removing pixellation/noise from an abstract edit (for Lori)

Preamble:

I was at an art show on the weekend. My friend Cathleen McLain invited me to come and share my photography with the world, and I accepted with glee. She told me I would love the work that her friend Lori Barker does, and I do. Lori transfers photos on to aluminum and then engraves them with a dentists drill. They are AWESOME! She doesn't seem to have any in her etsy shop right now, but you can get the idea of the stuff she does from having a look there: http://www.spiritcollage.etsy.com/

Anyhow, Lori had come across this book made from images from a camera that this guy had accidentally dropped in water. The images came out all strange and wonderful. It just happened Lori had her old digital camera that she had replaced. Because possible alkalinity was mentioned in the book she dumped some bicarbonate of soda in water, and dropped her old camera in, dried it out, and started taking photos with it. I am sure she can comment more about the process here if you want to know more.

Lori took a photo of me at the show. We were talking editing, and I mentioned a couple of things to deal with the pixellation in the image. It looks like Lori is a pretty accomplished photo editor in the first place, but I went through it in more detail for others who might want it.

Thanks for the portrait, Lori. Here's what I did:

IMAGE - IMAGE SIZE

* Next to "Resolution" put in the number 300. This will ensure that it is well within print quality. 150 or above would also be acceptable. (If this number is higher than the number of pixels per inch of the original image, which it is in this case, the program will add in more pixels. This can be a problem for editing more regular photos, but since this photo is abstract, it really won't matter.)

* In the part of the box that says "Pixel dimensions" change the drop down menu to "percent" and then make the number 100 (meaning 100 percent. This will keep the original image dimensions. If you want to make it bigger or smaller, now is when you would do that. I like this one the size it is, though.)

There are other options you can choose while changing your image size, but lets not worry too much about them right now.

Next:

Ok, you have a few choices now. When we were talking at the show after you took this photo you said you didn't want it so grainy. I suggested "edge preserving smooth" but when I got home I realized that I was talking about a feature in Paint Shop Pro, not Photoshop. Apologies about that. So.... one way you can get it less grainy is:

FILTER - NOISE - DUST AND SCRATCHES (this is close to the option I suggested for you, but it's called something different here in Photoshop than the name I gave you)

* Make sure the "preview" box is ticked. This will show you what you are doing on your image as you are doing it.

* Use the slider bars on the bottom two options to check out what you can do to the image. I liked "Threshold" at zero, and a "Radius" of about 5 pixels. Anything else lost too much detail in the background.

While this really helped get rid of the grain, I didn't like what it did in losing some of the background. So in the end, I didn't click OK. I wanted to see some of the grain get lost in my face and arms, but I like the texture in my jeans and background. So I did it another way. (There is ALWAYS another way to do something). I chose:

In my toolbar on the left of the screen, I right click my mouse on the symbol that looks like a hand with a finger pointing. I choose "smudge tool". If you zoom in on this image you can see the options I chose: a size of 65 and a mode of "lighten" to help it stand out even more, and a strength of 26 percent so that it takes multiple strokes of my little "brush" circle to get the effect, which tends to even out the effect more than doing it at 100 percent.

* Put the little circle where you want to smudge, hold down your left mouse button and move it. I found moving it from left to right in most places helped more because the lines in this picture are vertical, and it helped to smudge them into each other better.

So... there it is. You can do a whole lot more with this image if you want. I suspect you are a purist, Lori, since your work of art in this instance is what you have done with the camera itself.

Here's what else I did ( in case you want to know):

IMAGE - ADJUSTMENTS - COLOR BALANCE

* I used the slider bars to change the colors around for fun. The numbers ended up being +100, -36, -41. I like the rich reds this produces, and the way it really makes the background pop.

* It also made me see where I didn't smudge my face as much as I wanted to, so back to the smudge brush for a little more work (this time on 50% strength).

IMAGE - ADJUSTMENTS - BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST: I took the contrast slider all the way to the left, reducing the contrast to -50. I like the way this brings out the background a little bit more.

