Melissa Anderson

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Photography: Portraits

Individual: Side Composition

Individual: Head (Shoulders)

Group Posed:

Individual Environment:

This was a fun array of shots. The only real edits I did on any of them were to hide any blemishes or imperfections. I tried to make sure that it was fun. Thankfully the people I was working with are big hams (their own words) which made it enjoyable. I did blur the fence a little on the group posed picture. It brought the focus on the subjects more.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Camera Raw.

Original

Edited

Dorothy? | 5.14.11 @ 1.26PM | Outside of Rexburg toward Sugar City | f/4.0 | Shutter Speed: 1/1600 | Canon Powershot SX120 IS | ISO 200 | Focal Length: 25.2 | No flash

As I was biking to Sugar City, I discovered this beauty. Quickly-ish (I snapped a ton of pictures from different angles at different camera settings), I captured this image. In Camera Raw, I opened it, and then the fun began. I upped the temperature, fill light, and blacks. I wanted to keep the image fairly dark to make it fit the sky, I had seen in the background. I did up the brightness, so the image was not lost though and then I added contrast within those two sets. Since it was dark, I bumped up the clarity and vibrance to bring the color out of the barn. Then (almost contrary-wise) I decreased the saturation to give it the antique feel. To complete the effect, I added a slight vignette.

Original

Edited

Locked. | 5.14.11 @ 1.48PM | Sugar City, Idaho | f/4.0 | Shutter Speed: 1/800 | Canon Powershot SX120 IS | ISO 200 | Focal Length: 6.0mm | No Flash

This was the coolest wall-type-thing! I found it in Sugar City, and I hurriedly began snapping pictures. When I opened it in Camera Raw, I wanted to boost the old feel. So what did I do, you might ask? I increased the recovery by the tiniest sliver. I really like it already, so I limited my edits to an increase of blacks and contrast. Since I really wanted to bring out the detail and color but keep it dark, I increased the clarity and vibrance almost 100%. Then thinking that I may have gone a trifle overboard, I decreased the saturation. Once again, I fell to the vignette, but I made it barely existent, just enough to make it a little more exciting!

Panorama

Alrighty, for this picture, it all started when I was strolling home from the library. When I saw the sunset, I started to run... of course it was the one day that I had just left my camera at home. After grabbing my camera and chucking my stuff, I hustled myself up the stadium seats to get this shot. To be frank, the images were a little dull when I got home, but I had wanted to be careful to not grainify (which is not a word) the sky. After I let photoshop do all the work in merging the images together, I started to paint the color back into the sky.

First, I ramped up the exposure to get a little more light into the shot. Then I boosted the saturation to bring back some of the richness of the sky. Once I could start to see what I remembered, I went to the selective color layer and began to tweak. I adjusted the reds and blues to get back the contrast that I had originally seen when I was strolling.

Originals:

Old Salvation | 5.14 @ 5.24 | Rexburg, Idaho | f/4.0 | Shutter Speed: 1/400 | ISO 200 | -.67

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Adjustment Layers

CSI 3:

For this image, I did the overlay... twice. I tried it both ways, but I liked the darkness in the blues. On the same side, I decreased opacity of both the layers. More was decreased on the first layer than the second. However, I loved the torch, so I painted it back into the picture. The overlay had taken out the detail of the light, so I just removed it in both overlay layers. I added a little extra brightness to the surrounding area around the light fixture to make it really stand out: not too much though.

CSI 23:

The Golden Door | 5.7.11 @ 4.44pm | Sammy's in Rexburg | f/2.8 | Shutter Speed 1/800 | Canon Powershot SX120 IS | ISO 200, Focal Length 6.0mm, no flash

I converted this into a smart image. I had high hopes because it is such a unique, cool door. So after it became a smart image, I used poster edges for a little bit of fun. This was good, but I liked the addition of a slight ocean ripple filter. Then I added a little fresco filter to bring out some of the dark and texture. I considered reducing the opacity, but after some attempts, I liked what I had better than the erasing. After that, I was done.

