Expanding Horizons – Layer Styles VIDEO

Have you used Layer Styles?  I love them!  I use them quite frequently and they’re a fun way to easily enhance your images and text.  Check it out!

Just click on this link to watch:  Layer Styles

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Expanding Horizons – Replacing a Color

Have you ever wanted to know how to change the color of flowers, balloons, or someone’s shirt in photoshop?  Take a look at my newest video (just under 8 minutes long) on how to replace a color nondestructively so you can go back and change the color later with just a click of a button.  Oh the joys of technology!  The techniques shown here are useful in so many other applications, not just replacing a color.

As a side note, I’ve ordered a headset with a microphone so the audio quality will be a lot better in the future.  Thank goodness for iMovie to reduce the noise in post production.  It’s still not that great but it’s a lot better than the original, trust me.  OY!

Expanding Horizons – “Doggone it”, I love photography!

I promised my Expanding Horizons would not always be about photoshop, so today’s installment will be discussing basic components that make up a good picture.  The included example photo was taken yesterday on my iPhone and is of our Granddog, “Ticky”.

One thing I’ve learned about photography, you can have the best equipment in the world and not take a great picture.  The converse is also true….you can have a mere smartphone and take a great picture.  To me, it’s about the lighting, angle, cropping and the story it tells.

The lighting was just right for this image.   Because of her light colors, they really stood out against the dark background which provided a nice contrast; and with the natural light I think it has a soft feel to it.

It was a bit far away as you can tell from the original, but I could tell right away that I liked the pose.  I could see both eyes and her head was turned slightly which added a lot to the feeling of the shot, plus her bent leg outside the bed was so cute.  🙂   The angle really helped the story of the shot I think.  Sometimes you see photos at eye-level of animals which is cool because it puts you in their world, or sometimes the shot is taken even lower as if we were in the insect world looking up at them which is a unique viewpoint as well.  In this case, the slight angle of Ticky looking up reflects the relationship between humans and man’s best friend.

Lastly, the crop…As you can see I cropped some of the ear to bring us closer to her face.  The human eye will naturally fill in the rest.  If you’re not used to recognizing this method of chopping off parts of bodies lol, try looking at pictures for this specifically.  You will be amazed how your eye has been filling in this gap without you even realizing it!

One other thing I did to help focus our eyes on her cute little face was to use a Neutral Gradient Filter over the red tail of her stuffed toy fish.  As you can see it was a bit brighter in the original.  I did all the edits on the iPhone by the way using the Leonardo iPhone app.  That’s one of my favorite go-to’s for adjustments.

I hope that gives you some helpful info!  Have a great weekend!  WOOF!