Lesson 6: Replacing a Sky

OK, the murky, smoggy sky got a clean up here!

Lesson 6: Removing a Background

I do bemoan the fact that I'm painting with the mousepad, but I picked an image with just a little background showing; it may have been the coward's way out, but I found working with the mask pretty easy!

:)

Lesson 6: Removing Unwanted Elements

This was the clone stamp tool version of removing something; in this case, since I'd hate to be thought a horrible housekeeper, I wanted that bit of whatever off the floor, and I swept if up using a very small brush with lots of sampling.

Lessson 6: Create a Better Background

Oddly, I did this before reading the next part (Removing Unwanted Elements), but that's sort of what I did; well, I sharpened the corner a bit in the process as well. The main difference? I used the Quick Mask tool here and the Clone Stamp for the next one.

Here my daughter's friend is upstaged (in my picky mind) by my daughter's pink phone, so I wanted to remove it and deepen the color of the corner a bit for a nice subtle line (breaking up the purple space.. yes, I know, purple and pink...)

Here's a tip I found useful: hold the SHIFT key when painting a straight line. Was that from Launchpad A?

:)

Lesson 5: Blue Group "surf guitar!"

ePod is rocking out with his surf guitar :)

Lesson 4: Blue Team - "Scratchy!"

Now this was a fun one mainly because I don't have a scanner. WHAT? Well, I can't scan a scratchy photo in, so I used my noggin (and Photoshop) and MADE SCRATCHES in a Vinny picture. Then I tried several techniques (Despeckle worked best for me) including a final red eye reduction to take the demon yellow out of his eyes. Enjoy!

:)

Lesson 4: Blue Team - "Move that EYE!" (further comment)

Holy moley! When I look at the two pix one on top of the other, the eyes looks pretty much the same. Be sure to click for larger images, and you'll be able to notice the change in the lower/lighter image.

:)

Lesson 4: Blue Team - "Move that EYE!"

My son was squinting with his left eye. I tried opening it wider, less wide, searching for a balance of sorts, and I settled on just moving the top eyelid (WITH his long long lashes) up a tad. The murky picture was also lightened with the curves adjustment.

Lesson 3: Blue Group - colored pencil

This is more oil pastels than colored pencils (I got a real "pop" from the colors manipulating the curves at the end). The original is a cascade that now looks like it's on another planet.

Lesson 3: Blue Group - line art

Now this was both easy and very very cool! I'm not sure which I like better: easy or cool. Having BOTH is even better :)

Lesson 3: Blue Group - not quite a duck

Vinny is again being subjected to my whimsy.

I know! I know! The paintbrush work needs, well, work. I really ought to get a tablet. Still, I was happy to get the technique in general; I can certainly have some fun with this.

:)

Lesson 3: Blue Group - grayscale

OK, this week's output has been painfully slow and is not inspired. I've got a relentless head cold, and it's making me tired and foggy.

Enough with the excuses already! Here's part of this week's assignment (actually, I'm throwing in the grayscale flowers just because I managed to do them!)

Blue Team: Lesson 2

Here's my banner. I must say I'm not 100% pleased with the logo (it was blown up from a smaller image, and it fuzzed out on me), but the overall design is what I wanted (soft blue surf-iness with the wild eleki-boom (electric guitar boom) of Japanese surf instrumentals. That little Jazzmaster IS my guitar, by the way :)

Blue Team: Lesson 3 (extra credit)

Well, yes, I've not actually done the REGULAR credit assignment, but this one was fun, AND it was quick! This is in honor of my 55th birthday, today :)

Lesson1 (retouching): Blue Group

Here's my daughter. At 13 she's got a few spots (oh how I remember that!), and I eliminated and softened them with the healing tool and the cloning tool (for variety). The tones were not too far from what I liked to start with, though I did tweak them a bit. OH, and I trimmed her eyebrows just a tad.

:)

Lesson1 (adjustment): Blue Group

The revised (head shop) version is a loving re-creation of one of those posters so popular when I was a teen ...

The original image was a sample on the computer. I KNOW, I KNOW, I should use one of my own, but (should I admit this?) I just had my daughter show me how to work her digital camera, and the photos I took didn't seem to actually be on the memory card. Uh...should I read the manual? I'll use one of my photos for part 2 of Lesson 1.

:)

Lesson 6 redux

OK, I put the collage together again (it's not exactly the same, but it's pretty close (I like the original arrangement better, but I only had about an hour to re-do this...off to hockey now!). The REAL difference is I saved a larger image (yes, it's considerably more than 50k, even with only medium resolution), but you can zero in on details now.

Given more time, I can turn this into the original (only larger); I now understand the tools (at least THESE tools) pretty well.

:)

Blue Group: Lesson 6

This could have many more doo-dads (if I had a range of clipart and a lot of time, I can see how I could dress this up with cartoon balloons and anchors and whatnot), but I like it. It's got the kids sleeping, dreaming of what I want to do! Heaven knows if it's what they'd like to do, but (now here's the tricky logic) THEY SAY (whoever "they" might be) that parents dream through their kids, so...

I used some maps and the sailboat and the cover illustration from the Arthur Ransome Society website (I'm a huge Arthur Ransome fan), and, of course, you've seen the sleeping kids on another project. The background texturing was really very fun and simple (maybe simple equals fun?), and the dropshadows on the two photos lifts them off of the dream-world background.

:)

50's fun!

I couldn't resist!

hoo boy; this took some attention

(and I'm not used to paying THAT much attention), but I think the result is rather smart; in fact, it's going on a letter I'm writing Chris for his trip to summer camp. I've got to mail it tomorrow, or it will never reach him by this weekend.