Groovy Chick

Update:

2011-06-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've posted here, but this original blog was always intended to evolve as my journey into photography progressed.

Meeting friends who were like minded and loved the content, we decided to come together and create a new place where we could all share together. And I'm super proud to announce that after many setbacks, we finally have that new home: Circus Pastiche.

So if you are still out there in cyberland wondering what is going on with me and if I'll ever post more tutorials, have no fear! I am. And they will all be on the new Circus blog along with some other tidbits, a comic, forum, contests, prop shop, download center and more!

I'll be there with all my new tutorials, actions, freebies, templates and good humor. Come on over! What are you waiting for?

Time for a change...

2010-12-30T22:13:00.000-08:00

I started this blog in the hopes that I could learn and share with others. And I have... but not really on here. I just can't seem to find the time to blog as often as I'd like and thinking up tutorials, typing them up, taking the screenshots, uploading the images and organizing everything just takes up so much of my time that I've pretty much stopped doing it. But I don't want to. I love to share what I've learned and I know I have a passion for photography. I've grown in leaps and bounds this past year and I continue to have aha! moments with my work. I couldn't have done it without the kindness of others and that's the driving force behind why I started this blog.

However, since I can't seem to find the time, I think I'll close this blog down. I've been thinking about it and always have this in the back of my mind. But I can still share what I know and what I've learned in other ways. Which is where Circus Pastiche comes in. It's gone beyond sharing at this point. I love to offer help to those who need it and I love creating new actions to streamline my workflow and add the little things that make my images pop. I figured what the heck, why not offer a hodge-podge of items including handmade props to the friends I know. Things that I would use myself. Put myself to work and still be able to do the things I love. Still be able to give back.

So check out Circus Pastiche, keep tabs on the new things I'm doing and just hang out!

Composite? Hair Fix Tutorial! ~ Photoshop Tutorial

2010-10-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

I wont go into the crazy details about why, but recently I had to do a composite photo. If you've ever done one with anybody with plenty of hair, you may have struggled with the edges looking a little funky. Like I did.

So today I whipped up this tutorial as I was fixing this image of my lovely niece.

I've already finished compositing the image and um... didn't know what made it seem so off. Thankfully, someone was kind enough to point it out to me so here we are.

See the back sections of her hair? They don't exactly look like they were really in front of the background.

We'll work on a transparent layer above the actual image.

First, I select a color from her actual hair so it matches.

You can also alt click while hovering over the area of color you'd like to set in your palette.

Then I choose a 1px solid edged brush and start painting streaks like mad (works better if you've got a tablet... Mine's still packed from our move so I did it with my laptop thingy. Because... Felix dunked my mouse in the toilet. Don't ask. :P)

Choose another color.

And another...

And keep going until I have several colors there.

When I have plenty there to work with, I stop painting. I click on this little doohickey in my layers palette to lock the transparent pixels of that layer.

Then I use a large soft brush with a low flow and I paint a few of those softly so they'll blend with her hair just a bit better.

Getting better, right?

Now I'll add a layer mask to that transparent layer.

Change the flow of my brush again.

And paint on the layer mask to slightly mask away the ends of the hairs to soften them and blend them into the existing hair.

Even better, huh?

Now I'll duplicate that layer and go to filter>guassian blur.

I used these settings, but you may feel better to adjust yours to your own taste. This way the hair isn't so sharp.

Then I adjust the opacity of both layers to taste.

And that's about all there is to it!

Subtle, but more believeable, yes?

So now you can start taking people out of boring places and putting them in strange ones. Show me your composites!

Hello Folks! - How To Make Blog Frames Tutorial - Plus PSD Download!

2010-09-15T11:23:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile since I've posted here guys! But here I am, posting again and thanks to another photographer who asked me about the frames on my photography blogsite I'm going to do a quick tutorial on making your own custom frames to fit your style!

Most photographers I know have pretty frames to display their images on their blog and I love how they make the images stand out so I had to figure out how to make some for myself. So today we'll make the simple photo border frame you can see on my site.

First, I needed to know what size I was going to use. I didn't want to resize my images when posting them to my blog so I had to find a size that worked for me. I like my photos displayed BIG so I created a new file in photoshop using the dimensions: 1050 x 700 px and 72 ppi since this is for internet use.

I set my background to match the color of the background in my blog so the frames will fit seamlessly when I post.

The frames will be on a separate layer just in case I decide to change the background color of my blog. This way I wont have to re-create frames when my mood changes.

So, create a new layer call it "frame layer" and fill it with white. This is going to be your frame. Resize it to where you'd like it. Mine is centered and leaves slightly more room on either side for shadowing.

