5.24.2011

Post processing...

Here are some photos of my best friend's little girl. I took them while we were camping in Santa Cruz the other weekend and they are just too sweet to not post. L is a shy, adorable and goofy little girl (or boof-ball as she likes to call herself). She and O are good friends and play well together-it helps that they spend all week at daycare together so they get lots of hang out time on a regular basis. Fifi is already pretty smitten with her, as are we.
Getting to watch the three of these kids grow is such an honor.

threekids_copy

The afternoon sun in our camp ground was so perfect, filtered by the big trees and reflecting up from the ocean, which was just over the cliff were we camped. Even with that great light, I wanted to mess around with these shots a little once I had gotten home. Sometimes I wish I could just leave this step out, but I feel like it is part of the creative process for me and I love watching an image go form,
"I like it" to "I LOVE IT".
For these shots, I used actions from the Coffee Shop blog, this is a great resource full of tutorials and freebies. I am a little bit in love with her actions right now- I especially like the Barista for a nice, clean, simple edit as seen above in the photo with all three kids, as well as the Irish Cream from the Coffee Shop bar set. That one is fun to adjust the saturation in and move the photo back to color from black and white. I don't really like the 'softening' part of the actions, but I do love the tones and the depth these give my shots. It is what I feel my images have been lacking and it makes me ridiculously happy to see the images in a way that I have been striving to get. 
I have been learning so much lately just from using these actions/presets. It makes me want to take the leap and purchase a newer version of PS Elements and maybe PS Lightroom . (I have been using my work computer that has CS on it to do the edits and it's really hard to go back to my very old version of PS Elements when I want to process my photos!) Do you post process? What software do you use and do you have any favorite presets/actions that you utilize?

LBubbles copy

Lbubbles_bw

camperL

Fun no? I have to get these printed out for her mama!

4 comments:

  1. Vanessa,
    I use both Lightroom and PSE (which I just got for $55 on Amazon--if you count the $20 rebate!! Great deal!). Both require a learning curve (and a good book to help you learn it, but if you already know PSE, you'll be okay). I use the Sarah Ji free presets in Lightroom. And in PSE, I just bought some Florabella Texture/Action mini combo and a separate texture set.
    I have not tried the coffee shop presets yet.
    By the way, there is a free trial of a program for Lightroom called Perfect Layers that allows you to do textures in there.
    I don't know if that helps you or not. I find with any of those actions or presets, I still need to add my own tweaks but I like something that helps my images POP!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Papillon Sky Photography Tell me more about the rebate!! how did you get that?
    This is all really great information. I think upgrading to the newer version of PSE is what I need to do - I am still a little confused at the difference between Lightroom and PSE, but I am sure the smart kids at PS have it all figured out! tee hee. thanks again...

    ReplyDelete
  3. The latest PSE is amazing! Layers that already have their own mask! so perfect for me. I do all work in lightroom and then if I have anything major or need to do some masking and layering, I head to PSE. Love bleach filter and high contrast b&w filters.

    Loved the shots of the little girl.. all of them are so awesome! Good work V.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hmm...I think my comment disappeared. Anyway, what are these actions the hip kids are talking about? Are they like post-processing art filter-y things? I'm so old skool, I don't even know!

    ReplyDelete

say hi...