Rustic Photography Phun…

With Coffeshop Free Action: VINTAGE
I was in a friend’s backyard today, and was totally inspired to take a few photos.
I was certain they all wanted to look old with a smidgen of drama, a wash of black and white, and maybe a blush of color leaking through.

I love playing with this free action. I know my way around PSE, but don’t plan to figure out how to create actions etc. anytime soon. So I’m all about free actions. I’ve had this one for years but I keep forgetting how great it is. So in the rustic garden gate above, I removed the part that de-colorized the color of JUST the gate which was green in the first place.

I brushed out the overlay especially in the sky in this one. Allowing the blue to show through. And in all the photos I added the darker vignetting action around the edges with the built in layer for darkening. Coolio eh?

Also in all the images I first alter the levels (Control-L) and then increase both the brightness and the contrast. I like that step when I know I’m headed for a de-colorization like this vintage action.

…a little birdhouse in your soul… (go ahead and thank me for putting They Might Be Giants in your head).

I brushed the greenery back in on this one as well.
Plus I’m playing with watermarking. Mainly for photos that land on Pinterest.

What’s inspired you lately?

I’ve never been a fan of watermarks. So don’t hold me to it.

Camera Raw.

I tried it.
I LIKE IT!!

Check out this terrible photo. Yeah I’m awesome that way. Especially in the evening, in my kitchen with crapalicious lighting.

BUT…

Have no fear! I remembered I shot this in my Nikon D5000′s Camera RAW setting.

And Voilá!

Literally two steps later….

Seriously this is the same image, opened with Photoshop Elements 8 Camera RAW editor first. Clicked a few of the options and toggle bars… and oh my gosh! An image I wouldn’t have been able to save at all in a regular JPEG, is miraculously pulled back from the overexposed brink.

I am one happy photog mom right now.

I’d like to thank Marcel Walker! I managed to get a private Skype lesson a few nights ago. I begged her for a quick tutorial on photo editing with PSE. She took about 15 of my most favorite recent vacation photos and walked me through how to easily and quickly edit them like a pro (with the non-pro software!).

After the editing tips she asked if I ever shot in Camera Raw. I said no, I don’t really like sushi. She said just TRY it. You might like it.  And I did (camera raw not sushi-blech!). And now I need to go make more Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.

Oh and BONUS. I found out what LEADING means. (In the PSE Type Tool.. at the top where it has two little As stacked… when you have a second sentence changing this option moves the sentences closer or farther apart! Oh how I love Photoshop.)

Keeping on a  roll here. I found a tutorial for tricking PSE into letting you alter the spacing between letters in a word. It’s called ‘kerning‘. And in PSE it’s a bit strange as you have to turn on the Asian lettering? Weird, but hey.. it works!