Now duplicate your frame layer twice. Name one Left and one Right. You can turn off your frame layer and your left layer. We'll work on right first.

Next, we'll add a drop shadow. If you're new at this, just select your right layer and double click then select drop shadow in the layer styles box or go to layer>layer style>drop shadow.

You'll use these settings:

Copy the layer style by right clicking on the right layer...

and right clicking on the left layer (you'll have to toggle your view of this layer) and pasting layer style.

Now you're probably thinking... why did she double the drop shadow on the same side? Well... photoshop wont let you change drop shadows individually. It only thinks you can have one light source. This irritated me for awhile when I tried this the first time, but I found a way around this. :)

You'll toggle your view off of the left layer and create a brand new transparent layer. Then you'll merge your right layer with your transparent layer by selecting both layers, right clicking and selecting merge layers (for all you newbies out there =])and toggle it off and forget about it for a minute.

Now toggle your view on your left layer again. Now you'll open up the layer styles box again and change your settings for your light direction using these settings.

Create another transparent layer and merge it with your left layer.

Now you have drop shadows going in two different directions.

Next you'll liquify (filter>liquify) and if you haven't done it before, well, you should learn how because I think it's one of photoshops most powerful tools.

I use a large brush to push the sides in toward the middle.

Toggle your frame layer on to check your progress. Liquify as needed.

Once you get it where you like, toggle your frame layer on again. You should have something that looks like this.

To create a box for creating clipping masks, I duplicate the frame layer and fill with black, and resize where I want my actual image. And for fun, I added some text.

You can create more boxes for using two verticals within the same frame and customize your frames with your watermark, etc. I keep all of mine in one psd file which I open and drag all my pre-resized images into. I just use clipping masks and move my watermark as needed per image. You can also take any frame or texture you find and use it as a frame. I've used funky or deckle borders to make a more vintage look. You can add things like tape or peel-backs or just about anything you'd like.

Oh, and I fully expect you to comment on this post and show me your creations. I love seeing your stuff too!

Soft Vintage - Quietide Tutorial

2010-04-20T06:10:00.000-07:00

This post has been removed. Quietide and the Groovy Moods action set will be getting an update and will be for sale on Circus Pastiche!

Skintone Tutorial + Color Cast Removal

2010-04-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, the dreaded skintone subject. The bane of my existence for oh so long. Today I'm going to broach it. I'm going to attack it, scramble it's brains and leave it eating my dust. If you're struggling with skintones hopefully this tutorial will help.

I've learned the hard way that most of the time it isn't enough to set custom wb on your camera or use a grey card and to the exposure just right for beautiful skintones. Of course those things are quite important and I recommend you learn those first, but sometimes you've got color casts and you just gotta go in and fix them yourself.

So lets begin!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We'll start off with this lovely SOOC image of Kate & Kara. These girls are super cute. They were however, holding the yellowest flowers known to mankind. Their super adorable bright pink polka dotted dresses also wreaked havoc on their skin by causing magenta color casts.

To the untrained eye there isn't a thing wrong with the color in this image. But if you zoom in...

Notice that her chin looks kinda pink and her nose is definitely picking up some yellow from that flower. Her overall color also has a tinge of blue. We don't want that. Zombie kids generally look kinda scary.

So we're going to fix it.

First I like to start with an overall color correction. This will adjust the majority of the skintones. So I'm going to add an adjustment layer. If you're working with elements, I apologize because I don't know if you can do this or not. You might have to duplicate the layer, do your curves adjustment and then adjust your opacity.

I'm going to pull down on my blue channel in my curves adjustment layer. And if it's a bit much, I'll either adjust it or adjust the opacity of that layer.

Looking better already. I think these two are a tad underexposed, so I'm going to do another curves adjustment layer but I'm not going to actually adjust my curves. I'm going to set my blending mode to screen and adjust the opacity of it. I can then mask out any areas that get too bright like their hair and the flower on her headband.

A quick glance at their arms tells me I'm in the right direction.

To get decent (and realistic) skintones you probably should check your numbers. To do that, select your eyedropper tool and your info palette should display numbers when you hover above an area of your image. Here are some numbers that you can use that will tell you roughly where your numbers need to be.

African American: (RGB) 128, 58, 45/ (CMYK) 32, 81, 81, 34
Asian: (RGB) 199, 151, 120/ (CMYK) 15, 44, 55, 1
Caucasian: (RGB) 227, 176, 149/ (CMYK) 10, 33, 40, 0

Remember, these are just an ideal. Your colors should be somewhere around these numbers. After some time, you should start to develop an eye for this and you wont need to check your numbers as often. I still do if something doesn't look quite right in an image. Just remember that everything is opposite. If your image is too yellow, you'll add blue. Too blue, add yellow by taking out blue. Too magenta? Take out green. Too green? Add magenta by taking out green. Skintones looking just a bit grey and drab? Add just a teensy hint of red. Too vivid? Take some red out.

