Let's try this again!

I know, I know....Summer was incredibly hectic so I didn't actually write like I said I would. OOPS! I'll have a little more free time coming up soon so I hopefully will have a chance to post more. Just a couple of updates: We're thinking about moving. There...I said it. I really miss living in the city, so if we actually decide to sell our house, hopefully we'll be moving into a new apartment complex in Goldsboro (it's SOOOOO nice). I've also joined a roller derby team. Shocked? Yeah, me too. But it's so much fun. I haven't gone out there and knocked anyone around yet, but the time is coming! I highly recommend it to anyone who's ever thought about trying it. By the way, I've been trying to come up with a derby name and I think I've decided on "The Ginger Revenger." Kind of catchy I think. I'll have to make sure to get some photos from practice to share with you guys.

This isn't going to be a very long post, but I did want to share some of my recent work with you all. Here's a photo restoration I did yesterday. To see more photos, you can go to http://jophoto_design.carbonmade.com

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Apparently I took a break

Despite all the evidence that points to the contrary, I did not fall off the face of the earth. It's been an incredibly busy summer and I just haven't been able to find time to sit down and type about it. Just to give you a run down of what we've been up to:

1---Jeremy quit his job and is going back to teaching music...WOOHOO!

2---Rearranging rooms in the house and doing some redecorating. It's turning out really well...at least I think so. There's no longer a dining room table in the dining room. Since it had gone unused for a year and a half, I figured that we probably weren't going to be using it any time soon. Sooooo, it's been transformed into my new office/art studio. LOVE IT! Can't wait to post photos. It's really getting a lot more use now. Jeremy was supposed to be turning the old office into his personal music studio, but he won't get out of MY office, so little has been done in his. Also got some new accessories for the living room, which it desperately needed.

3---I've been working on some paintings. My latest (and one of the best) is a pop art style Michael Jackson painting. I was a HUGE fan and I thought that my art studio would look more "artsy" with some actual art in it. Photos of it are coming soon as well. My next project is an Elvis painting, but I've got to find a photo of him that suits the room.

4---Since Jeremy has been playing "stay at home hubby" for a bit, my yard has gotten some much needed maintenance. It was looking pretty bad. Now we just need some plants for the porch and we'll be done! (with the front yard at least)

Anyway, like I said, there's a ton of things that I really need to post. I'll really make an effort to do so in the near future. I've been kind of Blogger deprived for a while. Looking forward to catching up :)

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Fix-It Friday #18

Yet another edition of Fix-It Friday :) I love doing these, because it means the weekend is here! WOOOOHOOOO!!!! I have to shoot a wedding tomorrow, but hey....it's still the weekend! Anyway, onto the edits:

ORIGINAL

SEPIA

This first one is just a simple sepia. For those of you who don't know, I'm not a big fan of actions. Kind of like cheating to me, but to each his own. Personally, they're just not for me. I'm going to try to do little better with details of process.

1. Opened in Photoshop CS 3 and cropped

2. Changed the mode to Grayscale.

3. Did a levels adjustment to bring up the contrast without blowing out the whites of the image.

4. Used the patch tool to smooth out his skin

5. Used the paint brush (white) with a setting of 5% to brighten the eyes.

6. Increased the paintbrush size and created highlights on the tip of the nose, on the lips, cheeks, and chin.

7. Used the unsharp mask to...well, sharpen

8. Did another unsharp mask with numbers set at 15, 85, and 3 to clarify the image.

9. Did a sepia photo filter and bumped up the intensity. (by the way, you have to change the mode to RGB or CMYK to access the photo filters)

10. Added a inner shadow to focus the image on the face.

DIGITAL PAINTING

I know I said I was going to do a tutorial on digital paintings....but I've been busy (lazy). I still plan on doing a much more in depth one, but I will improve a little bit now.

1. Open image and crop

2. Increase saturation slightly

3. Surface Blur (not too much, preserve detail)

4. Use the smudge tool to soften the lines and details of the photo, especially in the background and edges.

5. Use the paintbrush tool (white) with a setting of 5% to create highlights over the entire image. A good background in art helps here. Focus on where the light naturally hits or where the cloth would be a little more worn such as the edges of the coat, the bridge and tip of the nose, lips, the rim of the hat, etc.

