Textures and Borders are Finally Here!

        

I have finally finished my Textures and Borders disk. I didn’t think I would ever finish. FYI the disk has 31 different textures (I know, why couldn’t I have made it an even 30), 11 borders, 8 bonus Photoshop brushes and 4 video tutorials to get you going. Fun Stuff! Click on the “For Photogs” tab at the top of the page for more information and to order a disk!

Tuesday Tip: The Wedding Photography Project

So, today I thought I might just give you a cool site to check out. I have been a fan of Neil van Niekerk’s blog for some time. If you are looking to learn more about photography you should check out his site. As an educator his site has been very helpful in terms of finding new ways to present and organize material to my students. He is part of another site called the Wedding Photography Project which is there to help wedding photographers improve their work. Even if you are not a professional photographer I bet you would enjoy looking at the images!

Chris + Brittany…at last

I have finally finished Chris and Brittany’s images from their wedding. As usual my indecisiveness has led me to post quite a few. Thanks again to Chris and Brittany for letting me be a part of their wedding day!

Tuesday Tip: Work with the Unexpected

Today’s Tuesday Tip: Accidents, Mishaps, and unexpected things can definitely serve as a learning experience and can often times come out to be “happy accidents” rather than dreadful ones. For example, when I made this image of this cake my lens had fogged up. I had just come from a nice cool car to a very hot temperature outside underneath a tent where this cake was. So, the extreme change in temperature caused my lens to fog. I looked through the viewfinder and started to go through panic mode because I only had like a minute to get the cake shot, so I put the camera down because the lens was fogged and automatically started using the other camera. Then a little light bulb went off in my head and I thought to myself, this whole lens fog thing could be kinda interesting. So, I tried again, a bit of the fog had gone away and I had a quite natural soft focus lens thing going on. Here is what I got:

Steve + Shannon are engaged!

What a great couple, and I am not just saying that because Steve is an Ohio State fan. Although, we decided the photo shoot was meant to be when we discovered we were both Ohio State fans. Congratulations Steve and Shannon, I wish you guys the best!

Terry, Beth, and Addison

I had the pleasure of photographing Terry, Beth and Addison on Labor Day for there first family shoot! You may recognize Addison from an earlier post. She is absolutely adorable and I am still jealous of her blue eyes….love em! Here are some from our session:

I love this kid…

Recently I showed you a few images from Bree’s 3 year shoot. So, here are the rest. She had so many different facial expressions:

Sweet Bree….

Crazy Bree….

Let me interpret this one for you: “Aunt Juwie, are we done yet?”

Under Construction

Hey Everybody. I am updating my website today, so some funky stuff might be going on technically….hang in there. Thanks!!

Tuesday Tip: Color to Black and White

Okay, so I know it’s been a while….crazy times, that is all I will say. Today’s tip is for my sister Jill. She just got Photoshop and wants to know how to covert a color image to black and white. Since I live several hours from her, hopefully this will help her out!! First of all, there are soooo many ways to take a color image to black and white, it is just a matter of finding the technique that best works for your image. A color digital file is somewhat similar to a color negative in that it is broken up into layers based on different colors. With a digital file you have your color image broken up into three channels: Red, Green, and Blue (if you image is in RGB mode). If you want to see how this works, get your Channels palette out (go to Window>Channels) and click on the different channels to see how each channel differs in your image. Let’s get right to it…Here are 4 methods to convert an image to black and white:

Step 1: Open a color image in Photoshop you wish to convert to black and white

Method 1: Grayscale

This is one of the easiest ways, but often times not as desirable. Go to Image>Mode>Grayscale. Click “OK” when asked if you want to discard color information. (You may want to save each method separately so you can see which is most desirable – or you can use your History Palette to go back through and see which one you like).

Method 2: Desaturate

This one is also very simple, but often times not as desirable either. Remember every image is different in terms of how much red, green, blue (and the compliments…cyan, magenta, and yellow) make up that image. Go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate.

Method 3: Gradient Map

Gradient Maps are my friend. I love to use the gradient map for toning. Press the “D” key to get your foreground color to black and your background color to white. It should look like this in your tools palette:

Click on the half-black, half-white circle at the bottom of the layers palette and choose Gradient Map. Then Click OK. (You can click on the gradient to make changes to it)

Method 4: Channel Mixer

This is a great way to convert to black and white as well because you can control the distribution of each channel. Click on the half-black, half-white circle at the bottom of the layers palette and choose Channel Mixer. There are many ways to go from here, but let’s start out simply. Check the Monochrome button on the bottom left. Notice the three channels, red green and blue. The goal is for those 3 numbers to add up close to 100. There are no magic numbers because each image has different amounts of red, green, and blue, so let’s just start out with Red=60, Green=40, Blue=0. You need to experiment from sliding the red, green, and blue sliders up and down. Watch your image while you do this until you get to a desirable black and white image, just remember the three numbers need to be close to 100. Click OK when you are happy!

Like I said there are sooo many other ways, but hopefully that will get you started  I like to use a combination of these methods to get exactly want I want. 

Here is a color image of Bree:

Here is that image with the Gradient Map conversion (Method 3):

 Okay Jill, I want one color image converted to Black and White by Friday…just kidding

Congratulations Chris and Brittany!!

Chris and Brittany were married this past Saturday! They are such a great couple…lots of fun!! It was a beautiful wedding and I am looking forward to sharing their day with you all! I just wanted to tell them congratulations and I wish them all the best. Here is a little sneak peak: