according.to.kim

Fabulous free tutorial

After posting my June 12-of-12 photo grid, a comment from Maureen had me thinking perhaps I ought to write some instructions for creating a photo grid. Hence, I was absolutely delighted to see a fantastic video tutorial by Cathy Zielske on creating multi-photo grids, posted just yesterday on Ali Edwards' website! Not only that, CZ provides a downloadable PDF of step-by-step instructions as well as some free graphics for monthly snapshot pages on her own website. Awesome! Check it out if you're interested in creating photo grids now or in the future. I adore them, as you know. Can't wait to whip up my 12-of-12 grid for July!

P.S. There is another method of creating a 12-photo grid using a png template, also by CZ (which is what I've been using), but the method explained in the tutorial video (and pdf) is more versatile than using the template, so I'll leave it at that.

Sweet Williams

Check out the delicate details on this Sweet William in our garden (click photo to enlarge). Aren't they pretty? Also, I was playing with a grunge edge on the photo and wanted to share!

Five going on sixteen?

I took this photo of Sophia in November 2006, two months before her sixth birthday. At the time, I really wished it would have been crystal clear. And, of course, there are no second chances with a five-year old. I could not try to take this photo again; the moment was gone for good. Bummer.

But as much as I disliked the blurriness, I could not bring myself to throw this photo away. Sophia just looked so much older than she was in this photo. Don't you agree? Is this the face of a five-year old? Maybe it's just me.

I came across this photo today, and was again struck by how much older Sophia appears to be. I think it's because she looks confident in this photo. So... because I really like this image and because it's so blurry, I was inspired to play around with it. Here's what I ended up with...

Photo time!

Just a few from the past week...

Madeline fell asleep wearing the ballerina costume my mom made for me when I was eight or nine.

Sophia wearing the hat I bought for her.

Every week, Georgia wore a swimming suit to watch her sisters' swimming lessons from the viewing gallery.

Goldy #2. (I didn't even get a photo of Goldy #1.)

Georgia's painted toenails -- with a quick and easy photo effect. Instructions here.

Madeline on skates

I was playing around with the exposure and most of the ice background vanished. Just thought it was kind of neat.

My nephew and photo fun

This is my nephew, Rian. He's eight months old. Shauna (Neil's sister), Cole, and Rian were in Regina this week, and we went to over to Laurel and Bronwyn's house last evening to visit again before they leave. It was nice to have them at the girls' party on Sunday too! We hadn't seen them since October.

This first photo is straight out of the camera. I had set the camera to ISO 1600 so I could capture Rian without a flash in the middle of the house in the evening (i.e., with no natural light at all). It's a bit grainy because that's what ISO 1600 does, but I quite like it. How else could you get a photo that's not either totally washed out from the flash or quite blurry under those conditions? And without red eyes? I wouldn't want a flash to go off in a baby's eyes at that close range anyway.

You know I can't leave well enough alone. That green ball behind Rian's head bugged me, so I removed it. A bit finnicky to do, but worth it. I also applied Auto Levels (in PSE 4) and bumped up the exposure just a touch. Not bad, huh?

And then, just for fun, I applied a filter called Poster Edges. (It' s easier to see the effect if you click the photo to enlarge.)

By the way, this is not the "project" I referred to on Thursday. That will be later -- sometime after dance and skating lessons!

Georgia's candle

We didn't have cake on Georgia's birthday (we'll do that later), but we decided to light candles and sing happy birthday to her anyway. Unfortunately, I couldn't find two candles. I guess I was lucky to find one! She didn't mind. The candle was in her ice cream and we lit it several times for her. It was a big hit!

(I didn't like the cluttered background and foreground in this photo, so I played around with a "grunged photo edge" I picked up a few weeks ago at www.twopeasinabucket.com. Edge by Rhonna Farrer. I get a kick out doing stuff like this.)

Added, Jan 9th: Thanks Kathie. I'm glad you like the effect. I think this picture (see original) could be quite a bit better though, so I'm going to make some changes and post a new one tonight (done; posted above; I think it's a little better). Also, I think this particular edge may look better on an older photo where an aged or vintage look seems appropriate, and/or on a photo with a lighter background.

Color accent

Just wanted to show you this nifty feature on my new camera. "Color accent" allows you to: choose an accent colour by pointing the camera at something and pressing a button to select the colour of that object, and then when you take a photograph, only things the colour you selected will be in colour and the rest of the photo in black and white (except items with similar hues, such those blue bits in the upper right corner of this photo -- which would be very easy to change to b&w later). I took this photo to show some coworkers this morning and then thought I'd share with you too.

There is another way to achieve this effect, of course. It just takes a little more work (and the right software) on your computer. I explained how to do it in this post: Fun with boots. The photo editing method allows you to reveal multiple colours, while you can't do that with the camera, but the "color accent" feature on the camera is certainly quick and easy. I had no idea my new camera had this feature until I started playing around with the settings a couple days ago. What fun! 

Doing it Digi! Lesson 4, Page 1

The entire 4th lesson was about making layered backgrounds using filters and blending modes. It's amazing what you can do. The result was an entire 6x6 "patterned paper" and you can see some of it on this layout. I also used the "diffuse glow" filter on the bottom right photo.

I enjoyed this BPS Doing it Digi! class very much and I learned a lot too. I should've created additional layouts, but didn't have time during the four-week workshop. I completed all four lessons though and I'm satisfied with the five pages I did make (to see them all, click on the "scrapbooking" category at the bottom of this post). I hope I'll find time to use all of this new knowledge in the not-too-distant future!

