Orton Effect

The Orton Effect is a series of steps taken in layers to achive this dreamy intense photo.  It's named after the person who created it.  I won't post the instructions here since they can be found easily on the internet.

Flower Power

For this look you need to start with a photo that doesn't involve skin tones. 
1.  Open the photo in PSE as a RAW image.  Move the Vibrancy lever all of the way to the right.  If you had a photo with skin tones it would look awful at this point but with a flower it just makes the colors a bit unreal.
2.  Choose Open Image in the bottom right of the window and the image will open in the regular PSE screen.  Choose a texture to lay over the design and move the transparency down to 25%.
3.  Add a New Adjustment Layer from the Layer menu in Gradient Map.  Choose the Black and White option and reduce it to 60% or so.

Finished!

Stepping into a fairytale

My Cinderella

It's totally possible to make a child appear on a photo as if they stepped into a fairytale.  The background and not the child have been altered in this process.  First you need a photo at an amusement part or a similar setting.  These are my steps:

1.  Use the magic wand to select the area you want to change then go to Feather X7 under the Select dropdown.
2.  Open the drop down Filter menu, go to Artistic and select Palette Knife.  I set mine at +24, +23, +3.  Close the window.
3.  Invert the selection and go to Filter>Blur>Gausian Blur and fix at 1px.
4.  Drop down Layer> fill solid> put in code (2bcd2  and add.  Reduce to 15% saturation.  This adds a bit of blue to the image which makes it more storeybook.
5.  Go to Layer> New Adj. Layer > Levels and move the left black lever over to about 25. 
SAVE THE IMAGE AS A JPEG
6.  Now go to the drop down File menu and choose Open As and select RAW. 
7.  Move the vibrance lever way up until you start to see strange things happening to the photo.  Mine went up to +70 before I stopped.
8.  Choose Save Image and save your jpeg again once the original window returns.

Another easy Photoshop adventure!

Pop Goes the Color!

When this photo was taken I thought it was simply beautiful  until I took it into Photoshop Elements and popped the colors.  I opened a levels layer and moved the left lever to the right to deepen the blacks then opened the hue/saturation level and increased the sat.  Very simple process yielding great results!

Daydreams

The color photo was first turned to black and white.  Second, using the gradient map in the "new adjustment layer", the editor was opened by clicking on the gradient color.  Black and white was selected and the lower movable lever situated on the bottom left was moved to the right until a satisfactory gradient was achieved.  Lastly, a grey border was added to make it feel dreamy.

Simple and Sweet

Gracie at 11 weeks

Some times a picture should just be a picture.

Hooray For Hollywood!

Old Picture Postcard?

This photo replicates the look of old picture postcards with the washed out tints and hues.  To start with, a hue/saturation layer was added to the original photo and the saturation was changed to -50, it was lightened +45 and the hue was lowered -20.

Another hue/saturation level was added and "blue" was selected from the drop-down menu.  I changed it to -47 hue, +6 saturation and +62 lighten.  This altered the sky.

Next, a gradient map layer was added which reflected blue/yellow/pink.  It can be found under color harmonies 2.

Lastly, a black and white looking film grain was added as a texture layer and reduced to 30%.

The photo was taken at California Adventure, entering the back lot area of the theme park.

Button, Button

The old buttons

When I was a little girl visiting my grandparents, my grandmother would get out an old mayonnaise jar filled with buttons for me to play with.  My mother hated the jar and all of the little choking hazards but I loved it. 

When my grandmother passed away I took the jar and kept it to myself, remembering the times I would sit on the floor of her house trying to find the matches from the many coats, dresses and shirts they were pulled from over the years. This photo is grandma when she was a little girl and in the jar, some of the buttons from those memories.

The inner photo is pretty much the way it was shot but for a few color tweaks here and there.  A soft darker edge was put on the outside before dropping onto the background texture.  A drop shadow was placed on the inner photo.  Real simple.

Time Travelers

Time Travelers - Before and After

The bottom picture was taken on a trip to Old Tucson Studies.  The family huddled together creating an awesome photo I printed and framed.  However, what happens when you want to send those same people back in time? 

They look like they've stepped into an old scene thanks to a brown fill layer on top of the original photo and an eraser.  Once the fill layer goes on top at 50% opacity, simple erase the parts that you want to reveal from underneath.  The darkened border was added and a sepia photo layer was added to the top layer.  Same people. . . . . different place in time.  :)

Simple

Photo taken at Creative Dance Arts, Tucson, AZ


A simple photo was layered onto a textured background and type was added.  Then a photo tint was used to merge the colors of the two layers.  Simple and focused. . . . . . just dance!
The school was full of interesting architecture and "things" to photograph.  Just goes to show you that a beautiful picture can be found just about anywhere.

