• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About My Blogging World
  • My Dogs
    • Finally Found an Indestructible Squeaky Dog Toy!
  • Favorite Recipes
    • My Famous Sweet Pickled Jalapeno Recipe
  • Military Pride
  • Photography
    • Project 365
  • Joy of Advent
  • Affiliate Disclosure

3 Quarters Today

My Life, my photography, my passions

  • Graphic Design
  • Military Gift Store
    • Military Gift Ideas
    • Marine Corps Gifts
      • Marine Mom Gifts
      • USMC Veterans
      • USMC Ornaments
      • Boot Camp Books
      • Custom Designed USMC Gifts
    • Army Gifts
      • Custom Army Gifts
  • Shopping at 3 Quarters
    • Unique Photography Gifts
    • Unique Dog Gifts
    • 3 Quarters Photography Shop

Adobe Photoshop

Graduation Invitations and Announcements

March 19, 2013 by info@3QuartersToday.com

Looking for graduation invitations and announcements for a graduating senior there are many designs to choose from. 

I love designing and since I’ve had three seniors graduate in three years senior graduation invitations and announcements were high on my priority list. 

Design Your Own Graduation Invitations

If you don’t have Photoshop you can use pre-made graduation card templates at Zazzle and have them delivered right to your door.

Create your own Graduation invitations for high school seniors. Personalized high school graduation announcements and party invitations.

 

Graduation Card Ideas

High School Graduation Announcements

Custom Photo Graduation High School or College Announcement
Custom Photo Graduation High School or College Announcement
by ndjmom

If you are not having a party then graduation announcements are a perfect way to recognize the success and accomplishment of your high school or college student.

Photoshop Graduation Announcement Templates

Filed Under: Photoshop Friday Tagged With: Adobe Photoshop, free template, graduation, graduation invitations, Graphics, Highschool, Image Editing, Nebraska, Omaha, Photography, Photoshop, senior announcements, seniors

#16/52: My Favorite Country Barn, Edited with Lightroom

April 30, 2012 by info@3QuartersToday.com

I love country barns  (okay, it’s really a corn crib) in Nebraska is one of my favorite photography subjects, yet this shot is my favorite. I pass it at least twice a day and it sits in the middle of a field with nothing around it, solitary, no trees, just in the middle of a field with either corn or soybeans growing on all sides. It has different moods depending on the light and looks different in the early morning and at night with the sun setting behind the western sky.

My favorite barn gets my attention every time I drive past and have often taken photographs to capture the mode. They never come out exactly how it looks in real life though. But with the help of Adobe Lightroom this has changed, I can actually say that this is truly what the barn looked like that day.

Photographing Country barns
Barn against a Cloudy Sky

From what I understand in reading various photography blogs and sites a camera has difficulty collecting all the dynamic ranges of lights and darks. In simple terms you expose for the sky or your subject. That leaves the other parts of you picture over or under exposed.

The newest version of Lightroom 4 has an amazing capability of pulling out shadows, highlights, whites and blacks without leaving artifacts in the image. This was shot in RAW and I’m very impressed, puts my Photoshop CS2 to shame. The later versions of Photoshop do have more advanced algorithms that achieve the same thing, but I can only compare the programs I use.

I will still keep using Photoshop, Lightroom is only another tool to use and does not have text or graphic design capability. I still love adding drop shadows, borders and creating custom layouts.

Stay tuned for more Lightroom 4 examples, and possibly redo’s of previous photos as a comparison.

More Historic Country Barns

Barns of New York: Rural Architecture of the Empire StateBarn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail MovementBarn Find Road Trip: 3 Guys, 14 Days and 1000 Lost Collector Cars DiscoveredThe Barn: Memoir of a Family during the Nazi Occupation of Holland in 1940-1945

Country Roads and Friday Finds – Keeping With The Times

A Drive in the Country, barns, country, country living, keeping with the. Later in the day I visited Star Lake and ran into this fellow who was pretty much minding his own (business) … A Drive in the Country, barns, country, …

Barns along Polling Station Road | Hoof Beats and Foot Prints

Drive along with me on a windy country road. Polling Station Road in Harwood, Maryland offers views of a variety of country barns. Most of them from a past era of tobacco farming in southern Maryland and stand in the …

D.L. Marriott » Blog Archive » Living in a Fairy Tale

It draws up images of pumpkins and scare crows, hay bales and country barns framed in russet leaves. I grew up in the city, and although my husband and I have spent all our child raising years in the suburbs, pretty far out in …

Filed Under: Project 365 Tagged With: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Systems, barn, clouds, country, country barns, Elmwood-Murdock, Lightroom, midwest, Photography, Photoshop, rural, sky

Correcting Exposure Using the Histogram: Rowboat

April 20, 2012 by info@3QuartersToday.com

Using the Histogram on your Camera to get Better Photos

Now that I’ve improved my photography and editing skills I’m going through photographs from past years vacation and reworking them in Photoshop. This time I’m using the  histogram to set optimum exposure and getting much better prints. So here is a good example of editing a photo in Photoshop using the histogram, if you remember I took a trip to Block Island, Rhode Island and have hundreds of photos I absolutely love. Too bad I wasn’t shooting RAW then.

