Withered

So now we have snow. Although it's now lighter and not pitch-black in the evening, I'm not feeling overly delighted about. I guess I might be happy about it if I didn't know that it'll be there now for the next six months. Yes, it might melt away for a while, but it'll be back, and the melting away is almost worse - although I don't love it, I don't dislike snow as such, but I do dislike slushy roads, slippery roads, icy roads and streets.  Also this means we'll be ploughing and shovelling snow for months and months. Better Half already did the first take yesterday afternoon, and today it was my turn to start. Again, it's not too bad, I actually like it, when it's not too heavy and wet and there's not too much of it, but it's the fact that you have to clear the snow, whether or not you have the time or inclination, if you are to move at all…

I'm off work for almost a week now. Might perhaps get a challenge or two done? Today I cleared one: day 60 at BL. Before I got so far, however, I did some serious pruning in my photo archives from this and last year, and got rid of about a thousand photos, and am feeling awfully accomplished. I got myself Lightroom last month, and don't regret it - it made doing away with the photos so much easier, although I'm only just beginning to learn to use the program.

Anyway, day 60 challenge at Beyond Layers was to use some scripted textures and follow another recipe by Kim. I was not overly enthusiastic about using the scripts on top of the images as such, but I thought I could do something with them if I found the right image. (Read: a photo with enough white space, not green, like most of my non-winter pictures…) So I dug up a picture of leaves that I took about a month ago when rummaging in our old house. The leaves have effectively mummified - they have been standing on the window-sill of our old abandoned house since before we moved away from there, and that was ten years ago. I did slight modification in Lightroom and then followed Kim's recipe as such, until the scripted textures. The first scripted one, Sonnet 2, I blurred at 25 px Gaussian blur, to get only the tone from it, no text. Then I added Sonnet Magic at blend mode screen but turned down the opacity to 68% and masked out most of the script. I didn't add any photo filters, although that was part of the recipe, since I found that would have taken away all depth from my photo.

Withered

Resources:
- texture Sienna, Sonnet 2 & Sonnet Magic by Kim Klassen

Now to see if there'e enough for the birds to eat, when their last feeding rush for the evening starts. They have been crowding our feeding post ever since we started feeding them almost two weeks ago, and I have a feeling I need to do a refill, although I filled everything up to the brim in the morning.

Fragile

Fun for Friday evening: tackled Beyond Layers challenge for day 59. Kim shared a recipe and three textures for us to try out. The problem (for me, at least) with these challenges is the huge amount of time it takes to decide which photo to process. Ordinarily, you'd start building with a picture. Now I'm always looking at the kind of processing done and trying to find a photo I imagine could benefit from it. I never find anything similar to Kim's examples, but somehow I always have to try to match it at least on some level.

This is the third picture I tried this particular recipe on. In the end, I of course tweaked the recipe, but at least I started with it and used the texture, called Paper-Stained Music.

Fragile, c'est son nom

Resources:
- texture Paper-Stained Music by Kim Klassen

I took the photo in May in my little makeshift "studio". I have no idea what these flowers are called, but they opened beautifully from a bell-shape to this translucent disc, after standing for about two weeks in a vase. They were the last of the bouquet to survive.

The text on the picture just plopped from somewhere, when I was staring at the beautiful fragility of the flower on my screen. "Fragile, c'est son nom" I thought, and remembered things I did'nt know I remembered - it's a song by Patrick Juvet, which I suddenly remembered, too. Must be from somewhere early 1980s - the album was called Reves Immoraux, if I remember correctly. I think we had it on a C-cassette. I love how these things pop up, although I've been listening to Baroque Arias sung Andreas Scholl and Patricia Petibon the whole evening.

Sharing at Texture Tuesday.

Quote Challenge revisited

After a good while, I decided I'd play along the quote challenge from Beyond Layers day 39 anyway. I had already had a look at some quotes, so I went back and did some digging for photos. Seeing the results, I'm happy I did.

First Tulips

A picture of the first tulips pushing up, taken on 2 May 2013. Thought the quote was pretty apt for the image. The prompt word was "life".

Resources:
- font KG Ways To Say Goodbye by Kimberly Geswein

Sleepers

The quote challenge word was "peace". This made me think of our latest little puppies when they were little puppies, in this picture less than a month old.

Resources:
- textures from Shadowhouse October Square Texture Set 2 by Jerry Jones
- font Learning Curve Pro by Blue Vinyl Fonts

Foxy - Indian Summer

On reading the prompt word "change" I knew immediately what my quote would be: Dorothy Parker's poem Indian Summer. Ever since I first read it I've loved the poem. And I roughly knew what I wanted to do with the images, too - originally I associate the poem with our second-ever Dandie, Veera, whom we called Madame, because she was very dignified, self-assured and definitely not one to fool with. She was a businesslike, no-nonsense personality, but charming. However, since she left us years before the age of digital cameras and even the scans I have of her are not of very high quality, the dog in the photos is our present Madame, called Foxy. Totally different, with a lot more sense of humour (yes, Dandies come equipped with that), but certainly a lady who knows what she wants, who turned nine this week. In the last picture, by the way, she is not growling but actually smiling.

