3 Quarters Today

My Life, my photography, my passions

Photoshop

Day 147/365: Dogwood Trees

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Dogwood Blossoms (Olympus E-10)

Once again my Olympus E-10 comes out with me as I searched for more spring blossoms. I believe this is a dogwood tree, but I could be wrong, I’m not very good with flowering trees, so correct me if  I’m wrong.

What I like about my Fuji S1500 is I can carry it in my purse. Although I like the weight and feel of the Olympus, heavy, like a “real” camera.

Photography notes: This image was severely over exposed, something I can’t see in the view finder as I’m adjusting the settings (or maybe I’m doing something wrong) maybe I should look up an owners manual.  I have started to use the curves layer in Photoshop and bumped up the histogram to darken the image and I spot sharpened the foreground slightly.

Day 138/365: Rock the Prom Dress, Break Out the Red Carpet

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Prom season is here and countless high school juniors and seniors will be buying a prom dress and renting tuxedos in preparation to  show off their finery for a night to remember. At Elmwood-Murdock High School being small doesn’t mean we don’t go all out for prom.

Prom 2011

The post prom committee, parents and students spend all year fundraising to have a high class prom. Students wait in the lobby of the school to take their “red carpet” walk to the two chartered buses. Waiting outside are throng of paparazzi (parents with camera) waiting to take a picture of their daughters in their prom dress along with their beaming dates. Ok, some guys don’t beam at the fuss, but many think it’s pretty cool.

Formal dates are not essential, many go as groups, single guys and single girls also have a good time. I also took the “traditional” shots, but wanted to get a little more stylized with my photography and highlight on the gorgeous prom dresses and finery of the formal evening.

This year prom was held at the Lancaster Event Center in Lincoln, with post prom at the one of the Lincoln YMCA’s. I don’t know where they had more fun. Post prom included swimming, a rock wall, “A Minute To Win It” games, and prizes which included Notepad computers (which my son won) GPS trackers and much more.

PhotoShop: Typical layers with an increase in brightness, contrast and touched up the sharpness on the prom dress and added a little burn to emphasis the design. Added a layer stroke, selected the color from the dress, and added a drop shadow. The text is just one text box with the vertical spacing decreased so the two lines would overlap, text color is white and black with decreased opacity to soften the colors. I had fun with this one!

Did You Know, You Can Buy a Prom Dress Online?

Last year my daughter bought a prom dress on line. I learned more and more girls are doing this so they will have the unique dress and not end up wearing the same prom dress from Debs that another classmate bought. The safest place to buy a prom dress is on Amazon as they have a return policy if it doesn’t fit right or look the way you expected.

It is strongly advised to shop early for your prom dress though, not only due to the return policy, but to make sure your date knows what the color so he can order the corsage and tux color.

Below are some of my favorite prom dresses on Amazon.

Women ball gown evening prom dress Women’s bra Fishtail wedding dress- BlueTidetell Elegant Floor Length Bridesmaid Cap Sleeve Prom Evening Dresses BurgundyIDOBRIDAL Tulle Beaded Bridesmaid Evening Party Prom Ball Gown Dress -BlueIDOBRIDAL Tulle Beaded Bridesmaid Evening Party Prom Ball Gown Dress -YellowFavebridal 2015 Women’s Long Formal Evening Prom DressesJAEDEN Girl’s Sweetheart Charming Formal Evening Dresses Long Prom Gown Hot Pink

Day 127/365: Photographic View of Church

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Today was my day of playing around in Photoshop again. This time with plug-ins from Xero-Graphics. The subject my home church of Trinity Lutheran in Murdock Nebraska. I was driving by ans a friend was taking pictures for our upcoming open house dedicating the new fellowship hall. So I stopped, said “Hi” and took a few myself. Turned out to be a perfect subject for some special effects.

Which one do you like best and why?

#1: Straight out of camera (SOOC)
#2; Xero Tweak w/burn edge
#3 Xero Illustrator w/burn edge
#4: Xero Line Art
#5: Not sure which effect, misname it, but it's a xero effect, I can find it again.

Here is a different photograph, but taken at the same time in black and white. I’ll tell you which is my favorite after the comments and voting is tallied.

#6 Different image, taken at the same time, but an effect I like

Day 126/365: Welcome Spring!

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Day 126: Wecome Spring!

I have been waiting for a beautiful sunny and breezy day to take a picture of this banner on my friends porch. It just shouts spring, and we finally had the perfect sunny spring day. So welcome spring!

Image straight out of camera (SOOC)

Photoshop CS2 edits: It was such a sunny day and I over exposed the image, so I decreased the brightness, adjusted the contrast and cloned out the artifacts in the upper left corner that were distracting. It’s now a lot more striking. I love Photoshop!