Photoshop: Dodge and Burn Tools

I have to admit this assignment was frustrating at first! I couldn't find my dodge and burn tools. I had all of the tutorials printed out plus the Adobe Photoshop manual all in front of me and I was still scratching my head. Finally I found the tools. I blame it not on the tutorials or the manual but my own lack of familiarity with Photoshop. Once I found the tools it was a lot of fun to manipulate the photos using the dodge and burn tools. In this photo I wanted the two dogs and the path to stand out. I used the burn tool to darken the area around the path. I think it looks as if dusk is falling everywhere but on the path. Or like a giant shadow is looming just beyond the path. Then I used the dodge tool to lighten the entire path, to almost make it look like a beacon for someone to follow the dogs down. I think the overall photo looks like a storybook photo. I can almost imagine the story the goes along with it...

PhotoShop Filters: Photo Two

I used the diffuse glow filter on this photo of Boston running. I really like the effect this created. It almost seems as if it was an image used in a story book.

PhotoShop Filters: Photo One

Here is my photos using the filter tool in Adobe Photoshop. I used the charcoal tool. I think it changed the whole dynamic of the photo. I really like the original but I think the charcoal adds another dimension to the photo.

Fixing Photos With Photoshop

Here is a photo of my niece Chloe and dog Zuri. I changed it to a black and white picture. I really like how images look in black and white and so that is why I played with this feature for this photo. I also used the brightness contrast tools to create this image.

Fixing Photos With Photoshop

Here is a photo of my dog Sully playing in the snow. You might recognize him jumping from the Photoshop picture last week where I cropped him into the picture of of my other dog Boston.
The second picture is the original unaltered version. The first picture I adjusted using Photoshop tools. I wanted to play around with the tools to get some neat effects. While I admit it doesn't look real it was still fun to do. I used the new adjustment layer tools to create this effect. I played with the brightness tools as well as histogram tools and I adjusted the saturation as well. I really wanted the green to stand out in this picture from the trees so I utilized the tools for this effect.

Photoshop Assignment:Marquee, Lasso, Magic Wand Tools

Here is my 1st ever attempt at Photoshop. It was hard! Luckily my mother has a photoshop users guide so that helped alot. I used the marquee tool to cut the picture of Sully jumping out of the orginal picture and into the picture of Boston lying down. Then I used the magnetic lasso to crop out the background from the cropped picture so that Sully would blend into the image better. I attempted to use the magic wand to blend the colors but I'm not sure if I did it correctly. Overall it was interesting to figure out how to operate all of the tools to get the result I was looking for. I think once I get used to photoshop that I will enjoy using it. It is an amazing program!

Landscape Photos

Here are my landscape pictures. I really enjoy taking pictures of landscapes. As a matter of fact I chose noted wildlife and landscape photographer Galen Rowell as my research topic. I hope through researching his work that I will learn some good tips and techniques to take nice landscape photos.

These photos were taken on a hike up a mountain in Washington. It is the highest point in town. As you can see if affords a beautiful view of Camels Hump. You can even see a view of Washington and the dirt road that leads to our house. The other pictures are of the trail we hiked. It's actually a snowmobile trail in the winter and where I trail ride my horse in the summer. I took these pictures at about 12:00 in the afternoon.

Assignment # 3: Frame Slideshow

Assignment # 2: Rule of Thirds

Here is my side by side comparison of photos. I took these photos on a two hour hike with my husband and dogs on Saturday afternoon. The photo on the top is using the rule of thirds. My subject is the far left square if you were to divide the image into nine squares. The photo on the bottom is taken with my subject centered. If you were to divide the image into nine squares he'd be exactly in the center square. In the photo where I used the rule of thirds I liked that you can see the trail stretched out ahead and the deep blue of the sky peeping through the trees tops. I also like in this shot the way you see the tree line down through the path. I think it adds nice depth to the picture.