Resources:
- template 018 by myself
- background papers from paper pack Green Finch and Linnet Bird by myself
- font Lavanderia by James T. Edmondson

By The Frozen River

The fourth prompt was "intentions" and for this, the Douglas Adams quote was my absolute favourite. It's so true for me in so many ways. The picture shows my home town since 1987, where I definitely didn't plan to move. When I first went to study, I somehow thought I'd end up in the south, Helsinki or thereabouts. And here I am, 600 kilometres north, and have been happy here for more than a quarter of a century. Oh my. I took the picture on a walk in the centre on 1 May this year. Yes, it was pretty cold.

Jackdaws

The last prompt was "focus". I like the quote, and the photo is one of a series I managed to take on 8 June of a gang of Jackdaws, who landed on the grass and  were a bit shy of me, obviously thinking the treat on the ground might belong to me. They circled around, trying to appear nonchalant and uninterested, until one of them started the approach. Unfortunately none of the photos I took of the actual attack turned out any good but well, that's life, right?

Colour Storyboards

Beyond Layer challenge for day 49 was to make something Kim calls a colour-storyboard. She offered two tutorials to do this.

Following the first tutorial, I sampled colours from a bouquet I photographed in April. On our way home from celebrating Marjo's birthday, we visited this Home, gardening and interior design fair at Helsinki Exhibition and Convention Centre. One event there was a bouquet auction, and this was one of the bouquets on display.

Bouquet

The processing steps were pretty simple:
1 blurred image: Gaussian blur 26,0 px
2 masked out blur from the bouquet
3 ran action Springtime by NightFateActions
4 enlarged canvas and made swatches
5 applied pattern overlay to swatches

My take on the second tutorial already ended up in use: this photo of a rose turned into a thank-you card for my fb friends after my birthday. I loved the whimsical splatter brushes and thought they brought a nice touch to the otherwise calm photo.

Processing steps:
1 enlarged canvas
2 made colour splatters with brushes by Dustin Schmieding
3 added texture Sunkissed by Kim Klassen at color burn 42%
4 typed text in Finnish, font KG Somebody That I Used to Know by Kimberly Geswein
5 typed text in English, font Janda Elegant Handwriting by Kimberly Geswein
6 flattened image
7 ran framing action Shadow by Chain

Flowers and Bugs

Still playing catch up. Day 43 challenge of Beyond Layers was to view two of Kim's recipes and use Kim's texture Peony in a photo. For the first task, I chose a picture that I took of one of the last tulips to blossom this summer in our garden. They were still in bloom on 19 June when I took this photo.  Here I followed Kim's first recipe very closely, the biggest difference was that I used layer masks to keep the background suitably desaturated and not too dark or too light  or contrasty. I even used the same font Kim used for her original photo of her book spine poetry, since I found it was one with European characters and therefore worth downloading to me.

Last of the Tulips

Resources used:
- font KG Somebody That I Used To Know by Kimberly Geswein
- framing action Shadow by Chain

The next photo was taken on a warm day in our garden, when me and Better Half were doing some gardening, and suddenly noticed this pair of very spectacular looking bugs mating on the blossoms of a Meadowsweet bush. They were obviously some kind of long-horned beetles (which in Finnish seems to be, delightfully, sarvijäärä or even more hilariously, hapsenkakkiainen). Anyway, they obligingly stayed there long enough for me to rush for the camera and I even managed to get a few quite tolerable shots of them.  To process, I followed Kim's second recipe, this time with a lot more deviation from hers, though.

Mating on Meadowsweet

Resources:
- texture Framed by Kim Klassen
- framing action Double by Chain

The third challenge was to use Kim's pink texture called Peony. Since it was pink, I thought I'd dig up one of the photos I took in April of all the bouquets me and Better Half received at the end of the term. For this I had a brainwave: instead of going through all adjustments step by step I could try what the adjustments of the previous photo would do to this. So I duplicated the adjustment group of Mating on Meadowsweet, found it looked just fine, I just turned down the opacity another 10% and that was it. This made me a very happy camper indeed. So I just placed the texture there, added the frame and was pleased with the result.

Pink Bouquet

The workflow:
- duplicated adjustment group from Mating on Meadowsweet, turned down group opacity to 70%
- added texture Peony by Kim Klassen at multiply 33%
- flattened image
- added frame: framing action Double by Chain

Linking to Texture Tuesday.

