Wordless Wednesday--My New Motto

Before and After--Relaxation

I am excited to have the opportunity to join Pixel Perfect's Before and After Blog Hop this week!  I think this is the third time I have participated in Monica's blog hop and I have fun every time I do it!

I have not put much effort into photo editing lately.  I think I may have found my groove as far as how I like to edit photos.  A simple unsharp mask and a bit of color curve boosting, and I'm good to go.  I've been keeping my edits pretty natural looking.  However, I do have fun going crazy with editing every now and then!   

I snapped this photo at my friend's housewarming party with full intent on editing it.  I knew the shot had a ton of potential.   




The moment I snapped this photo I knew what I wanted to do with it. I tried a few other things but in the end, I went back to my original idea:




I rarely crop my photos in ratios other than the original, but this one begged to be cropped this way.  I think the creamy black and white with the slightly rounded corners give it a soft, relaxing look.  What do you think?

Edited with Gimp, cropped and rounded corners with Photoscape:
1)  In Gimp I opened two copies of the photo. 
2)  The first copy I desaturated using "luminosity".
3)  The second copy I ran a "split-tone" script using the default settings.
4)  I then copy/pasted the black and white (desaturated) copy as a new layer onto the "split-tone" overlaying it as "multiply" 50%.
5)  I moved to Photoscape, cropped the photo as a 16:9 ratio and slightly rounded the corners.

I'd love constructive criticism if you have any thoughts!

Wordless Wednesday--My Beautiful Girls

Brought to you by: 5 Minutes for Mom

Wordless Wednesday--Poor Dog!

Before and After with Pixel Perfect Blog

I know you saw this photo two days ago but I like the way I edited it so I decided to share it in Pixel Perfect's Before and After Blog Hop.  I'm a little embarrassed to show you the before picture because it was taken so quickly.  I was in a hurry and didn't pay attention to lighting, background, what I was wearing...The after photo definitely shows how a little editing can really help some photos!

Without further ado....The before picture:

Yuck!

The After photo:

Much better!

To be honest, I can't remember all the steps I did but here's what I *think* I did: (edited using Gimp)

1) cropped it

2) significantly blurred the background

3) added a blue, lightly textured overlay to the background

4) created 2 copies of the photo

5) ran a split tone on one copy and turned the other black and white

6) overlayed the split tone onto the black and white copy

There might be one or two steps missing but I'm not sure :)

This photo is part of my 45 POM Project.  For more info about the project visit my PAD/365 Blog.  To see all the photos (so far) in one easy place, visit my Facebook Photos.

For more Before and After fun:

The Ultimate Blog Party 2011!

Welcome to Mommy's Camera Ultimate Blog Party Post!

*This post will change throughout the day/week as I have time to do some more fun things.  If you are reading this early in the week, come back later in the week to see what changes!

A little about me: 

My name is Jamie and I am the author of Mommy's Camera.  I'm in my early 30s, have been married almost 11 years, am the mom two girls, a 4-legged boy, and a 4-legged girl.   My girls (nicknamed in real life) are Nutty Butty (Nutty for short on my blog--4.75 years) and Tater Tottie (Tottie for short on my blog--2.5 years).  My boy dog is a pure-bread Boxer named TJ and my girl dog is a pure-bread French Bulldog named Suzy.  I have been a Pediatric Intensive Care Nurse for 11 years and I LOVE it!  In my limited spare time I enjoy photography, digital scrapbooking, outdoor activities, and just hanging out with my friends.

A little about Mommy's Camera:

My 30 second elevator pitch:  Learning photography with a point & shoot camera and free photo editing software in a DSLR and Photoshop world.  Ok, really, as I mentioned above, I enjoy photography.  I'd love to learn to be better at it but I don't have the money to invest in expensive cameras and equipment.  I've got a Canon SX 20 point & shoot camera, and I use free photo editing software that I find on the internet.  When searching the web for tutorials on how to improve my photography, I came across so many tutorials geared toward DSLR users and Photoshop users.  I found very few, if any, tutorials for point & shoot camera users and for free photo editing software.  Plus, the tutorials were written for people who already knew a little about photography and photo editing.  Most were above my head.  That's how Mommy's Camera was born!  I write tutorials geared toward beginner to average photographers!  I'm teaching myself how to push my camera and software to the max and writing tutorials to help others along the way!  Grab your point-and-shoot camera and learn along with me!