Aged and old looking

 The Great Train Robbery 

 This photo is one of my favorites to come out of Photoshop Elements. I started with a color image and converted it to B&W.  Then a sepia/golden texture layer was added at 20%.  Notice how it filled the sky with a golden color.  Afterwards I layered with solid color in a darker sepia tone at 80%, normal mode. 

Next, I came in with a 1/4" border in a darker brown set to 80%.  One level up I brought the black down a bit in a levels layer to take a bit of harshness out of the train.  Another texture was added that has both the horizontal and vertical strokes giving the photo a look of "graininess" at 17%.  This texture had a blue and green cast to it which I left alone.

I know. . . . it sounds like a lot of fiddling but it's worth it to get a result like this one.

Oh. . . . and those aren't really train robbers.  The baseball cap on the young one gives it away!

A Vintage Spoon

Vintage Spoon

Oh the spoon. . . . . . .I've known this spoon most of my life as it was the spoon I ate from as a child.  I wish I still had my Borden Elsie cup too.  I might put the coffee in that cup and stir it with the Yogi spoon. 

The photo was shot in RAW.  I addest a 66% contrast and dropped the clarity to -83.  This made the cup and everything ease fuzzy except Yogi.  The photo was then layered with a carmel texture which was taken down to 20% opacity.  The type was added and a brown feathered border was put in place.  Very easy!

The "eyes" have it!

Just being a girl

Some times less is more and sometimes more is awesome! After a bit of softening the eyes were sharpened and tinted just a little bit to brighten.

The Boardwalk

The Boardwalk

Again, an old photo (as in "I didn't take it today") with many layers added to create a vintage effect.
1.  The original photo had a sepia border added with a 50px feathered edge.
2.  Background layer on top at 25% opacity.
3.  A peachy fill layer at 17%
4.  Navy blue exclusion layer at 40%
5.  Pink fill layer at 17.
6.  A levels adjustment layer to gain a greater intensity to the darker areas of the photo.

This would be a great photo for a scrapbook!

Vintage Effects

Girls and Giggles

I remember the sixties and the photos from that era.  They have a tint, a hue, that we can only achieve now through manipulation of the many layers that pile on top of the original photo.  I followed Rita's tutorial (sort of) but increased saturation and contrast to match the vibrancy of the two girls (or bff's as they are better known). 

The photo isn't great since I had all of sixty seconds to get a photo from two giggling girls before they took off for their dance class but hopefully I've made up for that with this vintage effect.  There is a layer beneath the photo creating the grunge and a background from Shadowhouse is in the pink.

California Adventure

Hitchin' a Ride

The park next to Disneyland, California Adventure has this cool little gas station that looks like it's straight out of the Pixar movie, Cars. The photo was taken last year of my grandson but presented a great opportunity for a bit of tweaking. Again, I used one of same backgrounds as before. Before moving the photo to that background I placed it on a grungy layer and made the photo transparent at about 50%. I applied a higher contrast, raised the color saturation and when happy, added the text and embossed rim around the photo. Not your average vacation photo.

Soft and Sweet

Soft and Sweet

I completely respect the work of photographers who take babies as clients.  As a parent I found it difficult and as a grandparent it's no different.  Luckily this new family member was all smiles for me on a day when he and I had a bit of time to spend together.  Since what I want to do is create better family photos, I knew capturing this precious face was my main goal.  Aside from a few cries and a spit-up, it went really well.

These awesome photo corners were made by Rita at the CoffeeShop.  She has just about everything on her blog.  I layered a faint burn on the photo before adding the photo frame and then added a solid color in a sepia tone brought down to 15%.  Baby looks soft, sweet and vintage!

Cropping

Learning to Drive

Ahhhh. . . . the crop tool!  So that's what that thing is on the sidebar!  By this time I had bought the books and began reading in my spare time. . . . mostly at night.  Problem was, my computer was off so all I could do was read and then first thing in the morning quickly try out a tip or technique.  It doesn't take long before the whole Photoshop world begins to open before your eyes.

This is a new toy for another grandson.  He was headed up and down the sidewalk a bit and there I was with the camera on a tripod with an auto setting on Sports mode.  The photo was cluttered and a bit disorganized.  A quick use of the crop tool and I had my subject clearly in the 1/3 margin and a much nicer visual. 

Today I used one of Rita's masks (see post below) and another background from Shadowhouse.  The contrast was tweaked a bit and I considered it finished.

Close-Ups

Future Engineer

After I photographed "The Artist" I made a date to photograph her brother the "Future Engineer".  He spends long hours with his huge collection of Legos so it seemed natural that we would include them in his photos. 
This picture was taken in a living space with an aperture setting at 4.7.  I let the camera do the rest of the thinking.  When the photo was taken I knew nothing of using masks in Photoshop but thanks to the teachings of Rita at the CoffeShop, I was able to present the photo in this way.  She has a great tutorial and free masks on her site.  The background is from ShadowHouse Creations.