This & That

Day 41 of Beyond Layers offered two challenges that I totally enjoyed doing. Again, where I started from was not at all what Kim did, and I didn't want to create dreaminess, but used her recipe to add crispness and clarity to the photo. Here Misaki is standing at the front door, staring at me wide-eyed like she often does, asking me if I really mean what I'm telling her. So herself here, that's what she's like with her large nose and big dark eyes under the topknot.

Serious?

Here's what I did to this image:
1 duplicated bg layer
2 added gradient map Pinkish by Kim Klassen, at soft light 100%
3 added a b&w gradient map at normal 30%
4 created text layer, font Shardee by Bright Ideas, applied stroke, turned fill to 19%
5 duplicated text layer, deleted stroke, turned fill back to 100%, set the text slightly off
6 flattened image & resized it for web
7 added frame: framing action Glass by Chain

The second image was an exercise in enlargening the canvas and using gradient fill. The photo is a detail of my belated birthday bouquet that I received last autumn. Since I was quite happy with the photo itself, I didn't do any processing to the actual photo, only enlarged the canvas, created and used a gradient fill and added the text. Can you tell warm orange is my favourite colour? Then I decided I'd like it better with a frame, so I made one using an action by WallStorm.

Editing steps:
1 used crop tool to make image canvas wider than original
2 created gradient fill (my own, warm orange)
3 added text layer with font La Belle Aurore by Kimberly Geswein, blending mode Vivid Light 64%
4 flattened image & resized it
5 added frame: framing action White Frame V4 from Photographer's Toolkit 2 by WallStorm

I'm very happy with both results here. Feels good to be achieving something satisfying with my pictures. And with two of my favourite photography subjects, too - dogs and flowers.

Into the Light

Here I'm posting a couple of images I worked with for day 36 at Beyond Layers. By now the ecourse is finished, except that I got myself extra time to get through all of this. I really want to finish the course, even though there are still almost 70 challenges waiting. But the way to tackle them is, naturally, one by one.

The challenge this time was to shoot into the light. When I originally took up the challenge, it was December, and shooting into the light was rather impossible, with so little light available at any time. Anyway, I managed to get  this shot of a dried-up cow parsley with snow flakes clinging to it. Then I started to follow Kim's tutorial, but had to deviate quite a lot, since my image was so different from hers.

Into the Light

Resources:
- texture 3112 by Kim Klassen, masked with a sunburst brush by Rita @ The Coffee Shop Blog

Then I decided I needed an image that was at least somehow related to the whiteness of Kim's image and took a close-up of this white poinsettia we had received for Christmas. Here I managed to use both the tutorial and the textures provided so that they actually improved the original. I cut out the numbers from the overlay, though, since I didn't like them at all. But I'm really pleased with how this one turned out.

White Poinsettia

Resources:
- overlay 123 by Kim Klassen
- texture Softly by Kim Klassen

Is it really any wonder it takes me so much time to get through these challenges, when I have to do at least two takes on everything? But then, if that's my way to learn, so be it.

Ice-Cream, Snow & Flowers

This is me all over. Here I'm trying to catch up with the Beyond Layers course, and yet I find myself watching the video Kim presented and trying the techniques not once, no, but three times. Really, am I so hopeless at making a quick work of something? But then, I'm supposed to be learning from this, and as we all know, repetitio mater studiorum est! Furthermore, I did what Kim suggested and tweaked her recipe for each image, discarding some layers and modifying others.

So, here are my takes for the day 34 challenge A Few Tips & Tricks to Try. The challenge included the use of the texture Chase and the use of a recipe Kim presented to us on video.

The first picture was taken on 9 May, 2010 at Keukenhof, Amsterdam. The flower is incredible, a tulip called Ice-Cream, with a good reason.

Tulip Ice-Cream

Resources used:
- texture Chase by Kim Klassen

I did the processing on this a month ago, and followed the recipe too faithfully - and it was my dissatisfaction with this that actually lead me to try another take. But I was clever and instead of tweaking the same image over again I let it be and took another photo to process.

The second photo was shot far more recently, on 5 December, 2012, and the Bohemian Knotweed (Fallopia x bohemica) in the picture is located right outside the fence of our yard. About the plant itself -- for the longest time we've been wondering whether the Knotweed in question is actually a Giant Knotweed (jättitatar in Finnish) or a Japanese Knotweed (japanintatar). Yesterday I googled the case once more and found out that it might actually be a cross between the two! In English, Bohemian Knotweed sounds quite nice and sensible, but the Finnish name, hörtsätatar, makes me giggle. It sounds funny and means nothing at all, suggesting something sort of tousled or dishevelled… well, I guess that suits the plant.

Laden with Snow

Here I went through the recipe but tweaked each layer, and finally ended up NOT using the texture that was part of the challenge. So, although this time I was happy with the result, I had to try again with an image where I'd be happy using Kim's texture.

