One Photo Focus

Good morning from a grey and wet Hastings day.

This month for Stacy’s challenge over at Visual Venturing we are all editing this photo by Robyn Kent. Below is the original.

I imported the image into Photoshop where I used Camera Raw to increase clarity, vibrancy and saturation.

Then I went to the preset filters and posterized it – but reduced the width of the edges.

 Then I added the blur filter to get the spin affect, at the same time making sure that the dome is still in focus.  I wanted the blur lines to reflect the curves of the dome.

Finally I converted to black and white and fiddled around with the black slider to get the affect I wanted.

ABFriday Week 54: July One Photo Focus

As usual my Internet is playing up so sorry, no ping backs today.

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One Photo Focus: May

This is a great challenge to flex our editing muscles.  Every month Stacy from Visual Venturing gives us all the same photo to see what we all come up with.

This was the original photo by Shane Francescut of The Weekly Minute.

 I tried quite a few edits in Photoshop.  Initially I altered the exposure and tried to focus on the tree and house behind it.  But I wasn’t happy with it.  So I focused on the seesaw in the front.  Then I went to the preset filters and came up with my final image.  To be honest I am not completely sure how I arrived at this final image.  I am so focused on what I am doing that I forget to write my progress.  So please forgive me.

Have a look at some other awesome edits.  It is interesting seeing all the different versions.

ABFriday Week 47: May One Photo Focus

https://marshaleith.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/onephotofocus-for-may/

ABFriday: One Photo Focus

https://robynsfineart.wordpress.com/2015/05/02/ab-friday-one-photo-focus-may/

https://aperture64.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/apocalypse-urban-city/

https://emiliopasquale.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/abfriday-week-47-may-one-photo-focus/

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Weekly Pet Share: It’s a Cats Life

Good morning from a cloudy Hastings day.  We have already had an amazing sunrise so I shot out to take some photos.  There were a few drops of rain which surprised me.  Yesterday we hit the high 20’s celsius so I have a feeling that the temperature won’t be quite so high today.

This gorgeous sleeping beauty was enjoying the last light of the day by the fence.  So of course the camera came out.

Just a note to Ruth, my daughter.  She has been moaning to me that my graphic image for my copyright was driving her nuts as it was slanted.  No-one else had noticed.  So Ruth, when you read this check out my new image.  I had a lot of fun with Photoshop – I am slowly getting my head around it.  Actually what helped is that I deleted a lot of photos after backing them up on my external hard drive.  Funnily enough that has helped – wonder why. I did a first image, loaded it onto my scheduled blogs and the noticed late last night that I had made a huge mistake.  So I got up early this morning to do a new image before heading out for the sunrise.

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One Four Challenge: A Thorny Issue.

This a great challenge to learn about editing photos.  But I am afraid, that this month I am throwing in the towel this week.  There is nothing more that I could do with this other than to go black and white.  My computer froze again the other day while I was working on Photoshop.  Then the next time I booted up the computer it took about 45 minutes while it had to check all the disks.  This black and white image was edited with Lightroom with a preset black and white filter and the vignette.

I have scheduled all these posts as I am not sure if we will be having any power or phone for the next couple of days, so I won’t be able to do any pingbacks

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One Four Challenge: March Week 2

So onto this photo for Robyn’s challenge at Captivate Me.  This is where we have one photo and edit it each week for 4 weeks.

I have chosen an incredibly difficult photo this month.  I spent some time last Saturday with Photoshop and Lightroom.  I actually just tried using layers and some different filters but wasn’t happy with the result.  For this week I just sharpened it a tad more and then  added the poster edge filter. That seemed to bring out the thistles a bit more.  Finally I added a soft vignette to it with Lightroom. When you view the slide show you can see the difference.

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Any advice and constructive criticism is welcome.

Thanks for visiting.

https://robynsfineart.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/one-four-challenge-march-week-2/

https://lensaddiction.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/one-four-challenge-march-wk-2/

https://marshaleith.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/one-four-challenge-for-march-week-2-at-the-forks/

https://bastet1952.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/one-four-march-challenge-wk-2-march-9-2015/

https://bastetandsekhmet.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/one-four-march-challenge-week-2-march-9-2015/

https://aperture64.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/one-four-challenge-winter-fork-in-the-road-minor-adjustments/

One Four Challenge – March Week 2

Venice House part 2

One Photo Focus

This is a new challenge for me.  I have joined this One Photo Focus for March, hosted by Stacey at Visual Venturing.

This is where we are all given the same photo to see what we could come up with.

The original by Lore from Snow Fissures and Fractures was rather dark.  Especially with the flowers in the centre of the image.  So I increased the clarity and played around with the exposure to lightened it up.I then added a vignette for the final image.

I wasn’t very adventurous this time. That was really because I had so many problems with my computer that I did run out of time.  Now everything is running ok so there is no excuse for next month to unleash the inner artist in me.  The full Photoshop version is quite different to what I was used to with Elements.  I am inspired though, by some of the edits done by these bloggers.

ABFriday Week 39: March One Photo Focus

https://lensaddiction.wordpress.com/2015/03/07/one-photo-focus-march/

https://aperture64.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/after-before-forum-one-photo-focus-lore/

https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/after-before-one-photo-focus-week-39/

https://emiliopasquale.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/march-one-photo-focus/

ABFriday – One Photo Focus March 6, 2015

https://robynsfineart.wordpress.com/2015/03/07/ab-friday-one-photo-focus-march/

Thanks for visiting.

