ABFriday – One photo Focus – Cee’s Photo

This month the photo we were given for this challenge from Cee at Cee’s Photography.  She held a poll to see which one we would like to edit.  The majority went for this photo:

So firstly I went to GIMP and added a cartoon filter to define the edges of the green foliage on the tree.

Then I went to Photoscape and cropped it.  I played around with some of their preset filters and came up with this painted look.  It was too harsh so I then went to Lightroom and decreased the clarity just to soften the edges of the building which gave it a more painted look.

It  is hosted by Stacy at Visual Venturing if you want to join this challenge:

ABFriday Week 43: April One Photo Focus

ABFriday-One Photo Focus: Week 42

https://marshaleith.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/onephotofocus-for-april/

https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/after-before-week-43-one-photo-focus/

https://aperture64.wordpress.com/2015/04/03/after-and-before-forum-one-photo-focus-cee/

Thanks for visiting.

Advertisement

One Four Challenge: February Week 4

For this week I have used the advice of Ben at Ben’s Aperture64 and did some editing in GIMP.  Not as easy to navigate as Photoshop but for this I used the brush to get rid of that glare in the top of the dandelion.  Plus I also darkened the stem so that the focus is on the axctual dandelions heading off.  I am not sure if I was successful so any constructive criticism is welcome.

Here is the original

Original

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Here is a poll to see which one is the best edit.

Orange Salamander Part IV

https://bastet1952.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/one-four-challenge-a-rose-febraury-23-2015/

https://lensaddiction.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/one-four-challenge-feb-wk-4/

https://robynsfineart.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/one-four-challenge-feb-week-4/

Thanks for visiting

One Four Challenge: February Week 2

My second week photo for this challenge.  Thank you everyone for your helpful comments last week on how to get rid of the bleached overexposed area.

I have tried with both GIMP and Photoscape to correct this problem.  All it did was darken the background. So here is a slide show of the two edits so far. Any further constructive criticism and advise is welcome.  I don’t have Photoshop or Lightroom,  Just the two photo editing programmes I have mentioned along with Fotor which is really only preset filters.

https://robynsfineart.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/one-four-challenge-feb-week-2/

One Four Challenge – Feb Week 2

Orange Salamander Part II

https://bastet1952.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/one-four-photo-challenge-wk-2-february-9-2015/

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Thanks for visiting.

Cee’s Oddball Photo Challenge: Week 36

Good morning from a grey and very windy Hastings day.  Yesterday it got up to 28 degrees celsius and was very stifling.  It is very early to have such high temperatures.

So it is Monday again which means it is time for some fun with oddball photos.  Last week I was working on my laptop at the table when I happened to glance out the windows and noticed how the sun highlighted this peg thingy.  We have a covered veranda with a clothes line on it.  I have heard from another blogger how you can’t hang washing outside to dry.  I don’t own a dryer as 1) I can’t afford it and 2) they are expensive to run.  This area is great as I can hang clothes out all year round and not even get wet.

So for this photo I had some fun editing.  It is hard to be limited to what I have on this Windows laptop.  First I used GIMP and then Photoscape for some extras such as the sun in the top left corner.

http://nowathome.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge-week-36/

http://sillarit.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/odd-for-no-reason/

Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge: Week 36

http://woollymuses.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/cees-odd-ball-challenge-wk-36/

http://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/cees-oddball-photo-challenge-week-36-arizona/

http://piecesofstarlight.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/a-once-a-year-collection-of-halloween-oddities/

Thanks for visiting.

Steve’s Snap & Zap Challenge: The Great Gatsby

Good morning from Hastings.

I was saddened to see that Sonel has closed down her photo editing challenge.  I really loved that one as it made me be more adventurous and daring with my photo editing.  Steve was also upset but decided to set up his own challenge.  The Snap & Zap challenge.

Here are rules copied from his blog.

Each week I will suggest a new theme so take a new photo or use an existing photo and edit it with any software you like, so…

Create a new post showing the original
What edits have you made?
What software/techniques have you used?
Link back to the current week’s page
The theme for this week’s “Snap & Zap…” is Movie Titles.

So this week’s theme is Movie Titles.

So what else could I do except The Great Gatsby.

This is one of the photos taken from the vintage car show in Napier last February.

First I went to GIMP for the cartoon filter.

Not much difference other than some more definition.

I wanted to get rid of some of the unwanted detail on the bottom right so I used the vignette 2 filter in FX Photostudio Pro.

Then some colour to make it look more vintage.  I ended up choosing Crystal River  to make it more over the top.

Finally I added a frame and then used the Andes font to add the film title.

This could almost be Daisy hiding her face from the cameras.

Check out Steve’s post here.

http://steve-says.net/2014/04/01/snap-zap-stand-by-me/

Thanks for visiting.

Sonel’s Photo Editing Challenge and Phoneography Challenge:Macro

Hello from Hastings.

I must apologise that I haven’t been able to visit all your amazing blogs but I have had to suddenly go and house, cat and dog sit rather urgently.  My father was sent to Wellington for some medical treatment but my mother was pining for him.  She has Alzheimer’s and was initially coping on her own but after a week was retreating into her shell and not eating or drinking or doing anything except staying in bed all day.

So I packed her up and sent her down to Wellington too, she is staying with my sister.  They have been together for 53 years and are totally dependent on each other. So I have been looking after their house and animals.  I have been taking advantage of having pets by taking photos.