Orange Gerbera

This is another photo of the session with my belated birthday bouquet. Followed the recipe, not cloning anything in or out, but started with high pass, then used the Gaussian blur but only a touch in the corners, lightened the image with levels adjustment, then darkened the blurred areas with just a tad of black to white gradient, used two colour fill layers, screen and multiply, but only around 10% each, and finally added Kim's texture Chase at 73% colour burn, but masked it out of the Gerbera. The change from the original is rather subtle, but pleases me.

Back to the real world -- doggies demand to get out. Better go and see if the birds still have something to eat. In the morning there were seeds enough at all the feeding posts, and since I had to chop firewood and carry it inside, I didn't take the trouble of adding any. Now off to take care of both the winged and the four-legged.

One Photo in Three Ways

At Beyond Layers, the day 28 challenge was to take a photo and process it in three different ways. For the photo, I took another stroll in the garden. This time, on the 9th October, there were considerably less flowers to photograph than a month ago, but surprisingly many anyway. I rather liked the picture I shot of the Narrow-leaved Meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) with all the raindrops, and so it ended as my subject for this challenge.

Hardly surprisingly, I made a scrapbooking layout of all the versions. The one in the bottom right corner is where I started from. The template is my own, I'll post the link once I get it uploaded, and both the papers are from my set Cold Spell.

Meadowsweet in Three Versions

Here are the resources and recipes. I used a couple of the techniques Kim showed us on her video, but not all of them.

Bottom left:
- Hue/Saturation layer, preset Old Style
- texture Framed by Kim Klassen at Colour Burn 18%, brushed away from blossoms with a layer mask
- texture Fall Returns by Distressed Jewell at Soft Light 46%, brushed away from blossoms with a layer mask
- levels adjustment, preset Midtones Darker, applied to previous layer
- returned a touch of colour to the blossoms by adding a burn layer at Soft Light 38%

Top left:
- action Heartland by Pioneer Woman
- added a tad of colour with a layer mask
- action Boost by Pioneer Woman, applied mostly to the blossoms
- action Soft & Faded by Pioneer Woman at 20%
- texture Abstract by Kim Klassen at Soft Light 25%

Top right:
- action B&W Beauty by Pioneer Woman
- added just a hint of colour with a layer mask
- texture Cool Grunge by Kim Klassen at Soft Light 25%
- texture Frost from Heavenly Vintage Set by Jerry Jones at Soft Light 85%
- texture Baby Blue from Heavenly Vintage Set by Jerry Jones at Colour Burn 25% on the blossoms

Originally I thought it would be rather tough to create three different versions, but actually it wasn't. What's even more surprising, I find that I'm rather pleased with all of the versions, as well as the scrapbooking layout. And yay, with this I can move week 14 of BL into the folder Done!

You First?

It seems that my backlog at Beyond Layers just keeps growing, at the moment I'm a whopping twenty-three days behind. Furthermore, the challenge for day 27 was to take some "me time" and document it with at least one photo. That made me groan - for me it just happens that these challenges are the time I've reserved only for myself, but arranging the time is not so simple.

Well, photography and singing fall into the "placing myself first" category, too, but since my photography is taking snapshots it takes next to no time, just having the camera along. And as I take singing lessons and sing in an ensemble, that time is necessarily scheduled, which means that this photo-tweaking hobby of mine and blogging get their turn only when work and other hobbies leave me enough time.

So far that time has been gloriously lacking this autumn, as work turned out to be far busier than I thought. At the moment I have nine hours more to teach a week than originally planned, which equals about eighteen hours less free time every week… We've also been busy with dog shows, both visiting some, arranging some, working in some, so it's really no wonder I've had little time for photo blogging.

But yes, I did actually manage to snatch some time for photography. It might not sound like a big deal, but since it was the first half an hour I didn't need to use for preparing lessons or doing the related office work, it actually was a big deal. On 11 September I took this stroll in the garden with the doggies and the shiny new camera, which had been in my possession for four days then. I'll share some storyboards of the new camera and the pictures of the garden here - this has taken more doing as it is far more time consuming. But I'm so happy to be doing this again.

New Camera

Here's the new toy. Better Half noticed this ad for a considerable reduction in the price of a camera, which was of the same make as our previous one, and the one before that. So, on Thursday 6th September, I hurried to the shop after work and now I'm the happy owner of a brand new beautiful camera. *beams*

Credits:
- photos by me and Better Half
- template by myself (link upcoming)
- Tone textures 3 & 10 by Jerry Jones
- textures Poetic & Luminous by Kim Klassen
- pattern from Pack 87 by Elemis
- gradient Rivendell 14 by ElvenSword
- font Bank Gothic
- font Savoye by Alan Meeks

Below I'm sharing the results of my photo walk in the garden on 11th September.

