A Walk In The Woods

I Have a Fever...

...and the only cure is more plant photos! (please tell me you get that SNL reference)

At the beginning of this month, I went back on day shift after being a graveyard zombie for two months. So rather than getting of at 6 am, I am now arriving home at 6 pm, and yesterday the lighting outside was de-li-cious. When I come home, I sometimes drive up the alleyway that also doubles as part of our driveway, and in doing so yesterday I noticed some beautiful tulips against a small white shed with a pretty red roof and a black window. The first word that popped onto my mind was "idyllic'. The second was "camera". So I jumped out of my car, rushed in the house, grabbed my camera, ran down the alley, snapped a couple quick photos, ran back up the alley, into my house, and kissed my husband.

Unfortunately, the sun was behind the shed but not low enough to provide good backlighting. Ah well, done is done. I didn't have time to dilly dally outside waiting for the sun to go down further. I had a husband and babies to get back to!

As it is, I was pretty happy with how the photos turned out.

"The Amazing and Astounding Orton Effect" Tutorial

I'm going to use the first photo I posted in my last post because it simply had the biggest 'WOW' factor.

Here's the SOOC image, no editing what so ever.


Ok, first you open the photo in Photoshop. Duh, right?

See the palate on the bottom right, where you have your layers? That would be your layers palate. Actually, I don't know if that's what it's technically called, but that's what I call it, so that's what we're going to call it. Ok? Good. See the only layer there that says "background"? Right click on that. A menu will pop up. Select 'Duplicate Layer'.


A little window will pop up that says 'background copy', just click ok. You now have two layers.

Now, in that same palate, see the little drop down menu on the top left that right now says 'Normal'? Click on that and select 'Screen'. This will lighten your photo a bit, don't panic and don't do anything to change that!


Now, go up to your layer menu on the top of your screen. In the menu that pops up, toward the bottom is Flatten Image. Click that. Now you'll notice that you're back to just having a 'background' layer in your layer palate on the bottom right.


Right click on that layer again and create another duplicate layer. This time, you're going to go up to your Filter menu, click on Blur, and then select Gaussian Blur. A little screen will pop up. You'll want to change the radius to 3.0 pixels then click ok. This will slightly blur your photo...again, don't panic.




Now, go back down to your layers palate and click on the drop down menu that says normal again. This time, you're going to select Multiply.


And shazam! Suddenly you have a photo that is crisp and colorful in the foreground and has a wonderful blur to the background, amping up any of that yummy bokeh that you may have already had. Here's the SOOC and the finished product side by side so you can really see the change. I did no other editing besides what I put on here, cross my heart.


If you have any questions, just leave them in the comments and then check back there for answers!

Back From the Land of Color

I feel a little like Dorothy waking up back in Kansas after the brilliance of Oz...only difference is that I brought two munchkins back home with me. The fam and I went to the Portland area for five days to visit family and friends and to test for a potential job. What struck me was how many flowers were in bloom over there! Eastern Oregon is just now starting to get her first cover of green, which every plant, tree, and flower in the Valley are showing their true colors. I, of course, went a little berserk with the super macro setting on our point and shoot. Sorry if you get tired of floral photos, but I just couldn't help myself.
















Oh! And next I'll be posting a tutorial on the Orton Effect. You can read about it here. This article has instructions for Photoshop Elements, which I don't use, so for those of you Elements peeps out there, this will help! I'll be showing you how to do it using Photoshop CS...the original version...not CS2 or CS3 or CS4...just plain ol' CS. It is A-MA-ZING with the right floral photos. So far I've only used florals, so I haven't yet experienced its awesomeness on a different subject.

We'll see how long the boys will let me work on this tutorial.

Old Rusted Cars Rock!