Flora & Fauna

First, I opened Camera Raw. Then bumping up the vibrance and contrast, I moved to the saturation. Using the adjustment brush, I highlighted the upper bricks, then reaching it to barely touch the tallest flowers, I decreased the saturation. I kind of like that it looks as though the color is slowly creeping up into the whole picture... or slowly being sapped of color, depending on how you look at it.

Big Brown Eyes | 5.7.11@ 1.31 pm | Rexburg, Idaho | f/3.5 | Shutter Speed 1/1600 | Canon Powershot SX120 IS | ISO 200, Focal Length 14.4, no flash

I did not make many edits to this image. I will admit that I opened it in Camera Raw and lightened the dog's face. This was the only edit that I made to it. It was just so fluffy.

Since I am trying to work on my Camera Raw, this is another study in the raw. I bumped up the blacks. I then increased the saturation. I increased the clarity of the picture, but I wanted to make sure that it would not compromise the colors that I had here. I loved how bright and cheery the flowers were, and with the addition of black in the background, I feel it makes the flowers pop out more!

Strong in the Wind | 5.7.11 @ 1.38pm | Rexburg, Idaho | f/8.0 | Shutter Speed 1/125 | Canon Powershot SX120 IS | ISO 400, Focal Length 25.2. no flash

I did not make any edits to these little flowers. They just looked so cheerful already, and after goofing around with some edits, I looked at the original picture, and I liked it better.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Color Study: Green

(Small Aperture)

To emphasize the green, I added a little hue (+8) and added some light (+17). Then I increased the contrast (+53). After this was done, I went and adjusted the levels. This made the flowers much more vibrant.

When I was cleaning up this image, I started with the brightness. It had been a little dark, so I increased the brightness (+23) and the contrast (+28). My real goal was to make the green of the door stand out since it was a study in color(-31), so I decreased the hue and saturation (-17).

I did not change the image too much. I wanted to focus on the motorcycle, so I cut it out and put it on a white background. This made the motorcycle stand out, and the removal of the van made it as awesome as I thought it might be.

(Large Aperture)

This picture was obviously posed, but I had to toss in the orange just for contrast. Contrast was increased (+38). Then with a little added brightness (+10), I was done. I liked the way it came out to begin with to be honest. For an assortment of green objects, it came out fine.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Edit: Blends and Type

Blends:

Originals:

Since I was planning on using this as a texture, I did not make many edits to it. I cropped it a little to remove some grass at the bottom. Then I rotated it so that it was portrait rather than landscape, so I could use it as a texture on my picture of the house.

Entanglement | 4.30.11 @ 11:38 | Rexburg, Idaho | f/4.0 | Shutter Speed 1/500 | Canon Powershot SX120IS | Focal length 6.0, ISO 200, no flash

This picture was way to cheery for what I had in mind for it. The texture has an old and demolished feel to it. The picture had to darken. I cropped it a little to start off with. Next, I decreased the brightness, and added to the vibrance (+61). The saturation was then decreased (-69). This gave me a darker feel and the colors were more suited to what I wanted.

Time Will Tell

Time Will Tell is a study in what I see the world of fairy tales to be. It may be a little dark (thank you, Brothers' Grimm), but there a poignant beauty about it. This was a simple blend effect. I decreased the opacity of the wall and erased it from the sky entirely. These two images just went together in my mind.

Type:

Original:

I wanted to bring out the colors without making it appear too vibrant. This is a look at a truly ironic situation. I increased the vibrancy (+100), then decreased the saturation (-35). The hue of the blues was important to me, so I increased it (+14) to make it really pop out. To finish up edits to the original picture, I decreased the brightness (-27).

Eye of the Beholder

For the type edit, I wanted to demonstrate the irony of a Career Beauty school that has an exterior that is the extreme opposite of beautiful. I thought that Eye of the Beholder was appropriate as that is how beauty is supposed to be judged, especially since it calls out the truth of the situation. I wrote a few lines of text and then proceeded to copy and paste into the text box. I made a new of the text and changed the font and shifted it. Then I decreased the opacity of both texts. One this was done, I erased the text from the most important (to me) focal points, namely the sign that claims beauty, the matching mattress, and the derelict pot. Then with a simple set of texts, I added the title to the image.