I played with distorting the background a bit just for fun using FILTERS - LIQUIFY. That was fun.

At about this point I remembered I had a life, and that having a life means I still have to unpack and sort out everything from the show yesterday so that I can get back into my spare room and do other stuff I have to do. So I guess I am going to go and do that, and package a couple of etsy orders and find myself something to eat. It was awesome to meet you, Lori, and be the LoriLoriMacMc team for the day! lol.

Autumn's End

Nine pm, and my brain is trying hard to switch off. With the last of my fading grey matter, I squeeze a blog post from my fingertips...

I should have had a nap after work. However, if I had had a nap, I would not have gone out. If I hadn't gone out, I would never have stopped for this photo:



A small How-To on this photo:
These stunning leaves just stood out like crazy on my drive home from work today. I came home, and then made excuses to go out again so I could make myself go back and really do something with it.


This photograph was taken on a really rainy day right at the end of fall. I wanted the leaves in the foreground to be in focus, and the rest of the photo to be just a suggestion of things, so I chose a really low f-number (wide aperture). This gives a very shallow depth of field, so that the thing I choose to focus the camera on is in focus, and the rest is less in focus. This helps the rest of the leaves down at the bottom of the photo to not compete with the main thing I want people to see, while still keeping them in the photo to enhance the composition.


I underexposed the photo a bit because it's really easy to get bright reds (same for yellows) just come out as a blob with very little detail. I wanted the detail to be seen, so I underexposed, and then tweaked the exposure using Curves in my editing program.


The colors were extremely washed out in the trees and sky, making the background almost black and white once I had color balanced the photo in my editing program. I merely took my de-saturation brush and toned the color down in a few small places just a little bit more. Today I was using Paint Shop Pro XI, and I put it through Fade Correction, which washed out the black and whites even more, and made the red leaves really pop!

This photo is available as of tonight as an ACEO on my ACEO shop, and will be available in other sizes soon. Feel free to contact me to find out about any size you like! :)

Bursting

I love going on a photography jaunt with another person, if it's the right person.

Nan is definitely one of those right people. She should be getting home to Colorado about now, after nearly a week at our house. It was awesome, and so productive, but I am SO wiped out. Two more hours of work and then I am done for the week. I am so excited about going home and crawling into bed. It's pathetic. The exhaustion was totally worthwhile to have such a fun time with a good friend! :)

Last weekend a friend and her family hosted us up in their Vermont house. We had an awesome time. The foliage was at its peak, and the weather was perfect. Two days in Vermont, and then one day at the coast.

This photo is from the second day in Vermont. I saw my first beavers there, but they were mere specks in the water far below. I didn't get anything even close to worthwhile on my camera. However, as we were coming up from the dam, we stopped for some milkweed pods. I was kind of hoping to get some with a gorgeous fall foliage background, but no luck. Instead, Nan found this milkweed pod just on the verge of bursting open. The seeds were aligned like little scales, as if the pods were vessels for small curled fish.

I was in the process of turning them to black and white photos.... I selected out the seeds because I wanted to filter them differently to the background when doing the conversion. But I liked the seeds so much in color, that in the end I decided to keep them that way.
More shots tonight. Maybe some actual fall foliage this time!

A new photo and some Treasuries!!!

I have so many photos to edit, it just seems impossible.

So many just from Colorado, let alone my three day weekend in Vermont for the peak of the fall foliage, and down on the Connecticut coast on the salt flats.

How to eat this elephant? One bite at a time.... starting anywhere.

This one's from somewhere in the middle:

And finally I have a bit more time for the internet! These last few weeks have been very happily busy. I missed out on noting a few Treasuries. Here are some I am currently in, in my two etsy stores:

And my absolute favorite Treasury of the lot today:

...TEMPERATURE RISING... by eclectibles - an etsy shop that is going to open this fall. If the banner and avatar are an indication, I think it should be a very interesting store!

