Shoot and Edit: EDIT!

I'd love to say I was super prepared for the edit this week....that I've been waiting anxiously for days to share it....

Truth is, I have a very sick little 2 year old at home (again), and I've had a bunch of photo sessions this week, so I'm not nearly as prepared as I'd like to be...

On the plus side, I did have enough forethought to share a little tutorial with ya'll on color cast.

I know Ashley covered it on her blog, but the way I do it is a little different. See, sometimes you have color cast throughout the whole photo (i.e. everyone in the photo looks to be a descendant of an Oompa Loompa), but sometimes you get color cast from something reflecting on the eyes or skin. (you guys remember my green baby before/after, right?) Here's how I do it...

SOOC


My adorable little Prop Thief model, SOOC...

Obviously, a little dark... So, I hop into Lightroom to do my initial edits, as usual.

Basic Lightroom edit


So now, I throw it over into CS5....

Hmmm....do you see what I see? Probably not.....let me show you...



Catch-lights in eyes....good. Reflection of red heart toy light prop thingy in eyes.....bad. I know Valentines Day is the "Red" holiday and all, but I think red eyes may be a little more "Halloween" than "Valentines"...

Now yeah, I could use the clone tool, and make it look alright...but all the detail of her eye is there and correct....it's just the wrong color!

Enter "Hue" blending....Make a copy of the layer, and choose "Hue"


From here, select your paintbrush....make sure you're working on the new "Hue" layer.
Go over to where you have the color cast, hold the "Alt" key(gives you the eye dropper tool), and select an area that is the correct color. (In this case, the brown part of her eye).

Now let's talk brush opacity..



Usually I put my opacity at around 20 - 39% when I'm fixing color cast, but it does vary. It's a little bit or trial and error at this point to get the mix just right. Once you select an opacity, use the brush tool and brush over the area that is incorrectly colored. Having the layer in Hue blending mode only alters the color without touching the details.


Ah...... that's better. :) (I know there's still a little red around the eye...I took care of that after I took the screen shot)

Now, besides the whole "red eye" thing, I liked the basic edit....but I think it was a little too much red. I had the red backdrop up when I was taking shots of my other kiddos (who were not wearing red) and just left it up. Let's tone it down a little...
(Final Edit)


I like it :)

And just for fun, I tried a vintage preset I'd made a while back, and it actually removed most of the color. I'm not usually a big fan of selective coloring, but it kinda works for this Valentines Day shot. Still, the final edit is my favorite. :)

(vintage edit)


As for my other "heart thief" shots, I tried to do something a little different with each of them....but to be honest, I don't LOVE any of these following edits. I'm just exhausted and trying to get my wee one back to feeling healthy again. These middle of the night neutralizer treatments take there toll on you after a few nights!

SOOC


Edit


SOOC


Edit


SOOC


Edit

Shoot & Edit: Shoot!

Two weeks in a row....the girl is on a roll! :)


For Shoot and Edit this week, the theme is "Hearts"

So I took 3/4 of my children upstairs to do a Valentines Day shoot! :) (The teen pretty much wanted nothing to do with it...hehe)

I can't wait to show all the pics, but I'm trying to save some for Valentines Day!

Anyway, first I took the littlest Who up to shoot some photos....found this cool heart at BigLots, and S thought is was quite wonderful. I figured while I was doing this Valentines Day shoot, I'd grab a heart photo for this link up....
(SOOC)


Getting a shot of this heart was harder than you think.....cuz...ehem....SOMEONE kept stealing my prop!
(SOOC)


"Ach Ooo Mama...Ach ooo" (Thank you Mama...Thank you) - Toddler
"No baby girl....this is Mama's...you can't have this sweetie.." - Me
"Awww....OOOOOOOKAAAAAAAY Mama" :::Gives Sad look, and pats me on the back like, oh poor thing. She thinks she's gonna get this back!:::: - Toddler
"S.....give it to Mama please" - Me

(SOOC)


"Aww...Ni Ni...:::Kisses Heart:::...Ee go NiNi Mama" (Aww..Nite Nite...He go Nite Nite Mama)- Toddler
:::::Sigh:::: Hopefully, they have more hearts at BigLots. I don't think I'm getting this one back...

(SOOC)

Scavenger Hunt, Scripture, and What I've been up to...