So. Our basic skin is fixed, but we still have color casts to get rid of. Lets dig in.

Though there are many techniques for this, my favorite way of getting rid of color casts is to recolor. It gives me the most control and I'm kind of a control freak when it comes to my pictures! I always always do this on a separate layer because it's very difficult to get it just right.

You'll need to select your brush tool and then change the blending mode of your brush to "color".

Your flow to 1%

And your opacity to 50% Note that this is one of the rare times I adjust the opacity of my brush. :P

Now we're going to attack her chin to remove some of that magenta. Since I want something that's the same light value as the area I'm going to be coloring, I click on my color to bring up my color picker and then use my eyedropper tool to click the color cast area. And I know that the opposite of magenta is green, so I'm going to slide the little slider up until I have a greenish color. You'll develop an eye for picking the ride shade as well. Just think opposite!

Next I go over it lightly with my funky green color. Don't be afraid to experiment with your shades.

Looks better already, doesn't it?

I'm going to do the same thing, but with a blue color on her nose, tip of her chin, etc to get rid of the yellow I'm seeing.

And since we mixed yellow and blue, a few areas got a tiny bit green, so I'll choose a magenta and go over those areas as well.

I do the same for Miss Katelynn who is OOF I might add, and the reason this photo got rejected. It's great for teaching color cast removal though! She has the flowers closer to her face and really got a dose of yellow.

Tah-Dah!

Then, I'll do another bleaching layer to brighten a few spots by creating another soft bleach layer using my curves adjustment layer, inverting the layer mask and exposing the areas I want to brighten - basically any areas that sort of look grey.

Last, but not least I'll run my luminous facial scrub action from my photographers toolkit which is basically a copy of your red channel set to luminosity blending mode to smooth out their skin. Which might just be my next tutorial. ;)

Note that I would also probably have completed most of my normal editing which I covered in my last tutorial.

Here is a before and after!

My Basic Workflow Tutorial - Using My Photographer's Toolkit Action Set

2010-04-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

This post has been deleted. My Photographer's Toolkit is getting an overhaul and version 2 will be available for purchase via my Circus Pastiche page for details coming soon!

Deleted Post

2010-03-28T15:16:00.002-07:00

Posh Princess

2010-03-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

Talia over at Posh Princess is giving away a free pair of hand sewn baby booties. I don't know about you, but I love anything that's hand made and I know that soft soled shoes are the best thing for your little peanut to wear. Her designs are adorable and her prices are very reasonable for these kind of shoes. So if you'd like to check out her stuff head on over to Posh Princess on etsy, or check out her new blog for the giveaway.

New Powers!

2010-03-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

I think my son is set to be a super villain. He just discovered these amazing new powers. He can hold onto things like the coffee table in the living room and walk while holding onto the edge. This is how he gets into everything like my computer, my mouse, the pen I'm trying to write my grocery list on, my coffee, you name it, he's getting into it. While I don't particularly care for his villainess, I am proud of his new achievements so here he is, standing while proudly holding on to the "monster chair".

And another that I have been envisioning since before he was born that I took last week. I love that I have all ten feets in this one.

And this was taken on the same day that my oldest daughter turned 15. I know! 15!!! I still can't believe that I'm the mother to a teenager, let alone one who's old enough to get her permit.

It's been a very long time since I got a photo of all my kiddos that I'm actually happy with. Thanks to my awesome *snort* editing powers, I did a couple head swaps. Can you tell which ones?

Hopefully I'll be posting another new action that I've been working on. I actually have a few, but I don't think I've perfected them quite yet. The photographer's toolkit is coming along though and hopefully it will be done soon.

New Action Set!

2010-03-03T05:07:00.000-08:00

As of late, I've been on a mission. My goal has been to discover new ways of adjusting the overall tone of my images. If the saying "It's not a matter of winning or losing, it's how you play the game" holds true, then this game is a jungle, because there are countless ways of working with color in photoshop. I'll admit it, I was skeered.

So today, I'm going to share with you the elusive processing techniques that you are probably seeing everywhere on flickr, on ILP... I mean everywhere. The photos are just gorgeous, but nobody is willing to share their technique. You'll probably come across one of these images, the blacks look more like navy, or a hazy purple, the tones are soft, dreamy and creamy. There will more than likely be people begging for the processing secrets. You may actually see the author of the image respond "Oh, I used this action I got from lilyblue" or somewhere. If you're like me, you'll start searching for the technique to give that look. Is there a tutorial somewhere? How in the world do they do that? Chances are, you won't find anything, anywhere. So I set out to figure it out on my own. Man, I love a challenge!

