January PSE challenge!

The first challenge is designed to get you working with your photos and doing some enhancements that don’t really change the photo, but present them better! So here’s the challenge. Note the instructions given are specific to PSE 9 and are probably the same or similar for other versions of PSE. Sorry, I can’t help with other software but you should be able to do most of these same things in whatever software you use.

1. Pick a photo, this is the easy part! Now my photo is not the sharpest photo I ever took, but you know, I was shooting out a bus window as were the other 40-50 other bus occupants so it was a challenge to even get a photo!!
2. Make a copy of it so that you are NOT working with the original photo. You always want to preserve your original photo.

My original photo:


3. Crop the photo to zero in on the interesting part of the picture and in doing so, you are eliminating the boring parts of the photo.



4. Now let’s work with the lighting a bit. Do you need to lighten or darken the photo? Go to Enhance, adjust lighting, levels and work with the input levels. Move the black, white and gray triangles to see the differences.


5. Now work with the color. Go to Enhance, Adjust color. Try the Remove color cast if the color seems to be a bit off in your photo. I find that photos often have a bluish tinge to them and I like to warm them up. Also try the Adjust Hue/saturation to pop up your colors a bit more. Experiment! If you don’t like what you see, go to Edit and Undo. That’s a very handy tool! It’s probably the one I use the most!




6. Now let’s play around and convert the photo to black and white. Go to Enhance, convert to black white. In PSE 9 a box opens that shows you before and after and there are some styles below and sliders that you can play with to get a result that pleases you. In other versions you may have to go to Enhance, adjust color, remove color. You can then use some of the steps above to improve your photo. I like to work with contrast in particular with black and white photos.



After making adjustments:


7. And let’s go vintage too and convert to sepia. Go to Enhance, adjust color, hue/saturation and click on colorize in the box that opens. Adjust the slider bars for hue, satuation and lightness to get the color of sepia that you want. This is looking a bit purple so it probably need a bit of adjusment but you get the idea!




8. And as a bonus, lets see what it looks like with an antique oval frame. YOu will either have to print this out and scan or take a screen shot. I really love the antique oval frame!



For the challenge post:
1. Your photo before you have done anything to it.
2. your photo after adjusting lighting, color, etc.
3. your black and white photo after adjustments
4. your sepia photo after adjustments
5. your sepia photo with antique frame – this might be hard to do so don’t fret if you can’t do this. This is not part of the overall challenge, its a bonus step!

I will send someone a RAK who participates in this challenge. The winner will be chosen by random selection so everyone has an equal chance of winning.

The more that participate, the bigger the RAK!! I will let you know what it is as soon as I figure it out myself!

Maggi, I don't have Photoshop but I have what is called ArcSoft PhotoStudio, so I can't do everything you guys can but I tried this.

1. Your photo before you have done anything to it.




2. your photo after adjusting lighting, color, etc.




3. your black and white photo after adjustments



4. your sepia photo after adjustments



5. your sepia photo with antique frame

WTG Colleen!! Talk about jumping right on it!! Nice job on your edits too!

Oh my gosh! You gals are way too talented for me!! Love the challenge Maggi!!

And WTG Colleen! You are a spitfire!!!

Spitfire, now that is a name I haven't been called in a long time.

Thank you both. Actually, maybe by you teaching Photoshop I will pick up some new ideas on my program.

That's the one I have too Colleen. I'll have to work on this on the weekend.

I'm gonna go look for a photo.... see you soon!!!!

Wow... I had a tough time finding Sepia on PSE6... here's my photo... I think she probably adjusted it before I got it....

original:

adjusted and played with:
looks way too pale!
Black and White:

sepia:


with 'framing':
the framing sort of softened the sepia but I like it much better.

I will help with directions asap

Lois I love the sepia one with the frame that is just so pretty.

So pretty Lois!!!!!!!!

Awesome Lois!! Tell me how did you do the framing? The only way I have been able to do the framing is thru the print process and I just know there has to be another way.

I am totalling in love with that antique frame, LOL, it just speaks to me! I might actually use the CM oval cutters that I have now!!

LOL at myself, another senior moment!! This was supposed to be posted on the 15th. So I was thinking yesterday was the 14th and I knew I would be busy today so decided to post it last night. LOL, soooooo, I see today is the 14th...............oh welll, glad to see ya'll meeting the challenge!!

So Colleen and Helen, who are the subjects in your photos? I'm thinking must be your children?

By the way the first PS tutorial is up http://www.sisterhoodofscrap.com/t7376-ps-pse-tutorial-basics

This is great, Maggi! I am gonna enjoy these challenges!

I don't have photoshop, but I think I can do this with Paint Shop Pro.

Oh you absolutely can with PSP. I think you can do most anything in PSP that you can do in PSE. That was the 1st photo program I had and I played around with it for several years and finally gave up cause it was not user friendly. Then I got PSE 4, a little more user friendly, but still not something you learn intuitively. So now I have PSE9 which has really improved over PSE 4 but still you aren't gonna learn it by just "messing" with it. So I have invested in a book and I am reading and learning!

maggi43 wrote:

So Colleen and Helen, who are the subjects in your photos? I'm thinking must be your children?

Maggi... another senior moment?? It was Lois who posted, not me!! LOL!!!
Have a good one!!!

Helen wrote:

maggi43 wrote:

So Colleen and Helen, who are the subjects in your photos? I'm thinking must be your children?

Maggi... another senior moment?? It was Lois who posted, not me!! LOL!!!
Have a good one!!!

Oh dear, someone call the men in the little white coats!!!

PS I knew that Helen, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.

I find PSP a lot more user friendly than Photo Shop... I love Paint Shop and use it all the time.

Thats great Jackie, maybe you and Carla can help each other!

maggi43 wrote:

PS I knew that Helen, I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.

LOL!!!!!!!!!! You crack me up Maggi!

In my photo, it is my DS and DDIL on the day they moved into their new house.

maggi43 wrote:

Awesome Lois!! Tell me how did you do the framing? The only way I have been able to do the framing is thru the print process and I just know there has to be another way.

I am totalling in love with that antique frame, LOL, it just speaks to me! I might actually use the CM oval cutters that I have now!!

well I tell you... I had a really hard time figuring out first of all changing into sepia... then to find a frame ... that was tough but along the right side of my program there are some little buttons... one had fx on it so I clicked there and wandered around a finally saw some frames... then I had to figure out what would work and play with it.... there must be a better way!!!

I can change into black and white really easy but for some reason have to go to - I think it was elements or something like that and find a sepia thingy... there must be an easier way for that too!!

(ps... that's my daughter)