portrait enhancements

all images taken with Canon PowerShot A520

1.carolee unedited: 10/24/09; 2:10 pm; Rexburg; f 3.2; 1/60
2.carolee edited: used healing brush, clone stamp, and sponge tool + to enhance portrait (removed what little acne there was, whitened teeth and whites of eyes, increased saturation in eye and lip color, removed a strand of hair that was across face, removed darkness under the eyes, changed color of shirt, etc)
3.emily unedited: 8/12/09; 7:40 pm; Star Valley; f 3.2; 1/320
4.match color: 8/12/09; 7:30 pm; Star Valley; f 5.6; 1/1000
5.emily edited: used match color option to pull the color tones from the second picture and apply them to the first one; slightly adjusted levels and saturation

I was very appreciative of this editing assignment for the practice. The portrait enhancement tutorial was especially helpful and worthwhile, and I felt like I was able to learn a lot about the benefit of just little changes that don't detract in any way from the personality of the person but simply 'enhance' the portrait. The match color option is absolutely incredible. I didn't realize just how bad the coloring in my original image was until I saw it contrasted with the edited one—so incredible. I couldn't believe the difference and how easy it is to make the edit.

portraits

all images taken with Canon PowerShot A520

1.michael: 10/23/09; 3:05 pm; Rexburg; f 2.6; 1/320
2.michael 2: 10/23/09; 3:15 pm; Rexburg; f 3.5; 1/250
3.sheryl: 10/23/09; 10:00 pm; Rexburg; f 4.0; 1/60
4.emily: 8/12/09; 8:00 pm; Star Valley; f 2.6; 1/250

I think I definitely struggle with portraits and group shots—I especially hate having to tell people how to pose, that is something that is really hard for me. Other than that, I enjoyed the practice for this assignment. I took a bunch of pictures of Michael trying to get a few that I was proud of. I also followed my roommates around at the Masquerade Ball on Friday night trying to get a couple of decent shots and ended up with one (number 3) that I really liked a lot. My last portrait is from a little bridals photo shot I had with my cousin this summer a couple days before she got married and that was my absolute favorite of all the ones I took of her. That is one portrait I am really proud of. The levels and saturation were adjusted a little bit in each of these.

edge effects

all images taken with Sony Cyber-shot DSC H7 (checked out from library)

1.green truck unedited: 10/17/09; 3:30 pm; Swan Valley; f 8.0; 1/160
2.green truck edited: adjusted levels and saturation; applied smart filter angled strokes; saved as jpg to flatten layers; reopened and deleted the image before using the history brush tool to “paint” the image back on; added the black border by increasing the canvas size
3.plant unedited: 10/17/09; 1:00 pm; Swan Valley; f 5.0; 1/60
4.plant edited: adjusted levels; changed crop settings (width: 5.5 in, height: 3.15 in; res:150) and cropped the image; added black border by increasing the canvas size (made bottom of black border wider); added text

I really enjoyed the edits this week just because they were such practical things to do (especially the second one where all I did was increase the canvas size) but they make a huge effect in the look of the image and really give it a professional feel. I also never really knew how to use the history brush tool before, but giving the painting effect was a cool way to experiment with that tool. Both of these images were taken in Swan Valley and I love the shallow depth of field on the second one—I actually took it in a huge crater there and I thought the lighting turned out really good.

night & light

1.candles: 10/15/09; 8:00 pm; Rexburg; f 8.0; 1/10; Canon PowerShot A520
2.lighter: 10/15/09; 7:40 pm; Rexburg; f 2.6; 6.0; Canon PowerShot A520
3.night fishing: 10/16/09; 10:00 pm; Swan Valley; f 3.5; 8.0; Sony Cyber-shot DSC H7 (checked out from library)
4.drum-set: 10/17/09; 8:05 pm; Rexburg; f 8.0; 1/20; Sony Cyber-shot DSC H7 (checked out from library)

I really just loved this assignment. I probably spent more time over the weekend taking pictures for this assignment than I spent on any of my other homework. Last Thursday was my cousin's husband's birthday, so I took advantage of the opportunity to take pictures of the candles before he blew them out. For my second shot, using their lighter, I set my camera to a shutter speed of six seconds and my boyfriend wrote out my name while I held the camera steady. The next night I was in Swan Valley, Idaho, and apparently there are quite a few people who go night fishing by the dam. It was so pretty to see with the way the light lit up the water, so I tried to capture that in my third picture. The fourth was taken at guitars unplugged on Saturday night and I thought the lights turned out really cool in that shot.