Monochrome Madness: Week 52

Good morning from a cool, cloudy Hastings.

I am loving doing my monochrome images again.  I am getting back to my roots again.  So it is good to enter in Leanne Cole PHOTOGRAPHY‘s Monochrome Madness.  Congratulations on a year Leanne.  I have been following this for some time now and I just love seeing some of the images that have been submitted.

So an update on my computer woes. My dear friend ladysighs composed a song especially for me

https://ladysighs.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/does-this-look-familiar/

to cheer me up.  It certainly worked. It also cheered up my computer because it is all sorted out. That means no more frozen computer and Photoshop actually works.  Yes, you heard me right.  Stacey at lensaddiction got me on the right path.  So what actually was the problem?  I think it was a bad install of Creative Cloud. Which then corrupted most of my files.  So I had to start in Safe Mode where I could uninstall Creative Cloud, Lightroom and Photoshop. I also did a system restore.   Then I was able to start up again without any freezing.  So with fingers crossed I installed Creative Cloud again.  This time it worked.  Then I re-installed Lightroom.  That wasn’t a problem anyway as I was able to access it.  The problem was Photoshop.  So I followed Stacey’s advice and went to the preferences (quickly, before Windows shut it down) and disabled the CPU.  Voila! I have Photoshop CC.  It is quite different than Elements so it is quite a learning curve for me.  So I am a totally happy chappy now.

Whew!  Anyway this image was edited in Lightroom.

http://leannecolephotography.com/2015/03/04/mm52-monochrome-madness-one-year-on/

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One Four Challenge: March, Week 1. A prickly challenge.

For the month of March I have chosen this photo for Robyn’s challenge at Captivate Me.

The last few days have seen me tearing my hair out literally.  On Saturday I decided that it was time to bite the bullet and install Lightroom and Photoshop.  I have windows 7 but there was no indication that I needed to install any special version of Adobe.  So I went ahead and installed Creative Cloud.  Not a good idea.  My computer started to go crazy and froze.  So I gave up for the day.

On Sunday my computer was ok so I heaved a sigh of relief.  I even managed to do some edits, including this one.  But I couldn’t use Photoshop – Windows kept shutting it down.  But my relief didn’t last long.  My computer just froze again.

Yesterday I couldn’t even do anything.  The mouse was on strike.  But I managed to start up in safe mode with networking, which meant I could check my emails and do my blog.  Afterwards I then unistalled Creative Cloud and all it’s apps.

Then, holding my breath I restarted Windows.  Phew, it was working.  So I reinstalled Creative Cloud and Lightroom.  This time I didn’t have any problems with the install and Lightroom works like a dream.  I haven’t tried to do Photoshop yet.  When I googled this problem, it seemed that there were a lot of others in the same boat as me.  Adobe are not exactly helpful either. I have read that I needed to reduce my CPU out put or something  weird like that, but I don’t want to fiddle around with my computer too much.

Anyway onto this image.  I have had this on my computer for a while and wanted to do something with it.  It was taken during the golden hour in the evening.  We had just had a great sunset with really strong colours.  I tried to increase the clarity and sharpen it. There is not a lot more I could do in that direction.  But I want to go down a more creative path with this one, which is why I want Photoshop.  But it is also a good one to learn more about Lightroom as well.  This means playing around with saturation and colour hues and not just what I normally do.  If I can’t get Photoshop then I have to try with GIMP.

As usual any constructive criticism is welcome.  Any advice is really welcome.

https://robynsfineart.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/one-four-challenge-march-week-1/

https://lensaddiction.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/one-four-challenge-march-wk-1/

https://bastetandsekhmet.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/one-four-challenge-week-one-march-2-2015/

https://aperture64.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/one-four-challenge-winter-fork-in-the-road/

One Four Challenge – March Week 1

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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge:Hanging Loose

Good morning from a sunny Hastings.

Here is my photo this week for Cee’s Photography‘s challenge.

Please don’t shoot the messenger or in this case the photographer.  By this I mean the practice of breeding foxes just to kill them for fashion.  I have one as I was given it.  I don’t wear it.  I just want to say I don’t agree with this practice at all.  Thank goodness it is not as popular now as it was back in the Art Deco period.  So this poor fox is about 70- 80 years old. I just saw it hanging at the window and it looked so helpless.

Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge: 2015 Week #9

https://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2015/03/01/cees-oddball-photo-challenge-2015-week-9-oddball-of-love/

I have to use my computer in safe mode at the moment.  I have no idea why my computer keeps freezing.  It is all Adobe’s fault.  My computer just froze after I downloaded Creative Cloud.  Luckily I had done some editing before all this and I can still access them to do my blog. I also managed to save them onto an external hard drive. So thanks for some of your comments yesterday.  I have done a system restore but it hasn’t worked.  Fun and games.  I am driving my son mad with yelling for his help.  But he has only just started his course.  In 3 years he could help me.  So last night I spent some time googling this problem.  It seems it is quite common but Adobe is not being helpful.  They blame the computer systems.  But it happens to both Macs and Windows.  Therefore it is not my problem, it is Adobe’s problem.   So it is just likes and no comments at the moment.

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Wordless Wednesday: Singing in the Rain

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