Animals in the Garden

The dogs were, of course, with me, and I got some nice shots of Renny, Justiina and the Leopard Duck, Misaki and Leia, the sixth creature is our Garden Gargoyle that Better Half found somewhere a couple of years ago. He (the Gargoyle) has been guarding our garden at various spots ever since.

Flowers in the Garden

There were surprisingly many flowers still in bloom, here some of them: in the large picture, the Panicled Hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata) we planted almost exactly three years ago - this autumn it luckily has had time to blossom. Below it, Narrowleaf Meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) with a visitor. On the right, a New York Aster (Symphyotrichum novi-belgii), Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and Bistort (Persicaria bistorta).

Resources for both of the above:
- template by myself (link upcoming)
- texture And Then Some by Kim Klassen
- brush from Real Brush Strokes Set by Doodle-lee-doo
- font SF Arch Rival
- gradient by Digital Phenom

Autumn Flowers

Still more, and this time more colourful flowers: the blue Monkshood as well as the blue-and-white one (Aconitum napellus), pansies, Petunia Million Bells, Loosestrife (Lysimachia punctata), Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata) and a strawberry bud.

Resources:
- template by Margote @ Au coin de l'objectif
- papers from Close to Ground by myself
- texture Happy Heart by Kim Klassen
- font Zirkon
- gradient by Digital Phenom

Autumn Colours

The fading and faded flowers of Marguerite Daisy (Argyranthemum frutescens) and a leaf of Thicket Shadbush (Amelanchier spicata).

Resources:

- template by Esther @ Au coin de l'objectif 

- papers from Close to Ground by myself

- texture Happy Heart by Kim Klassen

- font Zirkon

- gradient by Digital Phenom 

I wonder if it occurred to you that I might be studying the plant names in English, too? ˆ_____ˆ

Pastel Processing & Texture Tuesday

We were challenged to do some pastel processing on day 24 of Beyond Layers. I knew this was going to be difficult, as pastels are so not my style. I love colours, bright and clear, strong contrasts - it's not that I wouldn't admire softness and delicacy in the work of others, I just don't feel quite at home with pastels. I guess it's because in my own colours, I'm an Autumn: orange is my favourite colour, I love warm browns and yellows and reds, soooo not pastel.

So, the first problem was to find a shot I could even imagine turning pastel. I don't have a white room, all the rooms in our house are colourful, and I simply didn't feel like going into setting up the studio to photograph with the phone. I started processing several photos, ditched them, and finally ended up with these two, both of which are photos I've taken in spring 2010.

White Carnation

Resources:
- texture Paper and Paste by Kim Klassen
- texture Now by Kim Klassen
- font Lastwaerk Bold by Johan Aakerlund
- font Gondola SD - Swash by Steve Deffeyes

Merezeon Blossoming

Resources used:
- texture 61v1 by Sirius-sdz
- texture Sepia Canvas by SolStock
- font Lithos Pro by Adobe
- font Chopin Script by ClaudeP

Now both of these were a challenge, and I'm posting them now just to get rid of the endless tweaking. I've practised the techniques Kim showed us, and although the images don't show here as they do when I view them in Photoshop, I rather think that I did manage to create the soft vintage feel that was the aim of this assignment.

Oh, and although prompted, I didn't try out Radlab. Frankly, I can't see the point in getting a Photoshop plug-in toy that costs $150, which is a lot of money for me, and lets you click click click to make your photos fancy  - I'm doing photo processing for fun, not for a living. If I want something like that, there are countless very cool Photoshop actions available quite free, thanks to lovely people like The Pioneer Woman, Rita at the Coffee Shop blog, The Black Cat Photography, NighFate, Jae and Sarah Lynn Cornish, just to name my favourites. I'm sure this plug-in has its uses for someone actually working with photos for a living and wanting to save time, but I for one am taking this course to learn to use the tools that I already have.

Since the theme for Texture Tuesday this week was free & easy, meaning anything goes as long as there's one texture by Kim, I'm also sharing this post there. Who knows when I'll be able to participate again, for now I'll have to start learning a completely new rhythm of life again.

Frame It

On Day 22 at Beyond Layers Kim gave us a tutorial with a few examples of how to frame our photos. This wasn't a difficult challenge, as I've been framing my photos for years. I used to create my own frame templates, so that I'd just copy a ready-made frame layer (or layers) from a photoshop document to the picture I was processing, but lately I've mostly been using actions by Jonas M. Rogne. He's got seven different sets of actions for framing, you can find them here. My favourites are the filtered framing actions. The only minor drawback with these actions is that you need to flatten your image before applying them for them to work properly, but I usually make a flattened copy of my image and discard it then after using the frame action and saving for web.

