Technique – Page 4 – Pics by Peep

Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape – Losing Myself In Pictures

Image May 18, 2013PeepSideshow Darkward21 Comments

When I saw the Weekly Photo Challenge prompt this week – Escape – I had grand ideas of heading into Second Life, pulling out a photo prop I have of balloons lifting me into the sky. Or wandering through one of the lovely sims I’ve featured before, or finding an all new destination to share. But to be honest, lately my escape has been in trying to improve my photo editing skills.

So I opened up a couple of folders and started reworking some old images. The first one is a totally different shot and crop from a photo I used for my Movie Soundtrack blog challenge (click the link if you want to see the original). I loved the idea behind this photograph – trying to recreate the elegance and beauty of Audrey Hepburn – but even after several attempts, I really wasn’t satisfied. Each of those shots, though, were tight closeups. Today I decided to go at it a different way – I pulled back the cropping and yes, I used a shot that has me sporting blue eyes, not Audrey brown. And I added a shadow.

I’m still not totally satisfied with this version, but it’s getting closer.

The second image I escaped to was the photo I entered in the Truth Model Search. I blogged this photo earlier this week , but sadly, Truth Hawks didn’t “favorite” it on Flickr. I was disappointed, to be honest; I worked very hard on this photo and it was one that I was actually pleased with when I finished it. Apparently, not good enough.

I decided to try a new technique I’ve picked up from a couple of tutorials – adding body shadows. This is my first attempt, and I’m not sure how successful I was, but it was an escape for me for over an hour.

I also added a frosted edge. I just don’t like sharp corners, and that was one thing that I regret not adding in the original. Easily fixed 🙂

I haven’t yet decided whether to enter the reworked shot in the contest. There are still a few days left before it closes; I may just leave my original entry, or I may continue my escape to create a winner.

I’ll let you know 🙂

As always, click the link to the Weekly Photo Challenge blog post above to check out the other entries.

What A Surprise!

Image April 24, 2013April 24, 2013PeepSideshow Darkward8 Comments

I’ve spent a LOT of time today on my post for tomorrow (it’s time sensitive, so you’ll have to stay tuned for more details *wink*), but I still wanted to post something today. Since I’ve been playing with Photoshop, I’ve been going through a lot of my old raw shots and ~~screwing them up~~ experimenting with them. I found some photos I shot at Image Essentials. That was a busy week for me, and although I processed a couple of photos and posted them to my Flickr page, I never actually blogged them.

So, since I decided I needed a quick post, I opened up the folder, and to my utter amazement, I found one I liked…that I hadn’t touched in any way! I’ve even left it in it’s original crop.

That made me think of a personal challenge Chic Aeon did a few weeks ago – Just One Shot Revisited. This is a personal challenge she used to do and recently did again. I decided to borrow her challenge to make this entry actually have a theme.

And without further ado, here is my “Just One Shot” photograph.

Oh…while I was uploading this picture, I found the two versions I had previously processed already in my media library. I guess I’d planned on using them, then forgot! But, I still think I like this one better 🙂

Image Essentials photo heavily processed

I know I’ve mentioned in previous posts that Chic Aeon is one of my favourite bloggers. This is my (pathetic) attempt at honouring her and her fabulous work 🙂

Learning Photoshop, Or This Will Be The Death Of Me!

Image April 21, 2013PeepSideshow Darkward4 Comments

I may have (or maybe I haven’t) mentioned that I don’t use Photoshop, GIMP, PDN or any other commercial photo editing programs to do my post-processing. I use a couple of web-based programs, mainly picmonkey.com. I’ve tried using GIMP and PDN before, and while I could use the basic tools, I just preferred using picmonkey. It’s simple, intuitive and allowed me the freedom to concentrate on sharpening my skills within the confines of that program.

However, there are limitations to what you can do with it. So, finding myself with some free time on my hands, I have decided to learn to use PS. I downloaded the trial version of CS6, armed myself with a mass of tutorials and took the plunge.

Sadly, I am lacking in one key attribute for learning a new skill: patience. I don’t think it helps that I have tried to learn this while I’m ill (I have a nasty cold or flu or some-such ickiness), so my normally thin level of patience has been eroded further. Not to mention my concentration levels.

However, I have persevered. And I’ve completed my first project in PS CS6. It’s not great, but it’s a start…right?

I went back to my Neva River photos. I wasn’t happy with any of my final results using picmonkey, so I tried again in PS. I really liked this first image, especially the pelican, but the foreground needed some fine-tuning and I didn’t like the sky.

And in this second photo, I loved the sky, but there wasn’t enough detail in the foreground to my liking.

Try as I might, picmonkey just doesn’t have the capability to easily make the changes I wanted in either of these photos.

After hours of banging my head against the desk, cursing like a trucker and repeated returns to my tutorials, I came up with this:

It still needs work, I know. I can see things in each photo that I would like to incorporate into the final version, and additional effects I’d like to try, but those can wait. Oh, and with PS, I CAN go back and make those changes. Not something I can do in picmonkey, after I’ve closed the image.

Photoshop tells you to “see what’s possible”. I’ve opened that door a crack and if it’s not the death of me, I’ll soon be showing you what’s on the other side.