Sarah's Photography: May 2010

Monday, May 31, 2010

Editing Portraits

Match Color -

5/31/2010, 12:29 PM, F/5.0, 1/15, Layton, Utah, Canon Powershot SD780 IS

I took a picture that I really liked of my cousin, but I didn't turn on my flash so it was underexposed. I really liked the color of a picture I took outside of my other cousin, so I opened them both in Photoshop, and used the Match Color tool to replicate the color in the outside picture. I then increased the Luminance to 114 and the color intensity to 155.

Retouch -

5/31/2010, 3:47 PM, F/3.2, 1/30, Layton Utah, Canon Powershot SD780 IS

I decided to take a picture of my cousin who had a dirty face after eating a hot dog. I shot it using the auto feature on my camera. I used the spot healing brush to do the retouches on the right side of the face. It did really well covering up the little spots that were there. On the left side I used the healing brush tool, sampling pixels around the part that I wanted to fix. It took awhile to finally get it right. I didn't make any other edits than retouching so the retouches would be easier to see.

Replace Color -

5/31/2010, 4:17 PM, F/5.8, 1/160, Layton Utah, Canon Powershot SD780 IS

I took this picture of my cousin on the swing using the auto feature on my camera. I like the shovel she was holding, but I wished it matched. Well good thing I know how to change the color! I selected it using the quick select tool, then I went into the color replace tool and put the fuzziness at the highest level, and then changed it to a pink that matched her shirt. Perfect!

Portraits

Little C -
5/31/2010, 2:43 PM, F/4.0, 1/500, Layton Utah, Canon Powershot SD780 IS
For this shot I went outside while my cousins were playing. My cousin bet that I couldn't take a picture of him while he was running. He stopped and looked at the camera and I snapped this portrait of him. When I edited it, I cropped the photo, then used auto color, auto tone, and auto contrast. I then changed the vibrancy to 78 to get the rosy color on his cheeks to show up more in the photo.

Hats -

5/31/2010, 3:46 PM, F/4.0, 1/30, Layton Utah, Canon Powershot SD780 IS

My cousins were playing fireman and I asked them to pose for a photo and this is what I got. I used auto tone, color, and contrast at first. Then I messed around with the HDR settings in Photoshop. I used the Edge Glow with a radius of 138 px, and a strength of 3.25. Then I messed with the tone and detail settings. I changed the exposure to -1.09, the detail to +44, the shadow to +74. Then I changed the color to +50 and the saturation to +20.

Group Portrait -

5/31/2010, 2:49 PM, F/4.0, 1/125, Layton Utah, Canon Powershot SD780 IS

This was a hard shot to get. Trying to get two three year olds and a six year old to smile and look at the camera at the same time is not an easy task. I didn't center the picture well when I took it, so I cropped it and used auto tone, auto contrast, and auto color. Then I changed the vibrancy to 80.

Environmental Portrait -

5/31/2010, 4:17 PM, F/5.8, 1/160, Layton, Utah, Canon Powershot SD780 IS

My cousin was swinging out on the swing so I thought this would be a perfect time to get my enviornmental shot. I opened it and used the auto contrast, color, and tone. Then I changed the vibrancy to 60. Then I converted it to a smart layer to use different filters on it. I chose Diffuse Glow - Graininess 6, Glow amount 6, Clear Amount 15.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

High Dynamic Range

I took this photo right outside of the abandoned Mill. The photo is made of three photos with -2 exposure, 0 exposure and +2 exposure. I put it into Dynamic Photo and merged the images. Then I upped the vivid colors to .49, and increased the dramatic light strength to .34. I added the vignette soft filter on top to create this image

Image 1 - 5/21/2010, 4:45 PM, F/5.6, 1/500, Bannack Montana, Canon Powershot A720 IS

Image 2 - 5/21/2010, 4:45 PM, F/2.8, 1/500, Bannack Montana, Canon Powershot A720 IS

Image 3 - 5/21/2010, 4:45 PM, F/2.8, 1/125, Bannack Montana, Canon Powershot A720 IS

5/21/2010, 2:41 PM, F/4.0 1/1000, Bannack Montana, Canon Powershot A720 IS
For the second photo I took a picture of the trees next to the Hotel Meade. I put it into Dynamic Photo and increased the color saturation to 1. I used the Mysterious Light filter on the picture to give it an eerie greenish hue and make it look vintage.

Reverse Shallow Depth

5/21/2010, 5:20 PM, F/3.2, 1/100, Bannack Montana, Canon Powershot SD780 IS
Sage - I really love the window on the church at Bannack so I decided to do my reverse shallow depth with this scene. For this picture I used the macro setting on my camera to get it to focus really well on the sage and to blur out the rest. To edit it I first adjusted the color, tone, and contrast with the auto feature. Then I adjusted the vibrance to 73 to bring out the color.