Using the histogram in Photoshop
Rowboat on Block Island, RI edited in Photoshop

First I straightened the image about 2 degrees clockwise. I was a little off kilter taking the picture.  The swimmers in the water were bothering me, so I cloned them out.

I’ve learned I cannot rely on my computer screen when it comes to the light balance in a photo. My computer screen is pretty bright and as a result I always misjudge the exposure in my edited photos. The best best is to use the histogram. The same is true when you take photos on your digital camera. Don’t rely on your camera LCD screen, especially during the summer. Use your histogram tool.

As you can see in the initial histogram below, the histogram is pushed to the darkside (left). In the levels adjustment tool I used the far right prompt and brought it to the edge of the curve to brighten up the whole photo. Much better.

Using the histogram in Photoshop
Example of initial histogram in the Photoshop Histogram

Even with my Canon Rebel camera and exposing to the right, I still throw my exposure off, but I am getting better. Although I try not to chimp (constantly look at the camera screen after each shot) I will occasionally check the histogram in camera to make sure I’m not clipping my blacks or whites. As you can see int he photo above the left side of the graph is barely touching, so I didn’t lose very much information in the dark regions.

Canon DSLR Photography Quick Reference Tip Cards & Cheat Sheets for Canon Rebel T5i T4i T3i T3 T2i T1i XSi XS XTi XT 60D 7D 6D 5D Mark III IIBuW OMES L-3 Photography Exposure Meter / Continuous Light Meter with LED Display

If you shoot in RAW then you can recover a lot of digital information in the lights and darks. But I prefer to get a photo properly exposed in the camera as best that I can to eliminate major digital darkroom edits.

Any of the below programs have a histogram function in the editing mode. If you are a beginner then Photoshop Elements is where I would start. That will give you the biggest flexibility as far as text, layers, cloning and photo manipulation. If you just want to edit your photos and not get really creative with layers then Lightroom is the way to go, I LOVE Lightroom. Many people choose to subscribe to the Adobe Cloud for the $10/month you have full usage of both Photoshop and Lightroom and never have to worry about outdated software.

Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan (Photoshop CC +Editors Keys Dedicated Keyboard for Photoshop | PCAdobe Photoshop Lightroom 6 | PC DownloadNEW ADOBE PHOTOSHOP KEYBOARD STICKERS FOR DESKTOP, LAPTOP AND NOTEBOOK

 How to Use the Histogram to Get Better Photographs

Using the Histogram to Get Better Photos – Pentax Forums

Have you ever wondered what that graph-looking thing on your camera display or in Lightroom was? Or what you are supposed to do with it? If so, then read on to find out more about the mysterious histogram and what it can …

News Shooter | Blackmagic Design add histogram and …

Using the histogram scope, customers can now easily and rapidly set exposure in a shot as the histogram shows the the distribution of luminance in their images and if highlights or shadows are being clipped. Images with …

Histograms Explained: How a Simple Tool Can Help You …

There are a few drawbacks to using the histogram to judge exposure, however. Since it only gives you an overview of exposure by showing you the density of pixels, it can’t give you any specific information about which parts …

Lightroom Histogram Cheat sheet | Photographer Abroad

The contrast of the image can also be determined using the histogram. The more spread out the values are in the graph the more contrast is in the image. Conversely, an image with all the values concentrated in one zone is …

Blackmagic Camera 1.9

Using the histogram scope, customers can now easily and rapidly set exposure in a shot as the histogram shows the the distribution of luminance in their images and if highlights or shadows are being clipped. Images with clipped highlights or shadows …

 

Filed Under: Photoshop Friday Tagged With: Adobe Photoshop, Block Island, boats, photo editing, Photography, Photoshop, photoshop friday, Rhode island, Travel and Tourism, using the histogram, Vacation, water

U.S. Marine in Service Charlies

April 18, 2012 by info@3QuartersToday.com

Nothing is sexier than a Marine in his BCG glasses at boot camp. Or maybe not, considering the nickname for the standard issue Marine eye glasses in 2011 were called “Birth Control Glasses” as in you look like the ultimate nerd, they cover your face, make your eyes look big and even cause Mom (me) to snicker a bit.