6. Select some of the colors from the image to highlight those areas. For instance, use the eyedropper to pull color from his eyes, make the color more intense, and then at it subtly to make the eyes pop.

7. Do the clarifying unsharp mask from the previous picture.

8. Use the Texturizer from the filter menu to add a canvas like look to the image. Looks a little grainy on screen but prints great.

BLACK & WHITE

Did I mention I was lazy? All I did for this one was take the digital painting before I added the texture and change the mode to grayscale. Then I just adjusted the levels to add contrast. Simple enough.

Have a great weekend everyone and be safe! RIP Ed McMahon, Farrrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson.

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I'm feeling creative

Ok, I feel pretty creative on a regular basis. It would be pretty bad if I wasn't considering I'm a graphic designer. However, I'm looking for a completely different kind of creative outlet. Jealous cannot begin to describe my feelings toward people who have a talent for sewing and creating things with fabric.

My sewing skills are basic (at best!). I've made ATTEMPTS at sewing. A few years ago, I made little handbags, but you'll never see them because I'm embarrassed by the end result. Overcoming my past failures, I'm hoping to make another attempt to break into the sewing world. I've already bought fabric from eBay (basically because all the fabric stores around here are terrible). Then I realized, I'm going to need a sewing machine. I plan on making that purchase this week.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with all this fabric. I know I want to make some camera straps, (thanks to the tutorial demonstration found here) but I'm not sure what to do with the rest. I'm open to suggestions. Here are the photos of the 16 different types of fabrics (warning, envy might ensue):

Yeah, I'm in love with these Amy Butler fabrics...and I haven't even gotten them in the mail yet. I'm sure I'll be buying many MANY more. In fact, I'm checking eBay at this very moment. Now, I just need to find time to do all this creative stuff :/

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"Pepper: Spice up your camera" Giveaway!

love Love LOVE these camera straps. Lori Nordstrom's company is giving away a free camera strap. Seriously, go check them out at this site. If you're disappointed, there's something wrong with you. Sorry, it had to be said.

Click the iHeartFaces site to enter the giveaway.

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My House

Ok, I'm posting these basically because I wanted to show everyone the "before" photos before I start making some major and minor changes to parts of my house. There's some rooms that have already been done and some will be finished in the VERY distant future. I just took photos from the "right wing" of the house. I guess I didn't feel like cleaning the left wing on the day these photos were taken. Some of the ones I've included for today are: the dining room I never use, the yard that will soon be a lush garden, my favorite room (kitchen), and the living room that needs an accessories overhaul. Keep in mind that my house is 108 years old. I think she carries it pretty well. Anyway, enjoy :)

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Albums, Albums everywhere...

Nothing much to talk about, just wanted to share some pages from the latest wedding album I designed. One down, 3 to go!

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Fix-It Friday :)

Time again for my new weekly addiction, Fix-it Friday! Since last week was my first time doing this, I decided that this week, I would do a few more edits. And because I forgot to mention last week, I use Photoshop CS3 and a bamboo graphic tablet. Here's the original:Don't know where they find these cuties, but I just love his cheeky grin. This original photo is pretty dark, so I did a levels adjustment to brighten it up overall, but I didn't want to lose too many of those dark tones. There's also not a lot of color, so I did a hue/saturation layer to bring up the cyans and some of the yellows and magentas.....I just realized how long this whole explanation is going to be....ugh. ANYWAY, here's the first edit. Just a basic "fix".
On this second one, I wanted to make it a little more dramatic. So, I turned it into a black and white image, sharpened it (b/c I don't like blurry b&ws), and did a levels adjustment to bring out some contrast. What I didn't mention before is that I went in with the paint brush to put in some highlights. Since it's so dark, there's not a lot of depth in the photo. I used white on the PB set to about 5% and painted some white highlights on his lips, cheeks, eyes, nose, etc...just to give the illusion of some natural light. Then I cropped it with a little rotation.Finally, I did another digital painting. I think I might try to do one of these every week. I know it looks similar to the first one, but I used the smudge tool along with a ton of other tricks to give it a oil-painting effect. Instead of explaining everything here, I might just do a tutorial in another post later if anyone actually wants to learn this whole process.

