image after I applied the orton effect.

I created this by duplicating the photo layer in Photoshop Elements 4.0 and applying a blurry effect to the back layer. Then I used the cookie cutter tool to crop the front layer around the couple. I used the smudge tool to blend the cropping line, and I ended up with a photograph that was all about the bride and the groom.

I don't really know how technical it all is, but I liked the result, and the bride did too!