5/21/2010, 5:20 PM, F/3.2, 1/80, Bannack, Montana, Canon Powershot SD780 IS
Church - For this picture I focused on the church instead of the sage brush, causing the brush to be blurry. I edited it the same as the previous photo, adjusting the color, tone, and contrast with the auto feature. Then I adjusted the vibrance to 73 also to get the color the same as the previous picture.

Action Freeze/Blur

5/21/2010, 2:02 PM F 3.2, 1/1000, Bannack Montana, Canon Powershot A720 IS
Josh/Freeze - To take this picture I set my shutter speed to the fastest speed possible in order to get a shot of him jumping off the steps in the hotel. To edit the picture I started by cropping it to focus more on Josh. I then did auto tone, contrast, and color. Then I increased the vibrance to 78 to boost the picture more.

5/21/2010, 12:47 PM, F/8, 2 sec, Bannack, Montana, Canon Powershot A720 IS
Ghost/Blur - I set the shutter speed really high to capture the blur. We shot this in the hotel hallway, where Levi walked across the hallway in a creepy way like a ghost. To edit this picture I first did auto tone, contrast, and color. Then I changed the brightness to 48 and the contrast to -48 to brighten the picture a bit.

Macro Abstract

Jars -
5/21/2010, 9:28 AM, F/4.5, 1/80, Dubois, Idaho, Canon Powershot SD780 IS
I found these jars in the abandoned warehouse we went to. I used the macro mode to get a good shallow depth.

Branches -
5/21/2010, 10:13 AM, F/4.5, 1/125, Dubois, Idaho, Canon Powershot SD780 (S
Outside of the haunted house there were many creepy looking trees. I thought they would make a good texture shot so I took a picture of them in macro mode.

Blend -
In order to put these two together, I took the branches picture and selected the midtones in color range selector. I then laid it on top of the picture of the jars. After adjusting the settings I decided on the overlay setting with the opacity set at 76% to give it a good dusty looking feel. Then I used black paint to paint around the jars, so the background would not have the texture on it and just the jars would.

Portraits

5/21/2010, 1:23 PM F/4.0, 1/250, Bannack, Montana, Canon Powershot A720 IS
Bre - I took this picture on the steps of the abandoned tool shop. To edit the picture I first cropped it, then I adjusted the curves to an S curve to make it more vibrant. Then I changed the exposure to -0.4 to make it a little darker because it looked overexposed.

Andrea -
5/21/2010, 1:17 PM F/4.0, 1/60, Bannack, Montana, Canon Powershot SD780 IS
I took this picture in the tool shop. For the edits for this picture I first cropped it to make her stand out. Then I adjusted the curves to an S curve. I adjusted the brightness/contrast to make the picture a little darker. I increased the vibrance to 100 percent to give it a little boost. Then I put a warming photo filter over it to increase the colors a bit. Then I adjusted the vibrance after those edits to 100 percent to give it the color I wanted.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Camera Raw

5/16/2010, 6;14 P.M., F/4.5, 1/800, Franklin, Idaho, Canon Powershot SD780 IS
My roommate and I were driving home from Logan when I decided to snap some pictures. The first thing I did when I opened the picture in Camera Raw was straighten it because I took it at a wonky angle. I increased the vibrance to 63 and reduced the brightness by 3. I used the white balance tool to see what it would do and it made it vintage looking.

Here it is in Camera Raw:

Here it is, unedited.

Panoramic Picture!

5/17/2010, 2:28 p.m., F/4.5, 1/500, Rexburg, Idaho, Canon Powershot SD780 IS
I have always thought the trees outside of the Ricks were gorgeous so I decided to take a panoramic shot of them. I started with one shot and then stood in one place while rotating the camera as slightly as I could. I merged all of the pictures in photoshop CS5, and cropped it so it would be even all around. I then used auto tone, contrast, and color, adjusted the vibrance to 100% and saturation to 30%. I am really pleased with how it turned out!

Here are the original photos:

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Flex Edits

5/9/2010, Layton, Utah, f5.0, 1/160, Canon Powershot SD 780 IS

I took a picture of a black swan. The swan didn't appear as black in the picture as I would have liked so in order to make it look more black I applied an adjustment with the screen setting to make everything lighter, and then I painted over the swan with black paint to revert it to the original and make the swan more black and stand out. I also cropped the picture a bit.

5/9/2010, Layton, Utah, f9.0,1/250, Canon Powershot SD 780 IS

I took a picture of a preschool that I found interesting with two red doors. I converted it to a smart layer and then messed around. In the end I chose the cutout filter from the artistic group and the grain - speckled filter.