Road Map

For this project I will take this image of the musical Singin' in the Rain and edit it.

I first plan on changing the exposure. I think it is a little dark. I also will make the colors more vivid. I also plan on croping it. I would like to make it a square, because those are interesting and unusual.

I was able to lighten it and crop it in Bridge. I then pulled it up in Photoshop and reduced the noise.

Here is the end result.

Blur, Gots Some Blur

Here I am attempting to element blur in my pictures. Here is my first picture and my first attempt. It was not too blurry, but I really like this picture and I wanted to make sure it looks good. I followed this tutorial to fix the blur.

Original 

Edited: I feel like this one has more details. However it was not much of an edit, so I tried again with this picture.

Original 

Edited one: I followed the same steps to sharpen the picture as I did above. 

I still felt like I needed to challenge myself so I chose this picture of a statue. This picture is very blurry so I did my best to edit it.

Original: 

First I reduced the blur and sharpened it:

Although this image was sharper, it had a lot of noise. I did my best to use what we learned last year to reduce the noise. 

Sharpening things is a lot of work. It has taught me the importance to making good exposures, so you have less work to do. I just got back from my spring break trip, only to realize that I took my 1300 pictures in low quality JEPG's. Now fixing images is even harder. I'm glad I'm leering the tools though to fix pictures. 

Noise, so much noise

So I just returned home from my spring break trip to London and Italy and let me tell you I took a lot of pictures. Being a backpacker I could not afford (both money and space) to buy too many souvenirs. I bought the essentials (a juice box of wine, and a scarf) but most of the memories of my trip came in the form of pictures. In the 10 days I was there I took over 13000 pictures. Here is one of my pictures from Florence of the Ponte Vecchio or Old Bridge. 

Original  

Noisy spot

For my first attempt to edit this picture I followed a tutorial called Two Minuet Fix of Noise Blur. However I was unhappy with the end result. 

I though that this almost had more noise than the original. 

For my next try I followed tutorial that used a Gaussian Blur. I followed this step by step. I was happy with this but I though that the water still had too much noise. 

I used the magnetic lasso to chose the water and then copy and paste it.  I then used filters like Smart Blur and Dust and Scratches to reduce noise more. 

From there I used the blur tool to blend the extra edited part of the water into the background layer. 

Here is the original noisy part. I think that it has much less noise now. 

Here is the final picture. 

Photoshop CS6

I am very excited to try the new Adobe Photoshop CS6 program. One feature that I think will be extra helpful is that you can search through layers. I know that I always have a lot of open layers, and it would save me so much time if I could easily find a layer that I need. I also like how in incorporates things that we have become popular through cell phone apps. I was trying to edit pictures like Instagram the other day and it took a long time. Although they are simple its fun to have a quick way to change your pictures.

Self Portrait

Newt 

I chose to put this picture in because I love being outdoors. I TA for the Natural History class and going out and teaching people about the world around them is very rewarding. I like this picture because it sparkles, almost. It was a dark cold day, but days like those bring so much beauty because of how the rain makes things glisen. 

Indian Plum

Indian Plum is the first thing to blum in the spring. I love how gray the forest is and then you see this amazing pop of green color. Its magical. I love how vivid the green is in this picture. 

Court of Roses

I love the muted colors of this picture. I love old fashion tings, and the Rose Festival in Portland is one of the most old fashion things that I can think of.  Its over 100 years but it still has the same idea and spirt. As a native Portlander I always look fordward to it. 

Elephant

This picture also respents me as a native Portlander. This is a work of public art in Portland that I love. I love how it also sparkles and is full of color. 

Myself

This is a picture that I took of myself. I like how warm the picture is because it was taken in my apartment and I like to think of my home as a warm and welcoming place. 

A picture from the Portland Rose Festival 2011

What makes a good photo?

There are two types of photography that I am drawen to.  The first is simple images. I love a simple back and white picture, or even color picture of one main subject.  I can tend to be very miumual  when it comes to pictures. I like when there is one subject matter and it speaks for its self, like in this picture. 

I also think a really great photo is one that tells a story, or captures a moment. I have a personal love for wedding photos because of the story they capture. I love this picture because it is so simple but it also makes you think and wonder what was going on. 

I tend to like pictures that have more of a natural or understated tone. Nothing drives me more crazy than a picture that you can tell has been photoshoped and is full of ultra vivid colors. This photo drives me crazy.

  

If people are going to photoshop a picture a lot I like when they do something to tone it down such as shown in these pictures. 

Good photography is very much in the eye of the viewer. What one person likes can vary between people a lot. They best way to ensure that you have a good picture if to follow rules such of the rules of 3rds and making sure your photo has good composition.  Its a lot easier to change things like color than trying to change composition.