Progression..

First two days of playing with Landscapes... clouds, sky, mountains, water etc..

Then on the way to preparing for Portraits a brief stop with some flora and fauna.

Presenting, the dragonfly!

Feedback to improve these photos are welcome.

Have now learned to write "actions" which are Photoshop Macros and the process is definitely speeding up.

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Before and After..

Before..

(actual shot from Hawaii trip converted from CR2 to JPG - linked in original post)

After..

Every detail shown in picture was actually there in the original photo, just not visible. When I took the picture remember the sky being so amazing and felt that I had done something wrong after downloading the pictures. Now realize what was wrong. This changes my strategy for taking pictures as well. At the risk of not getting a bright photo, going to go for a slightly over exposed image which captures details in the dark or better still start taking bracketed photos as a default when going for landscapes!

Now it takes me 15 minutes to fix pictures where clouds and rocks had no detail.

Next step, learn how to fix portraits of the kids and my VC.. aka Sangeetha!

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Amazing

I am like a kid in Grand Sweets and Snacks (not exactly a candy store person)...

Look at this image from the tide pool visit, which was not a bad shot considering the sun was in the picture!

Now look at this after Photoshopping!

Can get the detail in the sky and the sea weed and kelp on the floor. Can even bring out detail on the family in the center.

Hats off to these guys who came up with an image processing software with so many options.

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Shopping spree

Photoshopping spree that is..

Today a good 3 hours was spent watching an intro to Photoshop DVD followed by editing an old image from the Hawaii trip.

Even managed to create a nice logo with Tamil Letters and English to sign off images.

The original image had too much washout. You either got the little one and no clouds or great clouds and her silhouette.

Now who says you can't have your kid and the clouds too?

This is a start. At places it looks a little artificial, but will improve with practice.

The goal?

Edit at least one photo a week
Watch at least one 5 minute tutorial video every night before going to bed and
practice what was learned the previous night the next evening for 5 minutes

Have to see how it goes over time

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The photoshop allure

After using freeware for almost 16 years to edit images, finally got Photoshop CS5, thanks to a friend who works at Adobe!

In the last 24 hours have been watching online videos to grasp some basics of image editing.

Jr. , my all time favorite model posed for a sample picture to start the editing process.

It is a simple image of her in front of our living room wall, but gives enough material to practice a few tutorials ..

The software is amazing if you can find things in the myriad menus embedded in every nook!

For now learned to do basic image edits, convert an image to black and white, selectively colorize areas of a picture, create a border, add a copyright symbol into the signature (which took the longest time to figure out) and save the picture to custom specifications!

This software is probably going to keep me on a steep learning curve for a year or more!

Well, never too late to play with pictures at another level..

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