Jessica Sprague Photoshop Class

Haven't been blogging much lately, but I have been busy! I've been taking another Jessica Sprague online class. This one is called Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects. If you have Photoshop, you really should take some of her classes, she is an amazing instructor and all the information from every class you register for is available to you forever so you can always go back and revisit any of the instructions. After owning Photoshop Elements 6 for about a year and never really knowing how to work it I finally took her class "Up and Running" and actually began exploring the possibilities of this wonderful program. It was the best money I have ever spent. The class I'm currently taking is actually being offered for free! It is wonderful and all you have to do is register and then all the class materials are available to you. I'm learning some amazing things that PSE6 can do to my photos, so I thought I would share my class work here on my blog. (Just in case there is actually anyone reading my blog, prepare to be amazed.)

Lesson 1: Adding a frame and wordart to a photo. Pretty basic stuff. This is a picture I took of Gracie at Black Butte a couple years ago. Thought she looked pretty "Sassy" here. Of course she often looks "sassy" and occasionally even sounds a little "sassy" but she really is a sweetheart and one of my favorite photo subjects. In fact I have almost 8 favorite photo subjects. I say "almost" because Skyla's due date is today, but she has not made her appearance yet.

Lesson 2: Again some basics using brushes. I love brushes, they are like digital rubber stamps and so much fun to work with. This is a fun photo I took of Gracie and Joey at a wedding we went to in Hood River last

month. Gracie was the flower girl and Joey was the ring bearer. At least they said he was a ring bearer, actually he just carried a football down the aisle, no rings in sight. Guess they thought the rings were safer with the best man.

Lesson 3: Things really start getting interesting now! Today we worked with creating a vintage, hand-tinted look on a modern photo. This gives a really neat effect, so I' going to show you my before and after photos:

Here's what I started with, a great shot of Melissa, Chad and Aiden waiting for Skyla.

And this is what I ended up with:

Pretty neat, huh? I need to get a little more aggressive with the hand tinting thing, it doesn't show really well, but I hand tinted Aiden's hat...should have used a stronger color so it would be more obvious, but I kind of like the subtle look also.

Well that's it for now, I've got 3 more lessons to share but I've run out of time for blogging so you will have to check back later for further updates! LOL