fix it friday #96

It's Friday again, which means I Heart Faces is running another editing challenge. The description summed it up well: "this photo has it all...noise, underexposure, distracting elements and more."

SOOC

my effort

first I opened the raw file in Adobe Raw, didn't alter the white balance, but upped the exposure to +1.5, brightness to +59, contrast to +41, the clarity right up to +83, vibrancy to +31 and saturation to +53 (I was trying to get some colour into the sky).

I then took the image into PSE5 where I cropped, made a duplicate layer on which I used the clone stamp to remove who I've now learnt is Andrea's brother Jon, and a few other bothering bits. Made another layer to darken highlights and applied CoffeeShop's Barista where I did the levels adjustments, sharpened and dodged the white bits that were still popping out at me. I flattened at this point, probably needn't have, but I did.

The sky was still too flat and white, so I made yet another duplicate layer, and used it to apply an LBB filter. I gave the layer a mask, and painted out the grass, people and red of the barn. Then I warmed things up a bit with PW's Sunshine action at 23%. Oh, yes, then saved and opened it again in neat image and let it do its stuff to filter the noise.

As usual, it's probably a very long winded way of doing things, and I'm not entirely convinced by the results, but I did my best!

MCP project 52 week 17

Ok, so I'm 17 weeks too late, but that's better than never isn't it? I've joined MCP's project 52 Each Friday
they set a theme and you have a week to take and enter a photo to the flickr group pool This week's theme is (predictably) "Princess for a Day" Not a terribly tricky theme around here with such a girly elder daughter. Mainly for my mum, here are my attempts.

 

 

 my favourite, but not "princessy" enough

 

and the photo I chose:

The School Bag

I'd been wondering for a while why everybody was getting so excited about school bags. I mean, it's April, 5 whole months before school starts. Is supply so limited?? Turns out that in local tradition godparents buy soon to be first graders their new school bag for Easter. Irmi offered, Lisi chose, it was bought and (ahem) what a thing of beauty it is:

These bags are huge, heavy and cost a small fortune. They bring with them the promise of homework which the poor children get set from day 1. Anyhow, even if it is almost as big as she is, Lisi is smitten.

for scale:

Fix it Friday

Every Friday the iheartfaces forum holds an editing challenge. This weeks photo was a tricky one, somebody's got a bit of a cold I think. Here are my attempts - the first photo is the un-edited version.

SOOC

edit 1

B&W

Here's my recipe:

first I opened the JPEG in Adobe Camera Raw, boosted the exposure to +50, recovered some highlights at +33 and upped the clarity to +18. Next I opened the picture in PSE5, cropped, made a duplicate layer and used the "adjust colour for skin tone" tool. Clone stamped and spot healed the rings under her eyes and  flattened.

I applied the CoffeeShop Perfect Portrait 2 action, and used the brush tool at the following levels: smooth skin (on chin) 40%, remove red (on effected parts) 50%, kept the contrast boost and brighness at the preset 50%. Urban grit on hair 50%, teeth and eye whites 10%, eye define 40% and bright eyes 34%. Flattened again, Pioneer Woman Quick Edge Burn put on at 23% (the coffeeshop one seemed not to take account of my crop) and applied the CoffeeShop Coffee with Cream action. For the B&W I used the Pioneer Woman B&W Beauty conversion. Just typed confusion, maybe that's a more accurate description of my technique. 

You can find all the other entries at   fix it friday #95

ETA: should have done something with that leaf *sigh*

 

Palm Sunday fail

We failed as parents again on Sunday. Well, I can actually blame that husband of mine 'cause I'm a foreigner and what do I know? The first inkling that something was up was when people started heading towards the town square like this

shortly followed by this

and then this

 

pretty soon the square was overrun with them.

 

There was plenty of healthy competition. Who had the biggest?

 

Who had the smallest? (thanks Viktoria and Doris)

 

and then there were my children who had none. A certain somebody didn't think that this sort of thing got going before school age. Ho hum. Lisi tried to sneak in the line with a friend - those with "palm sticks" got a bread bunny from the mayor. She didn't. At least Norah got to try one out.

Must do better next year.

Moritz

This is Moritz




he's Norah's adopted big brother. He helps her and her doll climb the climbing frame, he collects Filly ponies but insists on hiding them before his friends come over. He's sweet, kind and had his sixth birthday party on Saturday. Cake was eaten, lego built, his bedroom got trashed and most of all...

bowles was played

very seriously. Turns out Norah's a bit of a dab hand, winning a couple rounds.

When the invitation came I assumed the whole Kindergarten group was invited, but no, Moritz had 4 big 5 year old boy friends, his little sister, his cousin and Norah. Norah was thrilled.

 

Happy birthday Moritz, and thank you for being so nice to my baby!

fix it friday

I've been playing again...

Each Friday over at I heart faces they host a photograph editing challenge. They provide the photo, you have to edit it as best you can with whatever you've got. This is what I came up with using Photoshop Elements 5 and the fantastic free actions from the coffee shop blog. If only I always had such pretty photos to edit!

Straight out of the camera

edit 1 - using Coffee Shop perfect portrait 2

B&W

well, I've got to start somewhere...

I must say I'm more than slightly overwhelmed by this blog buisness, how to lay it out, what even to put in it... still, I have to start somewhere, so where better than with a nice photo? Alison came to visit last weekend. She and I took the girls on an adventure, testing South Tyrol's integrated public transport system to its limits. We walked from Feldthurns to Klausen through the chestnut groves and apple orchards getting a lovely sunburn in the process.