As with most of my new photos, the one in this entry will make it to my LittleOddACEO shop first. When I put in my next print order, I will get a couple of other larger sizes of this print. Stay tuned, the ACEO sized print should be up in a few minutes! :)

Guest entry: Kipling

Hi, I'm Kipling, guest authoring an entry because LoM is such a road-tripping, leaf-peeping, toad-posing lush, that she's not out of bed yet.

Alright alright, I'll pause a moment while the requisite squealing-at-my-adorablenesses gets over and done with:

...

...

Alright. Done now? You sure?

We had an awesome day yesterday! I took LoM out early in the morning at my Vermont holiday house, and made her throw sticks for me for an hour. She's ok at throwing them, but she's never standing up properly when I get back with them, she's always on the ground with that stupid little black non-fun non-stick Thing that she keeps shaking in my face. Oh well, at least she then gets back up and plays properly for a little while.

Then the humans took me for a nice long walk, despite my human Mom's gimpy leg. They weren't expecting to take me for a long walk, but I said "are you kidding me? This is NOT a walk!" so they grumbled their way along another couple of miles to a place where they could overlook a dam. I wasn't paying much attention, but they were saying lots of words like "stunning" and "glorious" and LoM was just awestruck and mouthing naughty words that a young pup like I just can't repeat without getting spanked!

That's about all for now. I figure Nan and LoM are getting up soon and heading for the coast. I just made coffee. Guess I had better pour them a cup of Java and lick them awake. They're heading for the coastal salt-marshes today!

Anyone else for coffee?

Expecting to Fly

Day one was just getting to Colorado

I flew via JFK airport. The timing was right for flying out in the hour before sunset, and I was SO excited to get the chance to maybe get an airborne sunset photo of New York City from the window of the plane as we flew out.

As it was, we were grounded for the whole sunset, and I got only one glimpse of the city as we flew in from Connecticut in the first place. We got grounded with a lovely view. I love the reflections of the sky and surroundings off of this plane. I took waaay too many shots of it.
Then there was Denver International, the airport with the scarey alien tunnels. Honestly, I don't understand why they have to make everyone go on a spooky train ride with elevator music beginnings, just to get from one spot to another. I love small enclosed dark spaces, normally, but this airport just creeps me out a bit. [Note: my Love just told me you can go upstairs and walk, but now I am looking at my photographs, especially the ones from on the way home, and I do love my spooky tunnels, so I am going to stfu now!]

T picked me up from the airport, which was the epitome of awesomeness, since I had worked all day, and been traveling for about eight hours at that point. On the ring road, the moon was huge and yellow, but by the time we got to a place we could really stop for a photo, it was higher in the sky and more subdued. Still, I am pretty happy with the zoom of my new camera. I can tell that it's still more noisy and less sharp than the SLR lenses I dream of eventually having, but I am happy with improvements as I can afford them!

It felt so good to drive into the town I consider my home. It's the place I grew up (finally), that's for sure.

Dark and Stormy Night

I was up at five am this morning. I really really didn't want to be, but my Love was heading out on the long road trip to Colorado, and I couldn't stay in bed and not be around him for that last half hour before he left to pick up V and P who are driving with him.

I really thought I was going to miss him terribly. I was a little teary yesterday about missing him, but this morning I had a lovely distraction in the form of the full moon with moody clouds and silhouetted leaves to distract me. By the time he left Connecticut, I was still out taking photographs. Here's the first one I edited - it's already available as an ACEO on my littleoddACEO shop on etsy.

I've had a lovely midday nap. Now I suppose I had better get on with all the things I want to do today. More photos later! :)

Newness

I've been looking for a new blog site for a while. Currently I have a vox blog, and a wonderful community of friends there. I won't be leaving. I do need to be on a site where I can get comments from people who don't want to sign up just to make a comment on a blog.

I guess the thing to do next is to fill out my profile. Then get on to writing some more.