Low Light and Better Composition

The Artist

Within the last month I discovered a few things about taking pictures.  1.)  I love to be behind the camera but you miss a lot of action that way.  2.)  I really like to photograph people, pets, and buildings and that's about it.  Of course I find the rest beautiful but I think I'll admire the work of others for the most part and put faces in my frames. 

So this picture is of the artist in the family who is intense on so many levels.  This grandchild is most always a willing subject for my photo experiments so I photograph her a lot. I think of all the kids she is the one who understands my "need" to do this so she indulges me.  That, and she knows she photographs well!


I try to take the best photo I can and then head to PS Elements to do the rest.  This image was taken with a single incandescent light with an ISO of 800.

A few months passed . . . .

The Dancer

Life got in the way but I did take a lot of very ordinary photos.  I needed album fillers to chronicle the lives of my grandchildren which I took plenty of.  Then one day I had an opportunity to use light in a way that I had never done before.  I had a very bright background and instead of running from it, I placed my granddaughter along side it.  It didn't look as good in person as it did in the shot when I got it home.  I learned a lot with the photos from that day but this light lesson was the most important.  It's a stunning display of contrast in which it works for the photo, not against it.  I was definitely feeling that the time spent learning what I could in my spare time was beginning to pay off.

Is it interesting?

Infield Dancing

So by now I've become very aware that there are opportunities everywhere for unusual photos and those that make a more, shall we say "interesting" visual.  Six-year-olds breaking out in dance during a little league game isn't exactly commonplace so that's why I stared snapping away.

The Players

The same game provided me with cute shots of some of the boys sitting in the dug-out waiting for their turn to bat.  It was becoming much easier for me to see the good and bad photos.  Still, much of what I'm doing at this point is posed and my real desire is to get those shots that no one knows you're taking. 

Snow!

In February I had owned the camera for about two months when we took a trip up north with our kids, grandkids and two pups.  Camera in hand, I ventured into the cold to take a few (close to 200) pictures. 

Gracie in the Snow

Again, I am obsessed with aperture settings and not concerned at all with shutter speed because I have a ton of light. . . . . . more than I knew what to do with.  The pups on the white snow stood out beautifully.

Gracie's brother Luke

Even with my lack of experience I was able to get really good pictures in this environment.  The ISO was set at 200 but I know now I could have gone down to 100 and been just fine.  I've taken both photos into Photoshop and palyed with levels a bit getting the blacks blacjer and the white whiter.  Luke's photo casted blue gray shadows that I wanted to keep so as not to lose depth.

We have a dog

Gracie

My kids are grown and I get my grandkids on loan to photograph now and then.  So Gracie who is our Golden Retriever gets photographed. . . . . .a lot.  It isn't often she sits still nor does she always have the "forward ears" that look so great in pet food ads.  Often times she looks at me like I'm torturing her.  So be it.  I can work with "whatever" as long as I have enough time to follow her around.

In this photo Gracie was almost eleven weeks old and I was just learning a bit about aperture settings.  It's the clear foreground, fuzzy background dial for those of you who haven't read the online lessons!  Of course a treat was off to the side and my husband (my assistant for dog photos) was there to keep her attention.  There were many that didn't turn out as well but I'm very happy with this one.  Let's call it luck at this point.
Settings: ISO 400, F/4.

It all started when. . . . . .

My husband bought me a new camera for Christmas (thank you Ron).  I fell instantly in love with it but was clueless how to even start using it since it wasn't point and shoot.  So I watched the DVDs that came with it, read the manual (sorta), charged the battery and started taking pictures four hours later.  They weren't great but they weren't that bad either. 

I lead a pretty busy life so actually learning how to use it wasn't something I felt I could do right away.  In fact remembering the name of the camera, beyond the actual company name proved to be difficult too (though I don't know why).  For anyone interested it's a Nikon D3000.  There. . . . . I have it referenced in case I forget again. 

Every now and then I'd read something on the Internet that would help me take better photo.  Weeks passed studying lessons online and I did get better.  You know. . . .rule of thirds, panning, horizon lines and so on.  Tiring of sitting at the computer for long hours reading, I decided to by books and actually read them instead of just looking at the pretty pictures.  I ordered a three book series by Scott Kelby and instantly knew I'd hit home with some really good tools.

I began learning immediately.  At the same time I bought a book called Photoshop Elements 7 for Digital Photography also by Scott and Matt Kloskowski.  Both books changed how I view the world of photography.  So no, this isn't an add for Scott or his publisher.  It's a real life testimonial from someone who only thought she knew how to take a good photo to someone who now knows  she can (or at least can fix it in Photoshop!)