The first thing I thought of was layer map adjustment layers, which are still my favorites. They're so quick, so easy, so adjustable, and you can see exactly what you're going to get right there in your gradient. You can pretty much put color anywhere with these things, and go back and change it later if you like. You can do a good B&W with a gradient map, or use them to desaturate, or give your image a little pop. I put some in my last action called Groovy Baby. I love to layer them or stick them on top of my B&W's to give them a little tone. They're like candy. I just can't get enough. But I was still missing something. No matter what blending mode I set them to, they still either lightened or darkened my image, gave me too much contrast, or worse, made my image too muddy. That wasn't what I was after at all.

Next I tried curves. I had little success. Now I wasn't just changing my blacks to that lovely hazy purple color or that lovely navy blue color. I was making my skin tones wonky, as well as adjusting the overall lights and darks of my image. I decided that curves just wouldn't give me the look I was after. It's still my favorite go-to when adjusting, er fixing the overall color and a major must have when it comes to fixing skin tones as well as a gentle soft pop and bleaching. Curves is my little white balance buddy.

After fiddling around with a few other things, like photo filters, which are really nice but not what I was looking for, I gave selective color a try. I'm not talking about the horrible leave a flower in color, but the grass is gray selective color. Don't get mad at me if your a fan of SC because I know that can work, when done right. No. I'm talking about the much overlooked (at least by me) selective color under image>adjustment. I had some major successes with this, but it took me awhile. Under this adjustment you have the options to add or take away CMYK from each color. Talk about complete control! I could take black out of my blacks, add blue, a splash of red and "tah-da!" my image started to look exactly like what I was going for. But it's a bit time consuming fine tuning your selective color, and since each image is different, it's a little hard to predict how much to change each one. The possibilities of this little adjustment tool are endless. So I thought I had it. But man, how was I going to spend this much time on each image? I'm a busy mom with a house to clean, I just don't have that kind of time!

And in all my fiddling, I had completely overlooked my levels adjustment layers. I've always thought of my levels as being like my histogram. You adjust your lights/darks, etc with levels, right? See how little I knew? You also have the ability of adjusting your color with levels. So, I thought I had it figured out, but heck, it couldn't hurt to give levels a try. It was easy, there are sliders and everything. I slid the sliders around under RGB. Nothing new there, I was just adjusting my blacks, my middle grey, and my whites. And then I started fiddling with the output levels. This was something I'd never really played with before. Aha! My blacks suddenly weren't very black. And all I had to do was slide it over a little. That was easy. Pull the dropdown menu to Reds, and adjust the output levels. Go ahead, try it! You'll get some creamy red tones in your darks. Try it with your Blues. Now you've got some creamy purple tones. Adjust the middle slider under your blue. Aha! You can get gentle quiet tones, you can go polariod, or you can go full out vintage here. You can change the opacity of your adjustment layer if you go overboard with it. This is just oh, so easy!

So, I've discovered several ways to get beautiful creamy tones. Like they're ingredients, I've created the yummiest combinations of cake, frosting, and candy sprinkles into an action set.

The secret's out. Now here's your action. Go, play, and have a Grooooovy day!

Groovy Baby Action

2010-02-22T09:52:00.000-08:00

I'm so sorry, followers. Life has kept me busy, and I haven't really been up to blogging, but I promise, that's going to change. So for being loyal, here's a brand new action set just for you! Ok, well it's for everybody, but since you follow this blog, you'll see it first. So you can stick your tongue out all all the not so lucky people who know nothing about this secret little back of the woods unknown blog. See, there are some pros to following a blog that nobody else knows about.

I know I promised a toolkit, but when I get in photoshop, my mind goes completely blank. I might just be taking my mad (cough) skills for granted and assuming that everybody knows how to do most of the things I do while barely thinking. So that might just be the place to start. And as soon as I get my laundry done, floors mopped, dinner prepared, noses wiped, homework checked, and have about 5 minutes to myself (sorta) I'll sit down tonight and make a list of things that might just be handy when automated. Now, if only life were that easy. Do they have a photoshop plugin for dinner? I'm totally at a loss.

Anyway... here's the action set and preview so you can kinda see what it does. Ciao for now!!

Hello again!

2010-02-01T15:37:00.001-08:00

I know it's been awhile since I've posted, and to my loyal followers, I apologize. No excuses about how busy I've been (because, I really haven't) I just haven't felt up to posting. I really haven't had much to post!!!

But I'm coming up with a few things!

