McCracken Family

So I had another photo opportunity this past week. I am not equipped for indoor photography. It was an overcast day and it was near evening too. Soooo....not much natural lighting at all! By the end of the little session there was absolutely none--just the indoor lighting and my teeny tiny flash. I got home and found a few nice family pics. I adjusted lots on the exposure and even attempted once again to replace a face or two. Here is what I came up with after all was said and done.

More Stayner Family

So I decided to work on these photos again. I have been so determined to fix them by getting rid of that nasty noise. There still is some noise there--but from the original photo they are a big improvement. I found some little tricks in Photoshop Elements to tame down the mess. I am learning sooo much--learning that I need to learn more about my camera and lighting situations. My friend that I took these for asked if I could photoshop some faces from another photo so that they would all be looking and they would all have pleasant faces. I did it and it might be obvious--but, oh well. It was a fun thing to practice doing.

BEFORE

When I zoomed in to fix this and to lift the exposure a bit the noise was aweful. There is still noise on the edited version but it looks a little better.

OK--so it probably looks obvious what I did to edit this photo. Ü

AFTER

BEFORE

Another noisy photo that every time I tried to bring up the exposure and lighten I'd see that darn noise. Hopefully I toned it down a bit in the picture below.

AFTER

BEFORE

This photo was the worst one of all three of these. His shirt was full of the nasty pixels and noise. I ended up doing a color replacement and then adding a little texture to his shirt. After I color replaced the shirt turned pretty shiny--looked very strange. Hopefully the texture helped to tame that down. Their faces were hard to get to sharpen up as well.

AFTER

Stayner Family

While I was home in AZ for Thanksgiving I got to see one of my old roomies and her family. She has the cutest little kids. She asked if I'd take some family pictures for her. I did--the family was great--my camera expertice was not--I got lots of grainy, noisy photos--with perfect smiles and eyes facing the camera...bummer that my little teensy weensy viewer on my camera made me think they were awesome. These are some of the best ones I got. I wish I could retake them. I have soooo much to learn.

Baby A

This little sweetheart was wide eyed and happy. I took these pics in my friends house and don't have the capabilities on my camera to truly capture great light. We had all the windows open--I had to do a lot of lightening the exposure. I had a good time learning how to do this on photoshop. Because of this some of the pics looked lots better in black and white. It kinda hid the grainy look from the indoor lighting. My tripod wasn't working well either....not good when tripod is wiggly. Oh well--I got some cute little pics of Baby A. I hope that they like them.

Playing at the Park

This is a fun little girl from my son's little Joy School group. We took a little walk across the street to listen, feel, hear, and see what we could smell. I ran back in the house to quickly grab my camera to snap some memories of their cute little group. I'm glad I did. I got some fun little pictures of all the little kids as they were running around and exploring the "wheat". This is just one of the cute little munchkins. Ü Adorable!

Firefighter

Just playing with photoshop some more! It's been fun playing with textures and color selections.

Older Photos

Here is a photo I took with my point and shoot back in 2006. I just wanted to sharpen it a bit and add a vignette! Cute little boys--if I say so myself! Ü

Pumpkin Patch

Little Man

Golden Gate Bridge

Love this beautiful bridge. I love the look of this photo without any editing and was amazed by the deepness of the color that popped out. I took this with my point and shoot while living in SF. I have always wanted to figure out how to make it look more like a painting or wall hanging. I have been learning about using layers and was experimenting with this particular photo this morning while the boys watched Sesame Street! Ü SO here it is in all it's glory--haha! Just for fun and totally an experiment! I'm probably going to think "what in the world was I thinking to grunge it up so much"...haha! Funny!

This is the first one with a little less grunge than the second. I had to go back and play with it some more. Hmmmm....don't know what to think--but I had fun!

Grunge

Original and I love it just how it is

Slideshow

Circle of Friends

I didn't realize I hadn't posted these cute girls pics. I took a little trip to AZ to visit family and while I was there I asked if I could practice on these girls. Cassie organized it and they were willing to let me do so--even if they had to skp dance class and run straight from school to my parents house to beat the sunset! They were sooo much fun! I appreciate them letting me do this and hope they like! They had so may fun ideas themselves! Beautiful girls inside and out!

Eric Mission Photo