BEST SHOT - COUSINS!

This last weekend we had cousins come to stay.

Three girls and a boy ~ my children were so happy & busy!

We all went for a walk

and looked at nature (Rosebay Willow Herb, complete with mating bugs!) ...

and then they got to eat Melon ...

The other highlight of my week has been enjoying the progress of our veggie patch...

(yes this was taken mid weeding session, but the middle heap of greens was my mega-radish harvest!)

Complete with visitors..!

To join in with Lolli's Best Shot hop on over to Her Blog and link up :D ~ See you there!

FIX-IT-FRIDAY - NO.64- "Pretty Purple Girl"

This weeks picture is lovely to start with. The focus is not tac sharp and it's a little 'flat', but it really didn't NEED a lot of work  ~ that said I like to play!! :)

Original

(PSE7)

Basic Edit in Camera Raw 

Temp +7, Exp +0.15, Recovery 15, Black +3, Contrast +17, Clarity +24, Vibrance +13, Saturation +6

Sharpen +21, radius 1.0, detail 34

Noise reduction ~ Luminance +7, Colour +7

I could have just left it there if I wanted, but what fun would that be?!...

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PSE #2

I can't really remember what I did, but I know I used some actions;

Cropped to loose some of her arm on the right.

DP Mom's Perfect Workflow

 PW Bring out the Eyes (which I also applied to her teeth at a lower opacity!)

DPM Oh the Drama

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PSE #3

Ummm ~ what did I do..?

Applied a beige 'Soft light' colour layer (reduced opacity)

Applied a purple radial gradient layer @ low opacity in mutiply mode.

applied CoffeeShop vignette

maybe some other stuff too!

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PSE #4

Duplicated the previous edit and converted the copy to BW. 

Copied the BW edition and pasted it back in as a layer, set to Soft Light and reduced opacity.

Used CoffeeShop Block it to frame.

Totally happy with this :D!!

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PSE #5

No play is complete with out a B&W!

Using the BW edition I made above I used a guided action ~ Grant's Tools curve (basically it gives you a traditional curve tool to use and applies the adjustments in a layer) ~ set to 'increase contrast'

Reduced the opacity of the contrast layer to 59%

Selected her eyes and applied unsharp mask (on a dupicate layer)

Reduced eye layer to 25% 

Flattened & SFW

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LIGHTROOM 3

LR #1

I always like to play in LR too ~ it just feels different!

I wanted some rotation  - it somehow brought her eyes out

I used the 'iris enhance' & 'teeth whitening' adjustment brushes

basic adjustments similar to CWR edit

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LR#2

In keeping with purple week...

I converted my LR1 to B&W (just click the BW tab)

fiddled a little with the contrast

then changed the split toning to give a purply look!! :)

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LR#3

From LR1 I applied Isabelle LaFrance 'Soulful Sunshine' #4 

Brought down the brightness very slightly.

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LR#4

From LR1 ~ applied Isabelle La France Soulful Sunshine #3

again adjusted the brightness slightly, but I also changed the split toning shades a little.

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I think that's about it!!

I normally have a go in GIMP too, but not this week ~ it's been a long week!

If you'd like to join in with FIX-IT-FRIDAY hop on over, everyone will be pleased to see you!

You Capture - Play

At the weekend 'the cousins' came to play...

There are four of them in the visiting family ~ that made 11 children in my house ~ we took them for a walk in the mud!! (Only 8 captured, the others were behind me)

I am enjoying playing in my veggie patch and watching things grow...

But while I am here I can't resist sharing a picture or two of my children playing on the beach & on the rocks whilst we were on holiday a couple of weeks ago...

And the kite surfer we saw 'playing' in the waves.

  

I'm glad it's not only the children who get to play!!

To join in with this weeks You Capture head on over to Beth's Blog and link up :)

Communal Global ~ Tuesdays Around the World!

Today I am sharing some holiday shots ~ I love this one!

Time for you to join in... 

Link up below and link your post back to CommunalGlobal

FIX-IT-FRIDAY - NO.63- "Friendship!"

This weeks Fix-it doesn't really need a lot of fixing! It's a photo of Angie’s daughter and her little friend.

Original

Fix One

This is my basic Lightroom 3 edit for most of my photos (I've made my own preset for it); ~ 

auto tone, warm +3, clarity +26, vibrance +15, noise reduction ~ luminance 13, detail 89, contrast 18, sharpening set to 35/1.4/15/60, and lastly darks +31, shadows +28

Then I just cropped to 5x7 and rotated very slightly 

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Edit Two

From Basic edit, I applied Isabelle LaFrance preset ' soulful sunshine 4'

I then adjusted the recovery to + 87, and the exposure to -0.14

Lastly I applied LR own 'edge effect PC vignette 2'

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Edit Three

From basic edit I applied 'Ilford Delta 3200 auto' preset (from here)

adjusted to shadows 16, Darks 31 and contrast 45

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Edit Four

From basic edit applied Photo Flavors 'Second Kiss'

addjusted to highlights +100, exposure -00.14

applied PC vignette 2

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Edit Five

I took edit 4 into PSE7

duplicated the background layer and filled with a light 'muddy' colour ~ changed this to 'hard light' mode @ 25% opacity

created a new layer and bucket filled with a light creamy colour picked from the picture ~ changed to 'colour burn' @ 20% (this had the effect of 'bringing back' the sky and the white dress and adding a soft creaminess to the overall effect).

Duplicated the top layer and used the noise-despeckle filter (set layer to 25%)

Flattened

Applied CoffeeShop 'web-color-block it' action to create border (colour picked from the image)

Flattened.

Duplicate layer ~ despeckle again @ 27% opacity

Flatten and Save.

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I think my favourite edits today are #2 and #5 ~ what about you?

Please leave a comment and/or contrustive criticism :D

When you have head on over to Fix-it-Friday to take a look at everyone else's wonderful work...

iheartfaces ~ Week 29 ~ "Over My Head"

This week's theme over at iheartfaces immediately made me think of this picture I took of my Aunty Debbie.

My aunty has cancer and her prognosis is not good.

I don't get to see her very often, but while we were on holiday 'down south' we met up for the day.

 I wanted to take a picture of her looking well and smiling - she is always smiling!

She had this amazing hat and she looked fabulous ~ I love how this shot turned out :) ~ I hope she and her family do too!

If you'd like to join in this week, head on over to iheartfaces and link up :D

Communal Global ~ "Around the World"

This was taken the first week of our holiday.

It's Weymouth Harbour ~ full of fishing boats, cruisers, liner ferries and even a 'tall ship', but the coloured houses caught my eye!


Here's some other shots from the same day...

Now show us your Tuesday over on your blog and link in, but don't forget to link back to Communal Global too :D