Hey, while it may be a little later in the day, at least I'm getting my scavenger hunt Sunday stuff up on, well, Sunday this week! Progress, not perfection here.... :)
As always, click the photos to view them bigger!
Water:


Water and food coloring, and cooking oil (I wanted to use motor oil, but we didn't have any that wasn't in the motor of my car, so I had to compromise!) Just having fun and experimenting! Wanted to do something different.....got tired of water droplets and icicles :)

Quote:

I love this photo....I don't even care that I took it with my cell and not my DSLR (because it's really kinda big, heavy, and expensive to hold over my head and snap a shot in a snowstorm.....) The Kindergartner and I catching snowflakes while we were shoveling the driveway! I'm just a little goofy :)

Window:

My littlest got distracted by something outside the window, when I had her upstairs doing our little Valentines Day shoot!

Activity:

Sledding! One of very few activities you can do in a snowstorm!

And Finally, Pg 25 of a magazine.
Ok, so I was TOTALLY uninspired by this one. Nothing against the subject, it's just that there was a total of ONE magazine in my house that I can locate, and on page 25 of Parent's magazine, was an ad that was just NOT capturing my imagination....

So, I mocked it



Also today, I want to link up with Scripture and a Snapshot!



So anyway....in the subject of totally random unexpected good things, I have a new tripod!
Well, it's not new.....it's an old tripod. Like, 20 years old....like, my first Holy Communion was shot using this tripod kinda old. The amazing thing? It looks like it came off the store shelves. My Father has a tendency to overbuy, and had purchased this huge, stable, professional caliber tripod..and used it, like 3 times.

So he gave it to me :) I'm so excited!


And on the subject of things that do NOT make me smile....my children have been hording their dirty clothes instead of putting them down the laundry chute, and I've been too busy unpacking to notice.......sigh......

I think you'll find me in the basement for the next couple days!

Paper Mama Valentines....

Macro Friday

Do you ever sit back and realize, that in the rush of life, your kid is missing out on like, a childhood right of passage?

Yes, my friends.....my 2 year old daughter has never had a bubble bath.

And it's not because she has sensitive skin, or that I have something against bubble baths.....it is purely because I find it a challenge to get 6 bodies squeaky clean daily, and the poor kid has taken only showers for 99% of her life.

So, we remedied this :)


It was a TOTAL hit! LOL






And where was I for these over the head shots?




Thank you so much for picking my photo for the winner last week! It TOTALLY makes my week when one of my photos gets chosen! Being new at photography, sometimes I feel unsure of myself in this arena......so thank you so, so much!

Here's a couple more icicle shots I took the other day, just for fun :)




Lemme tell you though, as pretty as this snow and ice is, living in NY state, I'm pretty happy the groundhog said spring is just around the corner! I'm getting tired of digging out!

Before/After

My other favorite Thursday haunt!

SOOC



Oh, how I love my little guy!

After


I was liking the b&w feel for this one.....don't let my little guy fool ya though....he's just as smiley as his Mama!


Shot with my 50D 85mm 1.8...edited in Lightroom 3 and CS5

Shoot & Edit: Edit!!

Hooray! It's finally time for the edit portion of "Shoot & Edit"....

Love link'n up to Ashley's blog and seeing what everyone's been experimenting with!

So, Monday, I shared my SOOC image with ya'll..


So, first I did my basic adjustments in Lightroom.... pretty much the same things Ashley does in ACR. Sometimes I use ACR, but I really like Lightroom 3. I tend to do my initial, and final edits there.

I also cropped it, putting the focus more on my daughter. I prefer to shoot with primes, and the trade off is, sometimes I have to rely on cropping, as my feet aren't a fast enough zoom sometimes!

Basic Lightroom Edit


Then I tossed it over into CS5. Here I upped the color a little and sharpened. I also warmed up the image a little. Then I saved it back in Lightroom, made a slight vignette and de-noised a little... Here's the results!

Edit #1


I don't dislike it....but I don't LOVE it.....so I tried something different. This time, instead of upping the saturation, I played with the color of the highlights and shadows...changing the tone and the feel of the photo....

Edit #2


Ahh...there we go... That's more what I was thinking.....

And, because of my undying love affair with B&W, I figured I'd see how it looked there too, which kinda goes against the point of the theme being "red" but hey, I've always marched to the beat of my own drummer....why stop now? :)

Edit #3


So, what do you guys think? Which edit do you like?

Off to go see YOUR edits now! Gotta love Thursdays!