Soooo, those are my edits for this week. Be sure to head over to iheartfaces.com to learn lots of other tricks and see everyone's great submissions for this week. :)

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What do you mean you don't see it?!

For those of you who don't know, I have a cat with an unusual name. Actually, both of my cats have unusual names, but we'll get to that at a later date. Back to the topic at hand....when I got this particular kitty, I knew I wanted a white cat. I know, I know...seems kind of snobby to search for an animal based on looks, but I previously had 2 black dogs and a white couch...I NEEDED a white cat. After endless searching, I found this kitty who was in a cage all by himself at a pet store (don't judge, I tried contacting the animal shelters and they SUCK at returning calls especially when they don't have a physical location). Anyway, there were other kittens there, but he was still all by himself, and me being a sucker, I couldn't just leave him all alone. He just happened to be a white kitten. Well, not ALL white, but mostly. He has a long black tail, three black spots on his back, and his black "hair-do" on top. He was the ugliest kitten you've ever seen. He's grown to be a gorgeous cat, but he was just stringy and ugly as a kitten. I'll have to find his kitten photos so I can prove my point even better. That's right, there's a point to all of this.

Now, he may have been ugly and alone, but he is a total sweetheart! I fell in love immediately and I named him Brody. I brought him home to the apartment where we lived at the time. My husband hates all animals but since I insist on having them, he plays with them. My neighbors at the time had just gotten two kittens as well, so we were all together to meet the new additions. Here's how I remember things: I was lying on the floor playing with little Brody and all of a sudden it hit me....my new little bundle of joy looks like Hitler. And that was all it took. My carefully selected name of Brody was out the window and Hitler was here to stay. My husband says HE first said that he looked like Hitler, but he's a man and as we all know, men can't remember anything.

So, here we are now. I've been doomed to a life of having to announce at the vet's office that HITLER is here for his checkup. This usually leads to chuckles from other patrons in the waiting room. There was even one person who came to our house to take a guitar lesson from my husband who upon seeing our cat, but not knowing his name, said, "Hey, this may sound weird, but your cat looks like Hitler." Even so, there are people who don't see it. WHAT? I think he looks so much like Adolf that I'm afraid if I don't keep an eye on him, he might try to invade Poland. So, for those of you who still "can't see it"....here you go:

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Week 21 Photo Challenge-Pets

FINALLY! A category that gives me a billion photos to choose from! I don't have kids, so of course I shoot pics of my other little babies. This is a photo that took of Topher when he was still a wee little pup. He was sitting on my porch just watching everything go by. He is such a sweetie. I love this one because it was before his left ear had decided it was going to stand up and all day it kept flopping over. It's also one of the few pics of him being still! Anyway, I had a hard time choosing to use this one or one of him as an adult...he's just so handsome :)

"Be sure to head on over to www.iheartfaces.com to check out all of the beautiful face entries this week!"

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Fix-It Friday

Ok, here's my first Fix-It Friday entry. I couldn't decide what to do so I just ended up turning it into a digital painting. It was a little bit more difficult because I don't have my graphic tablet with me today, but I still like the end result. This little girl is so cute, I don't think you could mess up a picture of her :)

Before

After

I'd love to explain what I did in order, but I honestly can't remember. Sometimes I just go through the motions. Here's what I DO remember doing: Hue/Saturation layer overall, Surface Blur, used the Paint Brush to create some highlights, then a UnSharp Mask with the radius set high and the Amount set around 5% to bring out some of the contrast. I know I'm forgetting something.......hmmm.......oh well. Thanks to the ladies at iHeartFaces for this fun little project.

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Love this guy!

I can't even begin to describe to you how much I adore this little guy :) For those of you who don't know, this is my little brother, Derek. I just wanted to share with you a quick shot I got of him as he was leaving to go to his baseball game. He could be the most handsome boy ever :) And of course I'm not biased!

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My new favorite face

Prepare to be bombarded with cuteness. I only took about 450 photos of Audrey and Charlotte and this is what I finished in the past hour and a half. Wish I had a few of these a couple of days ago. I could have entered one of these into iHeartFaces's contest :) 

I'll be posting better version of these and many more from the day here at my portfolio site.

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