I wanted to put some time into my Photoshop project this weekend, too.
So here’s what I’ve done so far:
Read all the David tutorials for this month as well as the prep ones: Digital Workflow:
all four parts, Creative
Workflow, Portraits: part
1, Masking: part
1, and Lanscapes:
creating dramatic skies
I will need to reread them again of course, but it was some good reading
for now. Here are a few lessons I learned in general (they’re all over
the place, mostly for me to remember):
- Always shoot RAW if you can. This gives you a lot more flexibility
in post-processing. This is something I knew but didn’t do often enough,
I’ll be playing with RAW this month, all month.
- Don’t overexpose, you can’t get that information back. Don’t create
a right gap, you can’t get that detail back either.
- When processing a RAW image, process conservatively so it gives you
the most flexibility when adjusting in Photoshop.
- If you process RAW and then open as smart-object (shift-click the
Open Image button), you can go back and redo RAW processing if need.
(like to reduce noise)
- Remember that the edges of an image can be a distraction. This of
where you’d like the viewers eye to focus and how you’d like it to
travel (this applies to layouts too.)
- If you want to combine layers, selecting the entire image (Select ->
All), using the Copy Merged command (Edit -> Copy Merged), then the
Paste command. This is functionally equivalent to flattening the image.
- If you want change the highlights but not saturation – try changing
the layer to “luminosity” for the curve adjustment.
So I wanted to put a little example of what magic masks can be. Be
forewarned that this is a quickie so it’s far far from ideal and the
original wasn’t RAW so that hurts the process, too. Not to mention I
over-saturated for effect. So with all that….
Here’s a photo I took last year in Pismo Beach:
As you can see it’s really flat so if I were to do some basic curves to
try to mess with the white point and some highlights and lowlights,
here’s what I get:
It makes the image a bit more full of contrast but now my sky is
completely blown out and you can see no detail at all. If I were to use
masks and do my saturation/curves using masks, here’s what I can accomplish:
Yes, it’s over-saturated, but look at the detail in the sky and the
detail in the sea. You can have your cake and eat it, too. More on masks
next week.
Emily’s question from last week is: “what do i wish for this year to
bring?” and as I’ve already spoken about many many times, mine is for peace.
The technique I used for this week is the Mini Misters and I took my
inspiration from this
tag by Tim Holtz. I’ve been playing more and more with his products
and loving every moment of it.
Catalyst
Forty-four is up: What’s something about the way you live your life
that doesn’t align with who you are (or wish you were)?
Here are my words:
Ever since I can remember, I’ve made career and life decisions such that
I could stay at home when I had children. Even back when I was 10, I
wanted to study computers because I knew it was a career I could pursue
from home. And yet, here I am, working at a large company, spending a
lot of time in meetings, and not at home with my wonderful boy. With
another little one on the way, this is the largest way that my life is
out of sync with how I wish it were, so I know I need to find some
solutions.
I started this project last night and had so much fun. The technique for
this card was water-soluble crayons.
David and Jake are spending most of the day watching football. David
also loves watching movies on Jake’s G1 Android phone. I just love
watching them. See his beard? He’s been growing it for day and I love
seeing it but it is not fun to touch or kiss.
Quiet day for me. I worked on the tags last night (photos coming next)
and four catalysts today. I also got my CK kit finally so I put all the
cards in for all the days and decided on a routine:
– daily photos taken and posted on the blog here with notes
– weekly updates of the journaling cards, written in pen
– monthly ordering of prints to put in the album (not sure where yet.)
Things are starting to get organized a bit. Off to do some Photoshop
reading. Happy Sunday.
I captured this little gem as David and Jake were playing outside. We
had just come out of ThemeFest where we hope to have David’s Fourth
birthday in a few weeks. Before that we drove up to San Fran airport to
meet our friend Dave and his wife Christine as they had a layover on
their way back from the Philippines to Cincinnati. I hadn’t seen Dave in
a long long time so it was nice to catch up.
The rest of the day has so far been quiet. I came home and fell into a
long nap and have just woken up to my relatively long to-do list. It’s
looking at me and I’m looking at it and not sure where to start. On we go.
It’s been a few rough days for me. Two days ago, my watch stopped
working, which is a major major problem for me. Then there’s the
exhaustion I mentioned yesterday which got worse and worse throughout
the day. I then came home to notice that my diamond bracelet wasn’t on
my arm anymore and that was just the last bad thing I needed for the week.
Just when I thought I wanted to crawl into bed and have this week be
over, I noticed my diamond bracelet sparkling in the bed. And then I
went to visit Big Picture Scrapbooking and saw that my Projects Now!
class Change in
Plans was finally up and my day just did a 180! Teaching at BPS is
my biggest scrapbooking dream. I am very passionate about teaching and
BPS is exactly where I wanted to teach the minute I heard about it two
years ago. This truly is a huge huge dream come true so I am really
excited and had to make it my photo of the day. If you download it, I
hope you send me an email and let me know how you liked it.
And I will leave you with a photo of David from this morning at school.
Ok. Here’s my final planned project for 2009. As you will notice the
numbers go down: 365 photos, 52 tags, 52 catalysts, and now 12 areas of
focus. I want to make sure these projects are realistic and no more than
I can handle in one year, especially on a year when I’m expecting a baby.
As I mentioned a few days ago, I’d like to learn to use Photoshop
better. I’ve been using Photoshop since 1992 and while I’ve learned a
lot over the last sixteen years, I really haven’t learned as much as I
could have and I’ve never spent focused effort to improve my knowledge.