I decided to try out Kim's suggestions, however, since there were some keyboard shortcuts for photoshop I hadn't used before, and you only ever have a chance to remember them if you use them yourself. So here are three images I framed, using each of the methods in the tutorial.

Behind the Gate

This picture I took of our Dandie boy Renny on 2 September, 2010, at our home gate. Here I used the stroke framing technique, although as I used blend mode Saturation, it is very subtle. The other frame, the thin bevelled inner frame, is my own invention, and I used it a lot earlier.  

Resources:
- texture Evolve 2 by Kim Klassen

Sunset on Koli

We visited Koli National Park in Northern Karelia in the east of Finland at the end of May. The landscapes from the wooded hills down to the lakes and woodland are very much a part of Finnish national landscape. The views have been painted by numerous Finnish artists, and whenever anybody in my childhood neighbourhood in Southern Karelia had visitors from abroad or other parts of Finland, Koli National Park was at least recommended to them as a destination or else they'd be taken there (by my father and/or uncle). The sunset that evening was rather spectacular, I wish my picture would do better justice to what we saw then. Used the enlargening canvas method here, and added some layer styles.

Creeping Buttercup

A tiny fly paying a visit to a Creeping Buttercup after some rain on 24 June, 2012. For this image I used the subtle frame technique, which I think suits this image perfectly.

Resources:
- font BlairMdITC TT Medium by Jim Spiece
- font Shardee by Bright Ideas

Dear me. Seems I got carried away, again. It's definitely time to attend to the family, in other words, to feed the doggies. Better Half left for the Terrier Specialty last night with some friends, taking the kiddies to their second show ever, and as I couldn't travel with them because I was working, I am now dog-sitting the older ones. They are beginning to give me certain kind of looks, and Renny will soon start singing. Better act, before their hints turn to demands. Then it might be time to keel over -- waking up last night at two to make breakfast for Better Half and help them pack the car did leave me feeling somewhat groggy, although I managed to snatch some sleep for about three hours before driving to work.

Looking for Yellow

I'm continuing my week (or so) of colour for Beyond Layers.The first day was green, this one is yellow. On the 13 August, when Better Half had left for work, I was having my second or third cup of tea in the kitchen and staring at the yellow mug in front of me. I then realized there was a multitude of various shades of yellow all around me, and so, although I only have my phone to take photos with at the moment (see previous post), I was inspired to try and do this challenge by photographing yellow instead of digging it up from my archives.

And no, it really was no problem. It took me a little more than half an hour to walk around the house and the garden to get a shocking number of pictures with yellow. There were so many that in the end I was quite happy to see that quite a few of them were out of focus (note to self: keep your distance - mustn't try to get too close to the objects because the phone, without a macro function, will just blur the pics).

I thought it would be fun to collect them into storyboards to show as many as possible. In the end, I managed to squeeze the half-hour walk to three pages, one from the house, two from the garden - one with flowers, the other with… well, other things. Here they are.

A Day of Yellow - Outdoors

A Day of Yellow - Flowers

A Day of Yellow - Indoors

What I did with the photos was to process all of them in Camera Raw before placing them in the storyboard. After that I used a gradient layer (soft light) for each storyboard to even the colours a tad.

Resources used:
- templates by Miya J, myself and Margote
- gradients by Digital Phenom

What fun that was! Then off to tackle the next colour.

More Black & White

So it has taken me a month to get to the second day of week nine at Beyond Layers. Oh well. There's a good, or to be precise wonderful reason, though. Better Half was on holiday, and we've been so busy during the past few weeks that I really have to wonder how we've managed it all. I still continue being busy with various dog show activities, but decided to snatch some time to get a little step forward on the course.

On day 18, Kim gave us advice on black & white conversion, and I absolutely fell for Adobe Camera Raw. Never knew something like that was included with Photoshop, but after practising with b&w for fun, I used it on going over a batch of photos that were to be posted on a dog show site. And oh, it made cropping and editing far quicker and easier. Instead of spending all of Tuesday on the photos, it took me only about three hours to go through the lot of them.

But here's what I've created while trying out Kim's techniques. All the pictures here have been processed in ACR, since the other techniques I already tried out in the previous post.

Pines, Clouds

More Whispering

It's another Beyond Layers post again. Continued from day 15, the following day was still more whispers. Or rather, Kim offered us some photoshop techniques the word Whisper made her think of.   The challenge for day 16 was to use these techniques as well as two textures she presented us with.

Kim's example was so white with such a uniform background that I almost despaired before I even started. Have to shoot something in my make-shift "studio" (see the Start to Finish post) again, I thought.

There was this flower that I picked a while ago when we were walking with the doggies and Better Half suddenly pointed and asked if I knew which flower THAT was. I didn't, so to find out we took it along. It was quite withered when we got home but recovered quickly in a glass of water. It stood there together with a Red Campion I had taken as sort of reference, and I started shooting. The flower turned out to be Ragged Robin (the first part of the name is very understandable). In Finnish, it's called Käenkukka, which means Cuckoo's Flower.