I got a new lens last week! My 50mm f1.8 (finally) got here and I've been playing around with it. Mostly I've been taking lots of snapshots to get used to it especially since it has such a shallow depth of field and I was pretty sure I'd have focusing issues. Not as many as I thought I'd have though, so I'm off and running with this new lens!

I've also decided (wisely) to reinvent myself again. This time, I've been focusing on the technical aspects of my photography. It was so easy to just rely on my photoshop skills to fix up my old photos (namely of the point and shoot variety) that I hadn't taken the time to really compose my shots. By that I mean, I hadn't prepared to truly learn my camera and all there is to know about exposure and getting it all right. Shamed, I couldn't even call myself a photographer as I had so proudly proclaimed myself to be. So I've had to throw away everything I knew and set myself up to learn something new.

And here I am again. I proudly (and for real) can say that I am a photographer. I may be just starting out, but I can say it and know within myself that I am allowed to make errors and I am allowed to learn and grow. Aaaah it feels so good and I feel so much better now.

Before my new lens got here, I read a post on ILP about exposure. That's when I realized that I didn't know much. Heck, I'd barely scratched the surface! Then I started to wonder what else was out there that I never knew I needed to know. I had to rid myself of my stubborness and be humble enough to actually read about white balance, reading my histogram, lighting, and there is so much more. Oh, so much more. I'm still learning, and now I think I'm headed in the right direction.

I know I didn't post here, but I have been taking some time off from photoshopping and putting every ounce of my brain power (and believe me, with 5 kids, there isn't much left sometimes) into learning how to take better pictures in the first place. It feels good to know that I'm actually saving myself countless hours in editing by learning how to get better shots SOOC! Those are hours that I can spend with the kiddos!

So, needless to say I'm also learning some handy new things in photoshop as well and will be putting together several actions in a sort of "toolkit" which I will also share with you!

I'm ending this post with a stunning image I shot with my new lens (that I absolutely love!) that knocks my socks off right now.

The GrooveChick knits!

2009-12-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week, and I don't expect it to not get any less busy around here for awhile.

But I did do something...

I knitted!

Ok, so not a texture, tutorial, or even that new action I promised... (I swear I did make one, it just needs a little tlc before I post it here) but still cool nonetheless!

I bought a knifty knitter, and I'm having so much fun with it. It's keeping me sane as the kids peek at presents and watch movie after movie.

I made a baby hat (using the instructions that came with the loom) and then got to thinkin' and although that usually gets me into some trouble, this time disaster decided not to strike and I made this little stork pouch.

Isn't that the cutest?! Ah! I love it. I wanna put a baby in there so bad!

And the matching hat!

And no, the photos aren't the greatest but I used my new dun dun dun....

light set!!!

Yay!

Yes, I was so excited yesterday when I got home from finishing my holiday shopping (or at least I thought I did) to find a big box waiting for me with my new lights in it.

I feel all professional now.

Sooo... I'm working on another Pouch, this one will be brown, and then I'm going to make a bowl/cocoom. I have to get ready for my friend Dawna's baby next month (though he thinks he needs to get here now) so I can drive everyone insane with incessant posting of his gorgeous photos!

I'm just wondering if anybody is interested in buying one? (I've had a few requests) And if so, just e-mail me @ groove.chick @ ymail.com and we'll discuss it!

I hope everybody has a lovely weekend!!!

My First Action!

2009-12-16T11:46:00.000-08:00

Oh Lordy, let me tell yah! I have learned a great deal and I have a whole new respect for people like Rita from CoffeeShop and the Pioneer Woman because it wasn't exactly easy. But I did it!!!

You can grab that stinker here.

This is relatively simple.

Duplicate bg overlay @ 45%
Gradient map pastel spectrum screen @ 25%

Color fill 7a4d8f screen @ 7%
Color fill e58dd8 screen @ 10%

Levels > adjust as needed

new layer named light texture
set swatches to 402a66 and black
render clouds
add noise 21.27%
set to screen 58%

reset swatches
create group
pull all into group

And if you're anything like me, you'll toggle it on and off repeatedly and hem and haw over whether you like it or not before adjusting things until you get it just right.

Here's a larger view of Miss Melanie and Miss Anna.

Which brings me to our lovely weekend at "Papa's" house. It was so much fun! Not only did we all have the opportunity to stuff ourselves till we could barely walk, we got to see one another, and I haven't seen some of my family in over a year!

My niece Melanie asked me to shoot a few photos of her since she didn't get any school pictures this year and I was more than happy to oblige. Here's some from our little mini session.

I still have a ton of photos to go over (most are snaps) so family I didn't forget about you, I'll probably be posting more later. Whew!

New Texture & Template Freebie!

