More Pictures from my Jessica Sprague Class

I'm finally getting around to sharing the rest of my photos from the class I took at JessicaSprague.com...bet you thought I'd forgotten about this...but in reality I just got a little busy with my granddaughter being born and then doing Dom's party. So better late than never, I'm going to finish getting these photos blogged!

Day 11 - Selective/Spot Recoloring. I did not take this photo, but I have always liked it, even though it was kind of blurry and I hoped that someday I would be able to do something like this with it. Finally I learned how to do this. First I changed the whole photo to black & white then erased the black & white from the glasses, letting the color show through. Now the reflection of the campsite really stands out in the photo...really love how it turned out! Added a black frame and a little text using the Ali Edwards font and now what was just a blurry photo looks really neat. I love how it turned out and the fuzziness of the photo just adds to the effect. I think this was one of my favorite lessons from this class, I've always wanted to know how to do this.

Day 10 we did an entire project from start to finish using the techniques that we had learned in the previous classes. I love this picture I took of Aiden while we were camping at Cove Palisades earlier this summer. On this copy I added a couple textures to the picture then erased the textures from around Aiden making him glow and stand out from the rest of the picture. The Jessica showed us how to make a rounded corner frame for it and add the word art/journaling spot, customizing the text.

Day 9 was all about adding an edge burn to a photo making your main subject stand out from the background. This will be very useful, I love how it turns out.

This first picture is one that was taken by one of the nurses in the operating room when Skyla was born. this is the original picture. (I did this photo after I finished the class, but I think it really shows how this techniqe works.

Now the same picture after applying the edge burn technique.

How great is that? Now Chad and Skyla really stand out from the busy background of the operating room.

This next picture is the actual photo that I did for Day 9 of the class using the same technique that I used on the picture of Chad and Skyla. This is a picture of Aiden at the rehearsal for Chad and Melissa's wedding June 6, 2008.

There are just a couple more photos that we did in class. I will share them with you soon. They involved making storyboards and collages using combinations of different techniques covered in the class.

I've also got to get Skyla's birth blogged...so much to get caught up on here!

Dom's Birthday Party Saturday July 25, 2009

Pictures from Dom's birthday party:

The little kids playing in the pool Carla and Pep brought and set up in the backyard. Pictured: Gracie, Joey and Aiden.

Dom opening his gifts with McKenzie in the background.

Mark and Donnie...and that's little Skyla that Uncle Mark is holding, she doesn't look too sure about him.Looking down the table towards Dom. That is Aiden in the sunglasses on his left and Bob Lavoie barely made it in the picture on the bottom right corner.Andrew and Jeremiah eating dinner, you can also get a partial view of Aiden on the right side of the picture.
Another shot of the dinner table, I was so busy I didn't get very many pictures but did make sure I took some after everyone had gotten their food and were sitting down. I wasn't in my "photographer" mode, so I must apologize for the lack of good pics...sometimes you just got to go with whatever you get. In the picture above you have a close up of Tara and Andrew, above them are Jeremiah, Elaine, Bob Lavoie's daughter, then Dom at the head of the table. On the right side of the photo are Chad and Bonnie.
Now looking down the table in the other direction from upper left and moving clockwise: Dom Jr., Carla, Kylee, Mike, Ken Gemma, Laura, McKenzie, Tara and Andrew (in the blue shirt).
Another shot of the table with Jake, Bonnie's great-nephew in the foreground. Everyone else is shown and named in the other pics.

What we ate:

I fixed turkey sandwiches and bbq beef sandwiches along with 8 salads. It was a hot day and salads just sounded good to me. (Of course, not everyone else agreed with my menu choices, most people in Dom's family think salads are not things to be eaten, especially our grandkids from that side. I can say, my side of the family loved the food I prepared this year.)

The salads I prepared were:

1. Crunchy Napa Cabbage Slaw (this was a really good slaw, one of the best of had, but you need to really watch how much cilantro you put in, it can get a little spicey!)
2. Spinach-Blackberry Salad (this was a little unusual, but surprisingly good I used marionberries from our yard and shaved parm cheese)
3. Romaine and Mandarin Orange Salad (I really liked this, the poppy seed dressing was great! I'm glad I have lots left over and I was even able to send some home with Chad and Melissa since Chad really liked the dressing too!)
4. Greek Tortellini Salad (I added black olives, and chopped hard salami, didn't add the spinach leaves, added chopped basil leaves instead - this seemed to be a crowd favorite - the lemony vinegrette was really good)
5. Cucumber/tomato/green onion salad with balsalmic vinegar dressing (my own recipe that I have been making for years, a real favorite with several people in our family. So glad our own onions were ready to be picked for this, they add such a great flavor to the salad.
6. Bruschetta in a bowl: tomatoes, basil, mozzarella and croutons tossed and dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. (got the idea from #42 here).
7. My own homemade potato salad that I have been making for years.
8. Fruit salad with watermelon, honeydew melon, red seedless grapes and green seedless grapes.

For dessert we had our usual marionberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream and brownies.

Guest List:

Dom (the birthday boy, celebrating 75 years!)

