Happy New Year!!!

Alright, so I did not post my photo yesterday. I DID take it, however. This is my girl Renee being silly in her sexy mustache. Enjoy. ;)

As for today, I technically took these before I went to bed [this morning], but considering I went to bed after 2... here they are!

First, I wanted to try out some textures. The texture itself really is just my wall. I did not manipulate anything but the color aside from the usual contrast and vignette adjustments. Originally, these were a horrible orange.

Also, I'll throw in one more photo for good measure. Hope your day was as great as mine! :D

Worn 80s Ad Tutorial

Sandra asked me to use her photo (check it out here) to create a tutorial for an old 80s advertisement look, so of course I hopped on the chance. I promise you, this looks a lot longer and more complicated than it actually is. Just stick with it! :) It's meant for novices, hence the wordiness.

Open your file (of course).


Copy this photo and paste it over the photo. If it is smaller than your photo, just resize it until it is much larger.


Move the newspaper layer until the words are in a desirable position.


Double-click this layer, and under "Blend Mode:", change Normal to Multiply. Then, lower the Fill Opacity (NOT the Opacity) to a very low number. I used 6%. Press OK.


Under the Layer section, scroll down to Layer Mask and click Reveal All. This layer mask will allow you to "erase" parts of the layer without permanently losing it. Instead of using the erase tool, you use the brush tool on black to erase. If you wish to replace the erased information, just paint back over that area with a white brush.


Using a large soft, round brush, paint over your subject to remove disturbing areas of the texture. If you mess up a little, don't worry! Remember, you can paint white to put it back.

Next, click Layer -> New Fill Layer -> Solid Color...  and click OK on the pop-up. Now choose a grey color that you'd like to be your hue. I used d0d0cc.


Again, double-click the new layer and set the Blend Mode to Multiply. This time, leave the Fill Opacity alone.

Create another Solid Color fill layer, click OK, and choose a more reddish dark color. This is going to be the color of shadows in your photo, so make sure it's not too light. If you do make it too light, you can always fix it. In my case, I used 150f0f.


Double-click the new color and set it to Screen.

Now we get to the fun part: Brushes and textures. I personally look for these all over the place, but for this, I have used the "Paper Works" brush from 500ml. You can use any wrinkled paper brush you want for this effect.


First we're going to create a new layer. You can do this however you want. I simply type ctrl+alt+shift+N. Then, with your brush color set to black and your size larger than or the same size as your image, click over the photo.


Set the brush layer to Overlay.

Just to give the picture a tiny bit more texture, push ctrl+alt+shift+N again and ctrl+alt+shift+E. This will create a new layer that looks exactly like everything under it. It's called a stamp.


Under Filter, click Artistic and Plastic Wrap... Make your Highlight Strength very low (2 or 3), your Detail high (I used 11), and Smoothness very low (1-3). Don't worry about what this is doing to your subject. If it doesn't look alright, you can mask away the new highlights over the subject. Press OK.


Make another stamp and burn the edges of the photo however you want to make a vignette.

[OPTIONAL: Click on the Background layer and press ctrl+J or Duplicate Layer. Drag that layer to the top.


Making sure that your background color is set to white, go to Filter -> Distort -> Diffuse Glow. Graininess should be 0, Glow Amount medium (11 in my case), and Clear Amount medium (8 for me). It'll be different for every photo. You just want enough glow to make the edges of your subject fuzzy and white . Press OK.


Set that layer to Linear Dodge at Fill Opacity 10% or lower.]

Lastly, make a stamp of the finished product, double click it, and under Blending Options, click Gradient Overlay. Make the gradient diagonal with a gray on one side and white on the other. Set the Blend Mode of the Gradient Overlay to Color at around 58%. Press OK.

[OPTIONAL: Add text in a sans-serif bold font such as Eras Bold ITC and change the color to a midtone from the photo.]


Flatten your image and save it. You're finally finished!

Down with the sickness

I'm sick today so I'm just going to keep it short and simple. The challenge was rule of thirds, and this was on my back porch. lol

Softy

I was in a great mood today. Unfortunately, the camera says otherwise. This is what I ended up with for the soft light challenge:

Kind of dreary and moody. Hmm.

Anyhow, goodnight! :)

Why So Serious?

How was your day? Mine was great. My friend Renee is visiting for the week! I decided to photograph her today. The challenge was to illustrate coldness, but I didn't exactly go for that. On the other hand, it actually sort of works despite the warming filter I used. What do you think?

On another note, Sandra has requested that I revisit my cruddy image from a couple of days ago, so I used all her suggestions about it and this is what I came out with:

I do like the edit better-- the texture is a metal one I downloaded years ago-- but I'm still none too thrilled with this photo. I guess I'll have to try again someday!

I Feel Pretty

Today's challenge was supposed to be to emphasize the horizon, but... well, I just plain don't go outside during acceptable hours, SO instead I decided to photograph some shoes and my adorable new dress. :D I hope this is acceptable.

Inspiration was a no-show

:( Sorry. I spent today cleaning and sleeping my pain away. Wasn't doing a very good job on my photography. Maybe tomorrow?

The view from my window.