I am in a hurry today as I popped home to grab a few things and to meet Hubby for lunch before heading back. So I haven’t got time to do any ping backs so I hope you all understand.

So two challenges today.  Sonel’s Challenge asks us to use any images from last month so I found these images which also goes under Sally and Pen’s Phoneography Challenge of macro.

The first one was edited with Waterlogue on my iPhone.

Along with these ones.

This last image was edited with GIMP.

So have a good week.  I will try to do some more posts when I can.  I did try to use my iPad but it didn’t work so I have to come home every  couple of days to write my blog.

Thanks for visiting and your understanding.

Mandarin Orange Monday/77

Good morning from an overcast Hastings morning.

Today is Monday so time for LorikArt‘s challenge. I loved her post this week which you can find here:

http://lorikart.com/2014/01/19/mandarin-orange-monday-77/

I also was totally impressed by lady sighs post for http://sonelscornerphotochallenge.wordpress.com.

http://ladysighs.wordpress.com/2013/12/27/sonels-photo-editing-challenge-nature/

So I thought I would have a go with these two photos.  I can’t show you what I did as my blog crashed when I uploaded the photos for some strange reason.  I can tell you that I used Photoshop for editing the photos into the orange colour.  I used a couple of the filters – poster edges and fresco.  Then it was over to GIMP for a tweak with the cartoon filter before I used the paper curl filter to do the final image.  It took me a bit to work out that I could actually load two images together to get the layers.  But here is the final result.  At least that wasn’t corrupt.

I hope lady sighs doesn’t mind, but I was totally wowed by her post.  For me it was more of learning about different editing programmes and to stretch my mind.

Thanks for visiting.

Mandarin Orange Monday: 76

 

Good morning from a  windy Hastings today.

This is my first MOM for this year.  I loved LorikArt‘s post this week of Castro the cat.  When I opened up the IPhoto the first thing I found was this cat.  It is a calico cat – that is it has an orange, black and white coat.  So I am halfway there. LOL.

So first it is over to GIMP for the cartoon filter.

Then to FX Photostudio Pro for a vignette.

Then I added a hot yellow filter.

Finally the hippie filter.

First to GIMP for a cartoon filter.

Then to FX Photostudio Pro for a vignette.

Then a lindale filter.

Then the black and red comic filter.

Then the lindale filter again.

First is the cartoon filter from GIMP.

Then the vignette from the FX Photostudio Pro.

Than the sparta filter.

Finally the lindale filter.

Here is Lorik’s post for you to browse through and admire.

http://lorikart.com/2014/01/12/mandarin-orange-monday-76/

Thank you for visiting.

Sonel’s Corner Photo-Editing Challenge:Shadows/Reflections

Good evening from a warm Hastings Evening. I hope everyone up north are keeping warm and safe with your storms.  Brave men playing football in minus temperatures.

Anyway  these are my original images.  I have lots of photos of reflections so the other day on my walk I decided to take some more photos of shadows.

First stop was GIMP to add some texture and details with the canvas and cartoon filters.

Then it was over to FX Photostudio Pro to add some vignettes  and vintage filters.

Here are  a couple of other great entries too browse through.

http://sonelscornerphotochallenge.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/photo-editing-challenge-shadows-and-or-reflections/

Photo Editing Challenge: Shadows and/or Reflections

Thank you for visiting.

Esse’s Weekly Shoot&Quote Challenge: Music

Good morning from a sunny but definitely cooler Hastings day.  I hope that you are all safe, dry and warm up in the Northern Hemisphere.  I have been watching the news and have seen the devastation from the winter storms.  So I shouldn’t really complain about our 33 degree heat we had yesterday.  So take care everyone and look after yourselves and loved ones. 😀

This weeks challenge by Ese’ s Voice is music.  Now I am the most unmusical person on the planet.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love music.  I just can’t produce it.  When I was about 11 I had to learn the violin.  My mother learnt both the violin and the piano, so I had to learn the violin too.  I had just lost some of my hearing with a fire cracker incident so I really couldn’t hear the notes too well.  Anyway it was pure torture.  For a whole year my father used to come up the drive, hear us kids trying to practice and then drive out again for another 1/2 hour or so until we had finished.  That is how bad I was.  Another funny story was that because I was learning the violin I had to join the school orchestra.  Apparently they were short on violins.  Anyway one morning at school assembly we were to put on a small item. Unfortunately the bus driver had’t heard of it so was late .  Very late.  I only just got to school in time to have the violin tuned (by my teacher) and then start the piece.  Trouble was, I wasn’t told that the piece had two parts to it and we were to play the first part twice.  So guess what I did. Yup, I played the whole thing through.  I wondered why the teacher was looking at me with thunder in her eyes.  Ouch.

In the end on the way home from my violin lessons on Saturday mornings I used to take the violin out of the case and fill it up with fruit I found on the way home – mostly fejioas – a most beautiful fruit here in New Zealand.

After  a year my parents couldn’t really take the torture and mercifully released me from it and cancelled the lessons.  Yea!!!!

So here is the quote.

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

Berthold Auerbach

So my photos are of torrential rain one day late last year. I have tried to take photos of rain and puddles before but these seem to be my most successful ones so far.  They have been edited with GIMP and FX Photostudio Pro.

Here is the a great post to look for inspiration.

http://esengasvoice.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/ese-s-weekly-shootquote-challenge-music/

Thank you for visiting.