Me (the party planner, caterer, all around slave)

Mike, Laura, McKenzie & Kylee

Dom Jr., Carla, Grace & Joey (backyard pool provider)

Miah (general last minute helper, thanks so much!)

Lissa, Chad (my sous chef, such a big help!), Aiden & Skyla (star of the party at just 5 days old)

Bonnie (my other sous chef, ice provider, table provider, general helper & baby holder) & Jake (all around helper) Matt...(MIA, but he will be available on August 25!)

Bob & Joyce Lavoie (Dom's golfing buddy & his wife)

Skyler & Elaine (Bob's daughter and her husband, another golfing buddy of Dom's)

Ken Gemma (so glad he could make it this year)

Mark & Donnie Anderson (thanks to Donnie for helping with the cleanup!)

Andrew & Tara Hagman (thanks so much guys! Andrew washed ALL the dishes and Tara did most of the after party cleanup! not to mention Andrew mowed the entire pasture on Thursday so it would look nice for the party...you guys are wonderful!)

Jeremy and Penny Anderson (so wonderful to see you...thanks for making the long drive for the day)

It was a good day, but I'm glad it is over for another year!

More Class Assignments

While looking around my gallery from the class I'm taking (see blog entry below) I discovered a photo I photoshop'd from Lesson 3 that I haven't shared here yet. This was a bonus project from Day 3 where we desaturated a photo, hand tinted it, added a frame and then added some stars to the background with the brush tool.

I used another picture from the photo shoot with Melissa (BTW, we are still waiting for Skyla's birth, Lissa is more anxious than the rest of us for this all to be over with and have Skyla in our arms at last!)

Okay, on with my pics from the class.

Day 5 Textures

Things are really getting pretty amazing now. I'd never worked with textures before. They give

a sort of 3D look to your photos which can make your pics look old and crumpled to contemporary and even make them look like they are printed on bubble wrap, depending what texture you use. Again, Jessica directed us to lots of free texture files you can download off the web.

The first photo I worked with was one Mino took in old town Conversano while we were in Italy in 2006.

I changed the photo to Sepia, did some other adjustments to it and then added a texture, which really gives it an old look. (See what looks like a crease in the center of the photo and the crumpled look around the edges? That is the texture layered over the photo.)

The next pic is also from our trip to Italy. It is a photo of all the umbrellas and people on the beach in Calabria. Doesn't it look like a really old photo now?

Then I did one more photo from our trip. This time I also used some color-tinting and added a frame to the photo. I also added a brush stamp and then text tool to add in the date.

My final picture from day 5 is a picture that I took of the hibiscus on our front porch, again using just about everything we had learned up to this point in the class.

Very fun class and I'm so excited to finally be learning more about using my photoshop elements program.

Day 6 - TTV

I had never heard of this before, but really good photographers are doing what are called TTV photos. TTV stands for through the viewfinder. In a nutshell, they are hooking their digital cameras up to really old cameras through the viewfinder on the old camera and taking pictures with their digital cameras. (Sounds complicated, and if you want more info there is lots of it out on the web.) Anyway...people are making texture templates to be used in photoshop that will give your photos this look without all the hassle of hooking your digi camera up to an old camera when you are taking a picture. On Day 6 of the class we learned how to add these textures to our photos. Very, very interesting look.

I used a photo that I took at the wedding shop of Melissa when she found her "dream" dress for her wedding. The texture I added to the photo makes it look like the photo was taken through the view finder of a really old camera. Then I added a brush stamp to the lower left corner of the photo and a little text to the lower right.

Day 7 of the class was just a Q&A of all the things we had learned the first week, which was an awful lot of stuff to remember. I'm so glad I will always have access to these course materials so I can go back and refresh my memory on all this stuff!

Day 8 Text

Up to this point we had just been working with simple text on our photos. In this lesson we learned how to add adjustment layers and textures to our text.

I used a photo I took on our trip to the Superstition Mountains in Arizona adding texture to the photo and to the word "time". Then I layered the words "standing still" over the first word, added a sanded overlay to the edges of the photo and layered a "negative" frame on the top.

So now my blog is up-to-date on all that I have been learning from this class and I'm anxiously waiting to discover what Day 9 will bring!

More Pictures

So I've found a few more minutes before we go to meet family for dinner at Olive Garden to share my pictures from one more of my classes.

Day 4: Clipping Masks

This was an easy lesson, but so effective. I can see wanting to apply masks to just about every photo.

Before applying the mask:

I had this great picture of Chad, Lissa and Aiden. They came out to the house last Monday for dinner and so we could take some "9th month belly pictures." We had a great evening and I took lots of pictures, hoping to get a few really good shots. This is one of my favorite shots, so sweet, a happy family waiting for their newest addition.

And this is after applying the clipping mask. It was so easy to do once I knew the right tools to use and in the correct order. I also cropped the picture a little bit, should have brightened it up also, but I didn't. It has a kind of soft look that I kind of like. In case you don't know, the clipping mask adds the soft, grungy look to the edges of the photo. (At least that's what this one does. It all depends on what clipping mask you use. Different ones will give your photo different looks. Wait until you see the clipping mask I used in Lesson 6!

That's it for now, got to go get changed to go to dinner.

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