Flower girl

Brushworks Lesson 2

This is the page I created for the second lesson of the BPS Brushworks class I was taking (see Lesson 1). Again, I learned so much about the cool things you can do with brushes in Photoshop/Elements. Since creating this page was more about learning techniques, it's probably not what I would've done if I had been thinking specifically about creating a page using this particular picture and story. When the lesson said to use a closeup of someone's face, I just picked a picture from the limited library of photos I happened to have on the laptop, and then I created the page without having any idea of what I wanted the end result to be. Still, I think it turned out okay.

Brushworks Lesson 1

In June, I signed up for a two-week online class called Brushworks from Big Picture Scrapbooking (there's another one coming soon if anyone's interested). In June, however, I had NO time to do it, so I downloaded the lessons and resources for later use. This weekend, I finally found the opportunity to start the class and complete the first lesson. I'm glad I decided to take this class -- I learned so much doing this one page! I've been using Adobe Photoshop Elements and Photoshop (at work) for many years now and I can do several basic things quite well, but I knew I hadn't even scratched the surface. This class certainly confirmed that. Those programs are amazing!

I hope to do the second lesson of Brushworks within the next two weeks, and then I'm taking another BPS online class by Renee Pearson called Doing it Digi which runs for four weeks starting September 6. I can't wait! I suspect I'll be a little extra sleep deprived in September, but I don't care.

I had sort of resisted the idea of digital scrapbooking because I love playing with paper, scissors, glue, stamps, stickers, brads, ribbons, punches... SO much and I love the true texture of those things, but I've been drawn to the digital form lately. I don't think it takes any less time to put a page together, but it's very convenient. All I need is my computer and a few minutes (well, lots of minutes) here and there. And I do love "playing" on my computer anyway, so that's not a stretch for me. I'd also like to try hybrid scrapbooking which involves combining traditional and digital elements on a scrapbook page. After all, I do have a lovely stash of scrapbooking products I'd like to use someday.

Daily pic: 19 Apr 07

Looking toward the farm from about a mile and a half away. I wanted to capture the sun's rays. I took this photo on our way home in the late afternoon yesterday and the wind almost knocked me over when I got out of the van to take it.

I'd like to show you how this photo differs from the one straight out of the camera...

The tilt 'n' crop

I liked the photo I posted earlier. I liked it a lot. But then I started playing... I gave it a slight tilt, then cropped it closer... and voila! I like it even better now.

Pretty as a painting

Brush Strokes - Crosshatch filter.

And some serious cropping.

I could play all day!

But I can't, so I won't.

I should go play outside. It's 19 C right now!

Happy Spring!

More filter magic

The filter I used for this was Colored Pencil. Pretty cool, huh?

Filter magic

I took this picture of Madeline on January 9 and then played around with the artistic filters in Adobe Photoshop Elements. I like the result, especially the colours. The original follows. (Added, 1:48 p.m. I think the filter I used was Cutout.)

Daily pic: 05 Jan 07

[Jan 6, 8:30 p.m. I changed the photo. (Yep, I can do that; it's my blog!) I applied a "Fresco" filter and then cropped the photo much tighter. I think it looks pretty cool now. There's a link to the original below.]

Georgia's first time in a forward-facing car seat. We bought a new one yesterday after checking the dates on the two old car seats we had in the basement. They were both due to expire in just a few months, so we took them to SGI to be recycled.

[Added, Jan 6, 7:00 p.m. Laurel asked if Georgia loved facing forward in the car... She seems rather indifferent, but I'll tell you who hates it: Sophia. She cried all the way to Costco this morning (15 minutes) because she can't see Georgia's face anymore. We had to put Georgia's new seat in front of Sophia (and behind the driver's seat) because that's where the hooks are for the new type of latch system. It's annoying that our van doesn't have those hooks on every rear seat.]

A note about the original photo: Sometimes I hate the flash on my camera! It's too strong. I'm not happy with the unnatural glow on Georgia's face -- and this was with my camera's exposure turned down to -2/3 and further adjustments after the fact. (Without the flash, the photo had excellent colour and saturation but was much too blurry.)

More fun with photos

Just playing around again. I liked this photo of Georgia and me (taken August 31), except there was way too much crap in the background. I erased some stuff (such as the ever-present vacuum hose) and used a digital frame* to cover some other junk. (I wish those hooks and hats weren't there either, but I didn't bother trying to remove them.) Then, I didn't care for how my red t-shirt dominated the photo and didn't go with the frame, so I changed it to purple. BTW, I use Adobe Photoshop Elements. Love it!

Speaking of photos, there are some good tips in this article: Take better photos: family portraits.

Also, if you're interested in the technique for removing colour from part of a photo, I added some high-level instructions at the bottom of Fun with boots.

*from Zoey Kit by Clara Wallace of www.matterofscrap.com.

Fun with boots

When we were working in the basement yesterday, I tackled the huge pile of out-grown shoes and boots. I sorted them into bins by size (2-7, 8-10, 11-12...) so it'll be much easier to find shoes for Georgia and Madeline in the future. I thought it would be fun to take a picture of the girls' little rubber boots (sizes 5 to 12), so I did, and then tonight I played with the photo a little (removed the background colour):

Added, Nov 9: I was asked how I did this and what program I used. Here's the answer:

You need photo editing software that allows you to work in layers. (I use Adobe Photoshop Elements.) Open your colour photo in the photo editing program. Make a duplicate layer (or, select all, copy, and paste over the original photo). Change the top (duplicate) layer to black & white (a.k.a. "remove color"). Then, working on the top/black & white layer, use the eraser tool to erase the parts of the photo that you want to show up in colour. If the edge of the object has a lot of fine detail, you'll probably have to adjust the size of the eraser and zoom in close.