2009-12-10T13:38:00.000-08:00

Not much to post today people, just a couple of freebies and this lovely photo of Miss Isabelle with her new haircut!

Doesn't she just look adorable? Ah! I love it.

I've also had way too much coffee today, so I can barely sit still to type this!

I used one of my lovely textures and some wonderful swirly brushes to create this holiday paper texture.

And I have this 4 pane template for you lovely blog viewers. It was actually a request but I thought there might be others out there who would enjoy it as well!

You can grab that sucker here!

8 Free Textures!

2009-12-08T07:11:00.000-08:00

I think you can tell what kind of mood I'm in when I create my textures based on the name. Apparently I was going through a fairy tale phase while making these. Sometimes the soft feeling is perfect for photos and other times I just need some grunge. I hope these are a nice mix between the two. I must apologize for not putting them all together in an easily downloadable pack, they'll only be offered through my flickr for now.

And in other news. Felix is 6 months old now!! We did a mini session last night and hung him up again.

He's getting so big that hanging him isn't easy anymore. He squirmed and kept hanging out of the scarf we were using.

It's so hard to believe it's been 6 months already. He's part of the reason I began doing photography again. Having older kiddos, I realized that the time really does fly by and there are so many moments I wish I had captured. So many things that my tired mind can't really remember. I decided before he was born that I wanted to do photos weekly. And not just any old photos, nice ones. I didn't realize the work I was making for myself but I also did something else, I gave myself a reason to learn more. I'm pretty proud of me! I'm not quite there yet, but it's coming and I can feel it. I can't wait to see where I'm at in another 6 months.

Aah... enough of this. It's time for a texture preview!

Here's where you can find those textures! I never require a linkback but I would love to see what people are doing with these! Enjoy~

edit: Apparently I can't count or align. I had posted 7 new free textures... there's actually 8. And I just noticed that my preview pic isn't exactly perfect. <-- proof that I need a nap!

Lovin' these free storyboard templates!!

2009-12-06T19:03:00.000-08:00

When Rita from Coffeeshop posted these templates I finally knew what I'd do with these holiday studio shots that I didn't use for our card. They're so cute! I had to do something with them. Whaddya think?

New Texture Freebie!

2009-12-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

I haven't gotten much done lately as far as photoshop goes. It's been pretty busy around the house, but today is nice and quiet so who knows what will happen?

We had a wonderful session last week with Mom & Pops as well as one with all the kiddos. It was so warm and nice that day so everything was near perfect for shooting. I got a few that I'm pretty proud of. I still have a whole bunch to edit. But with the kiddos gone for the weekend I'm counting on finishing up this set. Then it's back to more textures, a couple tutorials coming soon as well as me discovering how to make my own actions. I'm a bit worried about that one. But I'm gonna tackle it!

I used this new texture on that last one. Aren't the purple tones just gorgeous?
Here's the brand spankin' new texture as promised!

Holiday Card Template - Freebie!!!

2009-11-29T22:08:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week around the house with all the kiddos home from school for Thanksgiving vacation. But we've had some time to get a nice shoot done with all of them as well as their Nana and Pops. I managed to find time to create a holiday card template that's sized for a 5x5 tri-fold for WHCC. Hopefully I'll have a couple more coming up this week. I wonder if there are any particular sizes that anybody would like... If so, don't hesitate to let me know so I can design some in the sizes you use. I need some ideas!!! What kind of colors, themes, etc. do you like to see on holiday cards?

I'm getting a bit bored of my same o' textures too, so I think I'll have to put my creativity cap on and make some more.

Here's a preview of the first (of many I hope) template!

I should probably mention that the fonts will only work if you already happen to have them installed on your computer. If you don't have them you can get them at dafont.com. You can download the psd files here.

Enjoy!

My Pies!!! My Lovely Pies!!!

2009-11-25T21:30:00.000-08:00

I had some help tonight in the kitchen making fresh-from-scratch-homemade-apple-pies for our family's annual Thanksgiving Day Potluck... perhaps a bit too much help.

Gabriel was so helpful peeling, coring and chunking apples for me and everything was going so smoothly and quickly with his elbow grease. Of course when it came to making the crusts I eventually had to shoo him out of the kitchen so I had some elbow room. Blast our tiny kitchen!

The pies (eventually) were baked, finished and cooling on the top of the stove when I happened to walk in there and see this:

OMG someone has picked some of the crusts at the edges of my pies!!!

I'm so angry I could pull my hair out. My gorgeous beautiful pies that I worked so hard to make pretty for tomorrow. Wonderful, yummy beautiful ruined pies!!!