U.S. Marine in Service Charlie Uniform

If a recruit wears glasses or contacts they are issued  standard-issue spectacles, S9s or commonly called  or BCG’s “Birth Control Glasses” because they are so ugly that no girl will come near you. They have been a staple in the military and are tough, sturdy and just plain ugly.

Marines joke about them, raze each other, but they are just as  much as they are hated they hold a certain affection amoung the ranks. I just read on the Marine Corp blog they are being retired for those interested “Goodbye Birth Control Glasses” is a very good read.

This image was taken on Family Day at MCRD San Diego after the MotoRun. The new Marines change into their Service Charlies uniform, and garrison hat, or cover (Marines often refer to it as their “piss cutter”.) and then have their first five hour liberty to spend with their families on base.

I have two sons in the U.S. Marine Corp, one stateside and one in Afghanistan and have come across a Twitter theme #WarriorWednesday. So I thought why not start a new theme and feature on my blog. I don’t know how long this will last, but at least until I run out of photos and images. So it might take a while.

This photo started off as “PhotoShopFriday posting until I thought of the #WarriorWednesday. I adjusted the levels, color selected the blue sky, and darkened the blues, used shadows and highlights to open up the shadows on his face and then cropped for a better balanced photo.

Marine Corps Boot Camp

If you are interested in what Marine boot camp is all about here are some books that come highly recommended by Marine recruiters for new poolees (recruits waiting to ship to boot cam) and parents of Marines.

Welcome to Hell: Three and a Half Months of Marine Corps Boot CampMarine Corps Boot Camp Survival Guide: Everything You Need To Know To Prepare For (And Live Through) Marine Corps Boot CampThis Recruit: A Firsthand Account of Marine Corps Boot Camp, Written While Knee-Deep in the Mayhem of Parris IslandThere’s Always One!: 50 Rules for Surviving Marine Corps Boot CampThe Making of a MarineMaking the Corps: 10th Anniversary Edition with a New Afterword by the Author

Related Articles

  • Happy Birthday Marine Corps
  • Gifts for A Marine Graduating Boot Camp
  • A Mom’s Letter to the Marine Corps
  • A Marine Mom’s Real Fear
  • Marine Corps Reading List

Filed Under: Family, Marine Corps, Military Pride, Travel Adventures Tagged With: Adobe Photoshop, California, family, Family Day, marine, Marine Corps, marines, military, photo editing, Photo manipulation, Sand Diego, travel, U.S. Marine, uniforms, United States Marine Corps, USMC

Sometimes A Picture is NOT What it Seems

April 13, 2012 by info@3QuartersToday.com

I have to admit, I really like Photoshop.  I’m amazed at how I can improve a photo that has distractions or just didn’t turn out like I hoped. Most photos I don’t manipulate but some call for just a little more work than others.

My dog Brody, a Jack Russel, is a perfect example. This is a before and after of a previous post from my 365 Project

Jack Russell dog, before and after Photoshop

Related articles
  • Photoshop It! (selvangovender.com)
  • A cabin in the woods (wcs4.blogspot.com)

Filed Under: Project 365 Tagged With: Adobe Photoshop, Brody, dog, Image Editing, jack russell, pets, Photo manipulation, Photoshop, Spring, terriers

  • Page 1
  • Page 2
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

What I Write About

Shop Amazon

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Categories

Visit my Facebook Page

Visit my Facebook Page

Pages

  • About My Blogging World
  • Affiliate Disclosure
  • Army Gifts
    • Custom Army Gifts
  • Best Place to Print Political Yard Signs
  • Cool Gifts for Photographers and Camera Lovers
  • Food & Recipes
  • Google Search Results
  • Marine Boot Camp Resources for Parents
  • Marine Corps Gifts for Any Occasion
    • Best Gifts for Marine Corps Veterans
    • Marine Mom Gifts
    • Marine Mom Shirts & Gifts
    • USMC Ornaments
  • Military Gifts for Birthdays and Christmas
  • Personalized Custom Graphic Design Services
  • Unique Dog Gifts for Pet Owners

Recent Posts

  • Starting a Small Business in the Second Half of Life
  • Marine Corps Birthday and Veterans Day
  • Local Farmers Market Booth Ideas
  • High School Graduation Party Ideas
  • How I Became a Face Mask Designer

Tags

365project Advent animals Block Island christmas Connecticut cooking country dogs Elmwood-Murdock Faith family flowers Food God Holiday Holidays Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod marine Marine Corps memories midwest military music Nebraska Omaha pets Photography Photoshop postaday Product Review project365 recipe rural Silent Sunday small town snacks snow Spring summer tradition travel USMC video winter

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Footer

Copyright © 2025 · Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

 

Loading Comments...