Special Effects with Photoshop CS3

I've been taking some online classes at Jessica Sprague's website on editing and enhancing digital photos, and also about adding special effects to them like frames, cool text, word art, textures, etc. It's so much fun!

Here's my effort from Lesson 1 of Jessica's class titled "Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects:" I first took the photo through the steps I learned in the class "Photo Editing: Good-to-Great Workflow" and then I cropped it, applied a digital frame, and added the word art and text.I love how it turned out! It could be framed as is, or placed on a digital scrapbook layout.

The "frame-ups" class is instructor-led, by Jessica herself, and is going on now. I'm sure it'll be offered again so if you are interested take a peek at her website. The "workflow" class is self-paced so you can get in on it anytime you like. There are other classes, too, on digital scrapbooking, organization, and even mini-classes where you make a single hybrid scrapbooking page.

I'm hoping to get caught up on the lessons in the "frame-ups" class (I was on vacation during the first week) and will share my finished creations here as I go.

Keep an eye out for a new freebie SOON, too!

Continually Amazed by Photoshop

Until I learn to be a better photographer, there's Photoshop CS3!

Here's a good example of NOT having my digital camera's white balance set correctly for an outdoor photo:

But after just a few clicks of the mouse using the Curves tool I've got this:

All I can say is "Wow." Oh, and "HOORAY FOR PHOTOSHOP!"

Digital Photo Modification - Adding a Bridal Bouquet

The beautiful bride. This is my daughter-in-law, Dianna, on her wedding day. This photo is her mom's favorite, and one that she (Terry) wants to have enlarged and framed. While at Terry's house on Christmas Day she showed me a large photo of herself on her own wedding day. She and Dianna could have been twins, they looked that much alike. And the way they were posed, with a mirror behind them, and pretty furniture and flowers nearby, was so similar it was eerie!

Except for one thing.

Terry had her bridal bouquet in her hands. Dianna doesn't. The photographer, Jeff Fassett, took photos with and without the flowers and it just happened that the photo that looks most like Terry's is one without the bouquet. Isn't that just the way things happen sometimes!

Well, Terry really wanted THAT photo but WITH the bouquet. Dianna had told Terry about my little biz of digital scrapbooking and that I also did photo restoration, repair, and modifications. Terry asked me, did I think I could add the bouquet??

But, of course!

I have all the digital photos from Jeff already because I'm going to be creating Rodrigo and Dianna's wedding album (which I'll be starting on January 29th while at a scrapbooking retreat in Pacific Grove, CA.) so I started looking through the pictures for one that had a bouquet I could "lift."
I found this one (above), where Dianna is standing in an almost identical pose, but with her bridal bouquet in her hands. Perfect!

I pulled both photos into a new Photoshop document and layered Dianna without her bouquet over Dianna with her bouquet. Then using a layer mask and a small, soft brush I "painted" over the areas of the top photos with black to allow the bouquet to show through. I had to zoom in quite close at times to deal with the eensy fronds of fern and the tiny blossoms that cascade down the front of Dianna's dress, as well as make sure the appropriate shadows came through as well. A little bit painstaking, but very fun!
I think the result is quite nice, what do you think?

If you have a similar situation, or a photo with distracting backgrounds, or an old photo with cracks and dirt, or whatever, call me and let's talk! Toll-free anytime: (866) 521-DIGI (3444).

Chances are, I can help!