Well I guess that serves them right... being so yummy. Irresistible even. They were just too tempting for Miss Isabelle. She couldn't keep her hands off of them. So when you see these pies tomorrow, family, don't laugh. Wait till you taste them... you'll be hooked too!

Anyway... They are lovely and they do taste so much better than store-bought pies. They're surprisingly easy to bake too! I've always been intimidated by baking homemade pies and mostly because the crust just seemed so difficult.

So I challenge you to bake my pies!!! Here's the recipe!

For the crust you'll need:

2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of sugar
6 tablespoons of butter (that's BUTTER not margarine)
6 tablespoons of shortening
and about 5-8 tablespoons of ice water

Basically, I just mix all the dry ingredients and then I cut the butter in with a pastry blender (you gotta get one if you don't have one... they're awesome!) and add the shortening. Lastly, I add the ice water. After you've mixed your dough, put it bowl and all in the fridge.

Now it's time to start peeling apples. To save time after peeling I use an apple corer. Then I chop the apples (otherwise I end up with a lumpy pie) and soak them in water with a splash of lemon juice to keep them from getting discolored.

For the filling you'll need:

Approximately 5 Apples
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of flour
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar (my secret ingredient!)
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Once you have all that wonderful smelling stuff mixed, just set it aside. The next part doesn't take long.

Now it's time to roll out some dough!!! I always keep flour handy for this part because occasionally I have dough that turns out stickier than usual. So go ahead and sprinkle some flour onto your working area. I add a little extra to the middle because that's where mine always sticks the worst.

Get your dough out of the fridge and divide it into 2 lumps. Use one lump at a time and roll those babies out. It takes a little bit to get it just right sometimes, but it's easier than it looks. Just roll it until it's about the same size as your pan with just a little extra room for the edges. To get your crust in your pan, starting from one edge, roll the crust up onto your rolling pin. If your crust starts to stick to your surface (as mine usually does) just use one of your handy utensils to gently slide up under the crust as you begin to lift and roll it.

The first crust you roll out will go on the bottom of the pie. I fold the edges that hang off back onto the pie once I've got it positioned in there right. Then I poke some holes in the bottom of the crust with my trusty fork. Mom says this helps keep air bubbles from forming under the bottom of the crust and ruining your pie.

Now you can pour your filling mixture into your crust. I spread it around so it's nice and even.

It's time to roll out the top crust! Same as before, but if you want you can add some pretty decoration. I use cookie cutters to cut out a pretty vent and usually just draw some lines around it with a knife. Roll it onto your rolling pin like the first crust and try (haha) to get the vent hole centered on top.

Now gently pinch the edges all the way around (not too hard) and then use a wooden spoon to make ruffled edges. This also helps seal the pie around the edges. Finally wrap some strips of aluminum foil around the edges of your pie to keep the edges from browning too much. This helps your pie to be more evenly colored.

Bake the beauty at 400 degrees for about an hour. I usually pull my pies out after an hour, remove the aluminum foil and brush some egg white on the top then stick them in for another 10 minutes. Viola! Homemade baked apple pie!

Blah blah Tuesday + more free textures!!

2009-11-24T16:44:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone and happy Tuesday. It's dismal and dreary out tonight so everything is kinda blah around our house. It's a great night for cuddling up with a cup of steaming hot cocoa in front of a good movie! It's also not a bad night for posting some new free textures. I've been in a creative mood today so these cheered me up. These and seeing my Dad even though it was only for a little while and most of the time he was here he spent working on my car! I'll get to the point.

I used the textures on these kinda out there (for me at least) photos that I took last week of two of my kiddos. Isabelle's looking like a zombie (that's bubble gum not a melted face) and Courtney is following me. Here's the textures.

Where does the time go? Free textures!!

2009-11-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

It's been busy around here lately. I haven't even found time to make a post!

I was so excited yesterday to discover Felix's new tooth. He's been chewing on everything for months now so I didn't think it was coming anytime soon but he started chewing on my little finger and I felt something hard. Yay! Maybe now he won't be so fussy.

I had a texture pack I was working on called "Fairy Tale" but it's saved on the other computer which I can't use because the battery is dead and the ac adapter died! I'm just full of excuses, ain't I?

But I have created two other new textures in the little free time I have had lately. I used them for Felix's pictures last week.

Of course I had to do a storyboard with the free action I got from Rita at Coffeeshop. Wouldn't you like one of these?

Isn't he gorgeous? I've been wanting to do some shots of him with his favorite toy. He loves his Haba Kringelring. I love that it's not plastic.

I also found a tie that I thought would make a really cute prop. And it did... until he tore it apart.

I just love his expressions lately.

Alright, alright, I'll stop showing off my son and get to the point.

