Community Photo Challenge ~ White

The next Community Photo Challenge is white,  or white on white. 

These were taken in my side-yard. The weather cooperated and gave me a new layer of 'white'.

Waiting For Spring.  My bird-bath is buried with snow and waiting for spring and the birds to return. I like this one best. It's my submission to the White challenge.

Black and White and Sketch Filter. 

 The old Garden Barn.

I tried to find or think of some other things white on white without snow in it, but it was pretty hard.

Posted by Ellen....

The Pasture at Quitting Time OR Cabin at Sunset

We've been building a new fence on our property line. The fence goes through a small pond, so we had to wait till it was just the right frozen state to pound down steel posts.  We finally finished the fence through the pond over the weekend.  We can finish the rest of the fence at leisure during the spring.
I took some pictures at quitting time just as the sun was going down behind the cabin... 

 

I think they're self explanatory.

New Photo Challenge - Autumn

The new challenge at " Bloggers Community Photo Challenge" is Autumn.  I took some Fall color pictures a couple of weeks ago, before the wind blew off all the beautiful leaves from the trees in our pasture land.

An Oak and some Birch and Aspen.

This is unedited strait from my camera (except downsized). Beautiful Fall country sky.

Distant tiny ducks in our pond.  Most of the leaves have been blown off.... but the blue sky is reflected in the water.

There, you can actually see the ducks and some Autumn reds, yellows, and golds.

IS IT STRAIT?

I look at a lot of pictures and photographs from other web sites. It gives me inspiration. I love the edited pictures that pop out at ya like they were from a magazine, by everyday ordinary people..

They know how to use their Photo Editing Program/s. The Actions, Brushes, Shapes, and Overlays. I especially like the grungie/over exposed/surreal poster qualified renderings. They've really mastered those editing features, especially if they don't over do it.

So, if they know how to do all that just so.. why are their horizon lines crooked? Seems they'd get the feel for custom rotation wouldn't ya think? As common an edit can be.  And I feel an important edit.

I hate it when a beautiful picture is on the screen and the water/horizon line are so crooked you feel like everything is going to fall off the page.  YUK!  Can't they see? I guess they're looking at the wonderful edit they did and not the whole photo.  To me, it's the difference between professional and amateur. 

What I'm really saying is, Please learn how to use the Basic Tools, before you master the advanced artistic edits. 

Basic:  Color, Composition, Rotation, Crop/Resize. STRAITEN IF NEEDED, and it usually does need it.

Next 'Challenge' is - Personal Challenge

I've decided I need more experience with Photoshop Elements Editing. Not the basic editing.. contrast/lighting/red eye etc., but the artistic editing that I like so much, yet never seem to accomplish. I never seem to have the time! I'll be updating this post and adding my 'artistic challenges' as I finish them.
I best get started...
                                                                                                                                                                    

 Inukshuk Tin Type

This Edit was an easy one. I used the new Smart Brush Tool in PSE 8. Set to Photographic; Tin Type.  I turned down the opacity a bit on it.

Inukshuk is a Canadian Native Inuit 'road/trail sign'.  In simplicity, it says "some one was here" or "you're on the
right path".
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Poudre Cache, CO ~ Before and After I used the Sky enhancement brush. I selected a few places in the sky reflection in the water also.  That's the only enhancement I did, but I think it popped out the other colors also, especially in the water.
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Sunset on Aug 3, 2010 ~  I HAD to enhance the sun in this shot.  This is how the sun looked when I took the picture, but the picture didn't render the sun the same.. it was very washed out. So I played around with Layers and Adjustment Layers to get it to the right color at least. I added some 'Glow' to make it look like the real moment.
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Well, I missed the deadline, I think, to post my favorite "Edit" to the Challenge. Maybe next time. I was busy picking veggies, canning, and freezing. And it's hunting season now!

I Missed the Flower Challenge

But I picked a little Indian Paint Brush from our pasture the other day....

These are small flowers, so I stuck it in a little antique bottle.  I call it Country Paint Brush.

Here's another Macro version. 

New Designer in Blogger

Wow, I've been playing with the Designer in Blogger Draft for a few weeks now. I can't decide which template and custom configurations to go with, so I just change it a lot.

I used  to customize Blogger's XML Templates.. that was fun to mess with. I just followed everyone else's hacks.  There's always something you'd like to change no matter how many or how nice the new templates are and no matter how many changes you can make to the design. It's the hard wired stuff you'd like to change like 'new post'/'old posts' ,  stick a few graphics dividers in between posts, fancy up your Widgets and Gadgets..... 


I sure hope the HTML/XML template Guru's out there can figure out how to hack the NEW Templates.