Ragged Robin

Processing resources:
- texture Flourish by Kim Klassen
- font Le Grand Saut by Jellyka Nerevan
- framing action Glass 50 px by Chain

As the result of this processing was quite passable, I decided to have another go. As Better Half was working on another computer last night, I turned to this picture I had taken of a piece of chocolate to work with. It was something we bought in Vienna, called Studentenfutter (student fodder in English). You can see the ingredients in the picture. *grin* Is this what the Austrian students live on?

Studentenfutter

Resources used:
- texture The Veil by Kim Klassen
- brush Curly 8 by Green-Eyed Butterfly
- font Learning Curve Pro by Blue Vinyl Fonts
- framing action Glass 50 px by Chain

This morning after working a while it occurred to me to try if the same techniques could be applied to a photo with a noisier background. It took some trying, but here's a flower from our garden, a Snow-in-Summer in English. I'm rather happy with it, and as Texture Tuesday this time was 'Anything Goes' I'm sharing this in Texture Tuesday as well.

Snow-in-Summer

Resources used:
- texture Plaster Squared by Kim Klassen
- fonts Windsong by Bright Ideas & Copperplate Light
- framing action Motion 50 px by Chain

The recipes I've made of each picture I've processed are sooo useful, my memory being what it is. I'll start following them, take some steps I've tried and tested and then deviate again... Fun! Here are recipes for the above pictures.

Black & White with a Touch of Colour

A rainy day. Should have mowed all the lawn yesterday, instead of only going as far as the first tankful of mower would let me. It's too bad one needs to let the machine cool down -- gives one time to cool down oneself, and after that it's a real effort to get going again, although I do, for some unfathomable reason, enjoy lawnmowing. But now the grass is so wet that the poor machine will choke immediately if I try to tackle the backyard.

Oh well, since Better Half is off town training today, and all that the doggies do on rainy days is snore on sofas and chairs around the house, hoping I won't be suggesting anything stupid such a going out, this gives me time to do some more catching up on Beyond Layers. I'm feeling really accomplished -- I'm already on week seven, which means I'm only four weeks behind! That's great -- when I started, the others were doing week 11 already.  And so far I have completed each and every assignment. *insert some the self-satisfied beaming here*

On day 14 of Beyond Layers Kim gave us two videos to study, with ideas how to turn a photo black & white and then add some colour into it to heighten interest. She also gave a more in-depth tutorial on how to create watermark or text brushes.

The brush part really was all familiar to me, but it made me dig up something useful. Kim explained how to resize a brush you're using by using the left and right bracket key -- well, in my Scandinavian Mac keyboard the keys would be totally something else, and while trying to find out which keys to use I landed on this useful hint. Wow, Ctrl + Option drag made changing brush size really quick!

I'm not going to share the brushes I've made, since they are my watermark stamps and anyone interested can see them in the photos I upload, but the black & white assignment was interesting. Thought I'd try using the b&w adjustment layer presets instead of the actions suggested (to be able to afford the Florabella actions I'd have to be making money with my photos or with something anyway). Originally I was quite happy with the results, but decided then to try out the Pioneer Woman b&w action. It gave quite another depth to the image so I ended up using the action.

And then I had a brainwave. Earlier I fretted over the use (or rather, uselessness for me) of brushes, and now I suddenly saw what one could do: use a bold splash brush to add colour to the photo, instead of gently touching the photo with a default brush. Now that was fun to play with.

First Splashes of Colour

Resources used:
Pioneer Woman Black & White action
Splatter Brushes by Fuzzimo

I still have to figure out why, when flattening an image or saving it for web, Photoshop sometimes discards the layer styles. It was most annoying to notice that after I had cracked my brain for a good while to get a bevel to the splashes, it all vanished when I flattened the image. Luckily I finally managed to keep the bevel, though I'm not sure how.

Ornamental Onion

Hooray, it’s Thursday and I finally managed to take part in the Texture Tuesday challenge again. It’s been a while, so happy to participate! The challenge this time was to use a flower photo with any of Kim’s textures.

I chose an ornamental onion, a tall and handsome Allium plant I photographed on 12 May this year in a garden in Dunfermline, Scotland. In processing, I used two of Kim’s textures as well as techniques we’ve practised on Kim’s Beyond Layers II eCourse. I’m so much behind on the course, but I’m catching up little by little, and I want to do each challenge, because I enjoy them a lot and don’t want to miss anything.

