Sunday, March 11, 2007

Photographs

Pink Rose from a wedding bouquet.


I've become quite envious of some of the photos I've been seeing out in blogland of late, so tonight I attempted to play a bit with Adobe Photo Shop a bit more. I've come to a conclusion...I ought to just hire it done! There is such a huge margin between what I'd like to do and what I do, that I get frustrated.

Okay, so I've only been at this photo shop thing a couple of weeks. But I've been looking at the loveliest photos of horses, and their manes are simply floating in front of a black background. Now, that background wasn't black to being with, so someone had to come along and do the whole editing and layering thing.

Inspired, I pulled up a photo of Quiet Storm. She has this annoying habit of sticking her nose into my camera lens whenever it passes by. So, being the sort to make lemonade when I'm handed lemons, I decided tonight to fiddle with one of the famous eyeball shots.






Here's the first shot. Her nose is right alongside the lens, no doubt wondering why I haven't brought her a treat. She refuses to stand even two feet from the camera. Some wild horse she's turned out to be!




Below is my shoddy attempt at deleting the yucky barnyard background and putting in a sophisticated black. Um...yeah...well, it could use some work. I like that long eyelash that comes down beneath her eye; I managed not to botch that one up so bad. But there's still something not quite right, and I'm not liking the hair up near the ear. Perhaps I'll take the black in a little closer to the eye and see how that looks...but not tonight, as I'm half blind just from this.




Another one I've been working on tonight is of Sunny. This has been twitched in a couple of different ways... It's been cropped way down, I changed out the background and then created a painted look using a tool called 'dry brush.' I also played with the lighting angle. Actually, I rather like this one. Giving it the painted look covers up a multitude of photo shop sins!


Well, that's it for now. Darling isn't feeling so well tonight; she's got a migraine. It used to be she'd get them all the time, but we got this little blue wonder pill for her. Her pediatrician gave us three refills, but since they hadn't come very often the past few years, it took her three years to use up that one bottle.

Now she's out, and the pharmacy won't refill it because it's been so long. And to make things more difficult, her pediatrician retired! We tried last month to get a refill, but even though it was the same clinic, no one would call us back. So tomorrow I'm going to call the naturalpath and have him do it for us. I'm guessing Darling won't be going to school; she used to get terribly sick with these headaches. (Amazing how the headaches stopped when she started homeschooling, and now they've started again when she's back in school...coincidence? Guess we'll find out as time goes on!)

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Tracey, I love what you've done with those photos, I haven't gotten that far with Photoshop yet, it all seems overwheming? I like the horse painting too, looks like a real painting.

Anonymous said...

I hope Darling is feeling better.
Beautiful work you've done on the photos!
E-less

Betty Jo said...

I like all of your works of art. I have so much fun playing with the artistic filters in Photoshop. When I extract a background I do it the painful way. I use the pen tool to extract the photo and then layer onto my choice of backgrounds. When doing so it helps to use the blur tool around the raw edges of the extraction to blend it in better. My friend Ronna Penner has some of the best tuts here:
http://scrapadelic.libsyn.com/

Smudge painting in Photoshop is something I want to learn to do. Here is a thread on a forum where I like to hang out. Be sure to scroll down to the photo of the guy and his horse. Makes me think of you.
http://www.digishoptalk.com/boards/showthread.php?t=24331&highlight=smudge+tool

I posted my first try at it in this thread:
http://www.digishoptalk.com/boards/showthread.php?t=24586&highlight=smudge+tool

Or you can see my first attempt here, both the before and after:
http://digiscribbles.com/smudge_paint.htm

Have fun "digi-painting". xoxox

Betty Jo said...

Shoot those links broke up and won't work. If you would like to have them, email me and I'll send them to you:
bjm_photoATyahoo.com (change AT to @)

jaded said...

The irony isn't lost on me that you mention photoshop and migraine in the same post...PS has a steep leaning curve, but the features really pay off in the long run. Experiment with your layers and the layer options, like opacity, and multiplying. The layers are a powerful tool for making transitions appear more natural. You've got the right idea....play, play, play and play some more.

Tracey said...

Thanks for both the compliments on what I've done so far, and for the encouragement and links!

Betty Jo, I've got the first link up right now and am looking forward to the others.

E-less, Darling will likely miss school today. It's been four years since she's had a really bad migraine; they used to last 3-5 days. I really need to get that little blue miracle pill!

Dixie said...

I have the cheap version, PS Elements, I love playing with my photos.

Looks like you're doing a good job to me!

TJ said...

I've been wanting to invest in Photoshop but I have trouble just cropping a picture in Picassa...sigh!!
:-D
PS...I thought you did purdy good!!

Werna Gail said...

It's been awhile since I've been here, we have had company. Got caught up on your blog....really enjoyed reading about the family history thing.
Wish I could offer some pointers on photos but you are way ahead of me in that department. :-)

smilnsigh said...

Interesting work. Never tried any of that Photoshopping stuff. :-)

Sorry that Darling gets such a reaction to school. -sigh-

And a naturalpath can write an Rx? Well, I don't even know what a naturalpath is. :-) But I know a lot about Pharmacy.

Mari-Nanci

Tracey said...

Thanks for the kind words, everyone =)

Gail, so good to have you back!

Mari-Nancy, some naturalpath's can, some can't; I guess it depends on your training level.

Carole Burant said...

I think you're doing really well with the Photo Shop program...that's one I'd love to get soon! That second picture, with the painted look is really awesome!! Sure hope Darling feels better real soon...those migraines are no fun at all:-( xox

Bluepaintred said...

muahahah is the famous eye photo about ree, the poineer woman or am i off base?

by the way i have had photoshop for like three years and all i can do is play with lighting. so rock on!