McKay

Since I took pics of Kaden the other day for his 5 yr old pictures. I decided I would get the other two boys out for an update as well.

This is the only one I could get of this little boy! He was too busy running around to sit still for any "cheeses"

Kaden

Santa Claus

caught ya! Ü

Smiths

How fun it was to do a family picture together. Not an easy task with little munchkins and FREEZING cold weather but we managed thanks to my new tripod and remote. Everyone was home for Christmas except Eric who is on his mission in Argentina.

Mom and Dad Smith

Brian Smith Clan

Extended Family

Cute Megan and Ben

And their girls

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.