Ornamental Onion

Processing resources:
- textures Faved & Grey Day Slate by Kim Klassen
- a pink gradient from The Super Dooper Gradient Pack by Digital Phenom

Just for the fun of it, I thought I would create a recipe for this one. Or actually, not only for fun -- already now I notice that in some of the course challenges I have forgotten the steps I’ve taken. I’m sure this will help me review later on what’s good and what’s less good in the process or work flow, and perhaps that way I can also see what I have learned.

Making the recipe card was fun!  Resources used for the card:
- background paper Subtle White 7 by Jerry Jones
- gradient Rivendell 09 by ElvenSword
- fonts Snell Roundhand & Big Caslon

As a matter of fact, processing is never this simple... It’s not as if I’d just snap my fingers and say ok, this is what I’ll do. There’s a lot of trying out involved, browsing through numerous textures, then choosing one and, after a while of dabbling, deleting it when it doesn’t do something I’d like it to do, or does something I definitely don’t want it to do... But I’m making progress, it’s not all the time purely hit-and-miss anymore. I’m beginning to see what I’d like to end up with. Yay!

Start to Finish

Beyond Layers Day 8 was another still-life challenge, to illustrate how surroundings affect the feel of our photos. The first part of the challenge was to create a mini-studio at home, if possible, and then set something up there.

Actually, this is something I experimented with in March. In the afternoon, the best light in our house comes from the western windows - the living room has lovely, antique yellow wallpapers, too, and the trickiest part is to manouvre a suitable piece of furniture next to a blank part of the wall. (That can be a challenge, though. ) But as I already already used the living room for the carnation photo, I decided to try another option.

To start with, I set up our dog-grooming table in the room where Better Half usually grooms our dogs. It's light-weight and easy to move. So far so good, but the surface is black rubber intended to prevent a dog slipping, and is definitely not photogenic. So I go about to find something to cover the table, and find Mum's old tablecloths. Perfect! The next step is to find something to hide the bookcase and dog crates in the room and to reflect the light. No screens in the house, but I carry a foldable laundry drying rack into the room, prop it against a chair and drape it first with cream-coloured curtains. They are too light and transparent, though, so I need to use some sheets under them. Voila! There I have my mini-studio, with no need to purchase anything.

The second part of the challenge was the composition. Here I did a lot of experimenting, and for this challenge I picked two photos of the series that I liked, with some dried roses and my grandfather's old cigarette box.

The third part of the challenge was to try out the photoshop techniques Kim instructed us in: gradient  mapping, hue/saturation adjustment layers, layer masks, including gradient masks, and selective editing. I have experience in using the other techniques, but the selective editing of hue & saturation was totally new to me!

So I played with these two pictures, and here are the results.

Grandfather's Cigarette Box

The resources I used for processing:
- action Sunshine by The Pioneer Woman
- textures Awaken & Happy Heart by Kim Klassen
- gradient Vintage by Kim Klassen
- a blue gradient from the wonderful Super Dooper gradient pack by Digital Phenom

Old Rose

Processing resources:
- action Lovely & Ethereal by The Pioneer Woman
texture  Paper Love by Kim Klassen
- a red gradient from the Super Dooper gradient pack by Digital Phenom

Vision & Blur

Beyond Layers Day 4 Challenge: Vision and Blur. It's about shooting photos with beautiful, dreamy blur.

Now, while studying the topic, I learned a new term - my camera is a point-and-shooter. Meaning, of course, that it's designed for simple operation, there's no changing the lens or anything of the kind. I also found out that it's not possible to blur the background like with a "better" camera/lens unless one is focusing on a (relatively small) object really close to the lens. Well, that's then it - if I want blur, I either focus on a small object, or produce the blur in Photoshop, and forget the advice about acquiring a better lens.

Earlier this spring, I did practical training on White Balance, and now, following Kim's suggestions, I also played around with the Exposure Value settings. Overexposing slightly is really a way to lighten up the image, but shooting outside in the garden, I also noticed that underexposing some really helped to pop out the colours of flowers from a general greenness. Hey, I'm learning!

Today I have three photos - the first one is a study in light I did in April. Shot in the afternoon in our living room, blur created by using the macro setting and by using texture, called Plaster Squared, by Kim Klassen, at soft light and using layer mask on the carnation.

Carnation
texture Plaster Squared by Kim Klassen

The second is a shot of a lovely Dandie Dinmont Terrier statuette we bought at the World Winner Dog Show 2008 in Stockholm, if I remember correctly. The statuette is really a little masterpiece, it has an exactly correct Dandie look. With this, I had to do a lot of tweaking for the lightness, but I'm very happy with the result.

The Look
texture Phoebe by Kim Klassen

The third picture is one I took yesterday morning, and here I tried out underexposing the shot. Used a touch of an action called Lovely & Ethereal by The Pioneer Woman to finish it.

Globe-flower
action Lovely & Etherial by The Pioneer Woman

But now, the sun is shining, the grass is growing and I hear the lawnmower silently calling...