technique – Page 4 – Pics by Peep

And She Whinges

Image May 1, 2013May 5, 2013PeepSideshow Darkward5 Comments

Yep, I’m gonna whinge (whine) a bit today.

I haven’t been feeling too well and I should be working on photos I shot for a friend on the weekend, but I just don’t seem to have the energy or concentration to give them the attention they deserve. But I wanted to post something today, so I clicked through a folder of older shots I took for an image I could work with.

I recently changed to a lovely, pale skin by Tuli, Helena. And I love it. But I also love the Meg skin I previously wore by Akeruka. This was a shot I took when I wore that skin daily. It was originally a much darker photo I had bypassed, but I’ve been playing around with tinting and curves and decided it would be a good practice shot before I go back to working on what I should be doing instead.

I always feel a bit pouty when I wear this skin. Kinda like I do today – just sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.

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.