Obviously, the main area of focus on Photoshop for me is the digital
photography since that’s my business. But I’m also interested being able
to make brushes and overlays, and basic things to help me do more hybrid
scrapbooking. This list might change over the year and I learn and
explore more but here’s main areas of focus I’ve chosen so far:
- layer masks
- image modes: lab color
- channel mixer
- hue/saturation
- curves
- layers: fill or adjustment layers and layer styles
- channels
- textures: grunge, vintage etc.
- paths
- creating brushes
- clipping masks
- lighting effects
This project will include finding and doing workshops related to each
area. Ideally, at least one a week. As I do them, I will post links to
workshops and any examples I produce.
And, this will also mean that I will finally work my way through David’s amazing tutorials
especially since I’m already a member and receive them all. Just because
I need to be ultra-organized for things to actually happen, here’s the
order in which I plan to do his tutorials: (this may also change if my
focuses change)
As you’ll notice, these end in April because that’s when the little one
comes. I figure after that things might get blurry for a while and by
the time I have my sanity back, David will have put up a whole bunch
more so I can add them to my list then.
Well there you go. If you know Photoshop very well and have some advice
on how to revise the list above, what to add or remove, all advice is
welcome. I plan to start this weekend so let’s see how much progress I
make.
Another one of the little boy. You know I will have a lot of those this
year. See the crooked smile again? When I ask him if I can take his
photo, he immediately dons this face. This is on the way to school. He
likes to run down this road and this morning he had a small snack of
pretzels and wouldn’t let go of them as he ran.
Things have been hectic in 2009 already. Working on a big dream I had
that is so far promising to come true before the little one arrives.
Christmas tree is still up and I just decided I am not ready to take it
down yet, so there. Other than that life is same old same old here. I am
really exhausted the last two days, not sure if it’s the pregnancy, the
hours of work I’m putting into the aforementioned dream, or the fact
that David’s been waking up in the middle of the night and requesting
hugs and kisses. Either way, I am glad the weekend is coming soon.
Today I just wanted a smiley boy. He’s doing his weird smile but I still
love it.
The Christmas tree is still not down here but we’ve already gotten back
into the routine of things. I generally start my day by checking my
mail, reading AMM, and my
RSS feeds. I make breakfast for David and then jump in the shower. We
then both relax as we eat our food. I make David’s lunch for school and
we both get ready and we’re out the door. I drop David off at school and
get to work and our days begin.
It might sound boring or tiresome but I love routine and I love this
one, especially on a morning like this when I miraculously woke up
before David and he slept all the way to 8am. This never happens. I have
a lot of work today for both my job and a scrapping project I am working
on so I needed the little bit of extra sleep and the quiet time in the
morning, so I feel extra blessed for the tiny break I got.
Well, off to start our day. May yours be a wonderful one.
I know I should stop adding new projects to what promises to be an
already very full year but after this one I only have one more in mind
so I think I’m close to the end.
For this project, I decided to combine my own version of Julie’s Project
52 with Emily’s 52Q.
I wanted to spend more time trying new techniques, exploring and seeing
what I like so I made a list of all the techniques I could think of
(almost all of which doesn’t require me to buy any new supplies of any
kind.) I ordered manilla tags so that I can do a tag a week using
Emily’s questions as my prompts and a tehcnique from my list. I used
Excel to randomize my list (I am a computer geek afterall) and I’m only
allowed to go up or down 4 in the list each week for my technique just
so I don’t spend too much time picking one.
Since the tags are still on order, this might take another week to start
or I might just make my own tag for this week, we’ll see. But here’s the
list of all my techniques.
- Misters (tim’s mini misters)
- 3-dimensional embellishments
- water soluble crayons
- brayer/paint
- Vinyl
- paper pleating
- paper piecing
- Wire
- make my own flowers
- something with a lot of ink/watercolor like debee
- play with transparencies (made at home)
- UTEE
- create a lot of layers/depth
- Metal embellishments
- resist ink/castaway ink…
- Fabric
- Sanding
- Polymer Clay (SculpeyIII)
- beeswax
- bubble wrap
- Diamond Glaze
- gum arabic/pearlex
- alcohol inks
- Chalking
- flocking
- Acrylic paint (dabber or golden)
- use only rubons
- Grungeboard
- masking
- spray paint
- microbeads
- Masking Tape
- bleach
- doodling
- Machine Stitching
- printing on canvas (using canvas in general)
- Something with stamping
- Fragment charms
- something with complicated stitching
- Alcohol ink mixatives
- crackle paint/glaze
- do one of tim’s tags
- Stickles/distress or otherwise
- Vintage
- embossing
- Glossy accents
- Glimmer Mist
- Felt
- paper poking
- Distress Ink
- hand stitching/emboridery
- something with metal
I picked tags cause they are small and make this project more manageable
for me. This will be my version of an art journal this year.
This morning when I took David to school, his teachers told me about how
he loves playing with these trains and likes to make a really long one.
The classroom is really dark (especially since it’s cloudy outside, too)
so I wasn’t able to capture anything better. But I love this photo cause
he’s smiling and the way he’s sitting is exactly how little kids sit. I
am pretty proud of myself for letting imperfections go and just
capturing daily life. Trust me, it’s not easy for me.
I also decided I want to learn a lot more about Photoshop this year and
concentrate on bettering my photography as well, something I constantly
strive to do. It’s good for my business but it’s good for me. I love
taking photos so why not be better at it?
And here’s a shot from the tree which will probably start coming down
today. I honestly am still not ready to take it down yet.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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