Here are the textures! Click on them to download.

I'm off to work on our Holiday Card! Have a great weekend everybody!

Some Grunge Textures

2009-11-07T09:14:00.000-08:00

It's been over a week since I posted because things have been kind of hectic around here lately. I've been having problems with Photoshop giving me error messages and unexpectedly crashing on me. I may be doing an uninstall reinstall. Or maybe I've just got too many actions/patterns/brushes etc. Either way, it's given me a difficult time when I really have some fun stuff planned to do!

With parent teacher conferences and lots of running the kiddos have kept me pretty exhausted as well. Felix is feeling better but now we all have sinus infections. If it isn't one thing it's another.

So this week I decided blow the dust off my tablet that's been sitting there for about a year and go ahead and install it on this old computer. When I did it wouldn't work. After inspecting it, I discovered that our bunny Sundae had chewed the cord right by the usb plug. Before I started crying I remembered my Dad teaching me how to splice wires together. So to the dismay of some friends that were hanging out at my house that day I grabbed my old ipod cord (I killed my ipod a couple weeks ago) cut the plug off of it and spliced it to my tablet. It works! It doesn't look pretty, but the upside is the cord is actually longer.

And now I've got textures for you. It's so much easier to create them with my tablet and more fun too! I've been having a blast playing around with these and I'm pretty happy with the results. I've used two of them on this photo of Isabelle we shot at the park a couple weeks ago while the trees still had leaves on them.

There are six textures in this pack. To make things more simple for use the top two have twins (one cool toned and one warmer toned version). Here's a preview.

You can download them here or here.

And in other news, I ordered my Canon XS Digital SLR this Wednesday. I'm so excited and I must point out that B & H Photo is awesome because the price went up while I was gathering the funds to buy it but after notifying them of it (and sending them my sob story) they lowered the price once again. I've heard good things about them and it turns out they were right. So I should have my starter camera this Monday. Of course, I'm so excited I can hardly sit down. I must have checked the tracking number at least a dozen times since I ordered it. I'll be busy learning it and I'll start booking photo sessions as soon as it arrives.

Also, I'm planning on working on some holiday card templates and hopefully within the next few weeks I should have at least a couple up to share.

Vintage Frames

2009-10-27T16:31:00.001-07:00

My mom scanned a whole slew of (ancient) photos of her when she was a kid an various family members not too long ago and when I saw them I was inspired. What if I made frames from these old pictures? Not only would I have some awesome (if I do say so myself) looking old vintage frames to photoshop my pictures with but it would be amazing to preserve family photos in this way. Bringing the old to the new so to speak. So I've been working on these all day (between diaper changes and fussy sick baby moments) and I am in love with them! I think they're fabulous. Thanks Mom!

I used each one on a photo of Miss Anna so everybody could see what they look like. There are ten in all. They're not huge, so I'm not sure how they would look printed. But they're perfect for online photos and/or digital scrapbooking!

My little pea in Great Grandma's frame, how cool is that?

They can be downloaded here or here!

It's been a pretty uneventful day around here. Felix has the swine flu and Isabelle woke up this morning with a fever so she got to stay home. He was still feverish this morning but tonight it looks like we might be over that stage of it. However.... Gabe's laying here on my bed fully dressed (including coat and shoes) completely zonked out. He's feverish. Hooray.

I've also been working on some new textures though I haven't gotten very far with them yet. When I finally get them done, I'll post them on here.

Hello!

2009-10-26T18:48:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to my blog!

My name is Mel and I'm a 30 something momma of 5 squirts who keep me on my toes. I love photography and graphic arts and I'm in the process of "getting good" at it all so that maybe someday I can earn some money using my developing skills as a photographer.

I also love photoshop! Right now I'm using cs2, but I have cs3 on my other laptop but it's kinda dead. It's been sitting there on my desk for about 9 months now waiting for me to get it fixed.

Back in the day (haha) I used to enjoy making an animated gif. I love a photoshop challenge though I don't enter many that I do find all over the interwebs because I like them on my own terms.

Most of what I learned in photoshop I learned from online tutorials. I have gone to college for several years and honestly, I learned more by seeing something I liked and trying to emulate it or by doing a tutorial for it.

I do like to share what I know and what I've learned. So stick around and maybe you'll learn a few things too!

You can also find me on flickr.

When I do post I'll try to include what I've been working on. Sooooo.... here is a photo that I finished last night of my daughter Isa. We were trying to perfect our "sun-over-the-shoulder-shining-in-the-hair" shot.

I didn't do much to this one, really. I adjusted my levels and ran the "perfect portrait" action I got from CoffeeShop. I absolutely LOVE these actions! There are also some great tutorials over there!