HDR

all images taken with Sony Cyber-shot DSC H7 (checked out from library)

1.+1 exposure: 10/7/09; 12:40 pm; Bannack; f 2.8; 1/500
2.0 exposure: 10/7/09; 12:40 pm; Bannack; f 2.8; 1/1000
3.-1 exposure: 10/7/09; 12:40 pm; Bannack; f 2.8; 1/2000
4.HDR hotel meade: created an HDR file in Dynamic Photo; tone map; ultra-contrast; dramatic light radius; color equalizer
5.extra HDR masonic temple: created an HDR file in Dynamic Photo; tone map; ultra-contrast; dramatic light radius; color equalizer; curves

For our editing assignment this week we had to download Dynamic Photo and got to play with HDR. HDR is incredible! I had a lot of fun experimenting with it on a few pictures over the weekend and these were my favorite two. I found quite often that on a lot of the effects I liked the preset settings better than when I tried changing them. I found that the methods were really fun to play with though ultra-contrast was probably my favorite and I used it the most.

bannack best

all images taken with Sony Cyber-shot DSC H7 (checked out from library)

1. shallow depth: 10/7/09; 3:50 pm; Bannack; f 2.8; 1/80
2. ghost: 10/7/09; 1:40 pm; Bannack; f 8.0; 4.0
3. portrait: 10/7/09; 3:40 pm; Bannack; f 3.2; 1/100
4. chain fence: 10/7/09; 3:45 pm; Bannack; f 3.2; 1/800
5. window: 10/7/09; 3:20 pm; Bannack; f 2.8; 1/640
6. fence: 10/7/09; 4:20 pm; Bannack; f 2.7; 1/800
7. house: 10/7/09; 4:15 pm; Bannack; f 2.7; 1/800
8. stove: 10/7/09; 2:30 pm; Bannack; f 4.0; 1/15

These are some of my favorite shots from our trip to Bannack. Bannack was so much fun! It would be cool to go back now just with the experience we got from shooting there all day last Wednesday. It's amazing to me how much time you can spend at a place like that just taking pictures. The ghost shots were so much fun and I wish I had experimented with them more—I was just happy to figure out how to do it and take one that worked! It was fun to see everyone get so creative with those. I adjusted the levels on all of these and barely upped the saturation on most of them.

adjustment layers & smart filters

all images taken with Canon PowerShot A520

1.apples unedited: 10/2/09; 6:25 pm; Rexburg; f 2.6; 1/30
2.apples edited: converted layer to smart object; added filters: watercolor, grain, unsharp mask; increased saturation; adjusted levels; added border with black paintbrush
3.apple tree unedited: 10/2/09; 6:26 pm; Rexburg; f 3.2; 1/80
4.apple tree edited: adjusted levels; multiply layer blend effect; masked out apple and some of the leaves with black paintbrush on layer mask; increased saturation

As can be seen, I got somewhat on an apple kick with this assignment. There is a really cool mini-orchard by the temple that I had never discovered until about a week ago, so I was really excited to take some pictures there for this assignment. After these edits, I am pretty sick of looking at apples. Again, I was really disappointed in how washed out these looked online compared to how they look in photoshop. I even tried to compensate by going back and exaggerating some of the levels and saturation adjustments and reposting them, which kind of helped a little I guess, or maybe just made them worse. I also could never figure out how to get layer masks to show up on my smart filters so that was pretty frustrating when I couldn't figure out how to achieve some of the effects I had originally intended to do.

flora & fauna

all images taken with Canon PowerShot A520

1.goldfish: 6/23/07; 6:50 pm; Ridgecrest, CA; f 3.2; 1/400
2.red: 10/2/09; 6:15 pm; Rexburg; f 3.5; 1/1000
3.flowers: 10/2/09; 6:40 pm; Rexburg; f 2.6; 1/60
4.apple tree: 10/2/09; 6:25 pm; Rexburg; f 2.6; 1/30

Most of the pictures I took for this assignment were from the gardens, except for the goldfish, which was taken at my friend's wedding reception (those were the centerpieces). I noticed tonight that the quality of my pictures went noticeably down from the .psd doc to the posted .jpg. I'm sure it's happened with the other pictures I've uploaded, but I just didn't notice until tonight when all my colors seemed washed out compared to how they look in photoshop. That was kind of frustrating. I used a levels adjustment layer and upped the saturation on all of these except for the second one—the original was good enough as is.