My Community:
Come join me, other Mommy's Camera readers and photographer wanna-bes in the Mommy's Camera Community!  Chat, learn, and have fun!  No question is too dumb.  I'll be starting some community challenges soon too!

Find Me:
Of course you can find me here but you can also find me on :
Twitter: @mommyscamera 
Facebook: momscamera
Check out my PAD/Project 365 blog while you're at it! 

Wordless Wednesday--Cornstarch and Water

This post is inspired by:
5minutesformom

Before and After--A Different Kind of Photo Editing

Hubby has been pushing me lately to take some abstract photos to put around our house.  In doing that, I have also been playing around with abstract photo editing.  Here's one of the non-traditional photo edits we might just hang in our house!

Before:  A picture of a spring I took with my macro lens.



After: Edited using Gimp software and this tutorial.



What do you think?  Do you ever edit your photos in a non-traditional way?

Head on over to Pixel Perfect Blog to see more before and after photos!

45 POM Project Begins

This year I have decided to start and finish a 45 POM Project (45 Photos of Me).  To learn more about my POM Project or why I'm doing it, click on over HERE.  Most (if not all) of my POM photos will be hosted on my PAD blog but I thought I'd share my first one over here too :)

This photo is me on an every day basis--no makeup, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.  I chose to be daring realistic and show who I really am for my first photo.  I thought it went well with the mug shot theme because most people don't look good in mug shots. 

Why did I decide to do a mug shot as my first photo?  For a couple of reasons:

Charge 1:  Bad photographer.

Sentence:  Photography challenges (PAD blog and 45 POM Project being two of them).

Charge 2:  Bad looks.

Sentence:  Keep up with going to the gym (which I'm doing pretty good with), eat better, and start feeling better about how I look.  (Hoping that 45 POMs will help me learn a bit about myself). 

This year I'm going to get better with both my charges.

   

Buildings--A Photogaphy Challenge

I'm a little late in entering Twisted Fate's Building Photography Challenge, but I always say, better late than never!

I've often looked out the window of our break room at work and thought this building would make a cool photo.  I FINALLY took my camera to work one day and snapped it!  I'm happy with the results.  What do you think?

Take a look at some other cool buildings:

Christmas in Macro

I am so exited to be able to participate in another Macro Friday and to join in a few new memes this week! It's been a while since I've joined Macro Friday because now I work every weekend. I made it a point to come straight home and post before I lost the time to do it!

I had some fun playing with the Christmas tree ornaments yesterday...

(Official Macro Friday photo)

More ornament (and light) fun...



 

Minnesota Blizzard 2010--Part 2

(You can read Part 1 of this story HERE)

...the next day (Sunday), I again had to go to work.  Problem is, the entire city was snowed in!

The roads were still not plowed and driving was again, horrible.

I got to work and discovered that the Metrodome had collapsed!  I got a good view of it from a window at work.  I tried to get a picture with my cell phone (again, I need to take my camera EVERYWHERE) but it was too far away to see on my phone and I can't zoom in.

Monday, the city was still snowed in, but the clean-up began.

In fact, Minneapolis and St. Paul, along with multiple other cities closed schools on both Monday and Tuesday because there wasn't any place to put all the snow when they tried to clean it up!

The below zero, and well below zero wind chills, didn't help either!

Hubby braved the cold to dig out our back deck and patio so the dog could have somewhere to go potty other than our driveway!

But first he had to plow a path through our back yard so he could reach the patio and deck!

After about an hour, we could finally open our back door!

Tottie and TJ had fun watching daddy dig us out!

As if to add insult to injury, we're expecting 2 more inches of snow tonight!

This post is joining:

Black and White and Wordless Wednesday

"Dear God, Please don't let me melt!"
Inspired by:
Black and White Wednesday from The Long Road to China
Wordless Wednesday from 5 Minutes for Mom

Before and After

I know you saw this picture at the beginning of the week (sorry you're seeing it again).  Ironically I used it in a post about too much photo editing and now I'm using it in a photo editing blog hop! 

The thing is, I've been trying to get a portriat-type photo of Tottie for our wall to match Nutty's updated preschool picture.  What I've learned, is that taking portraits of a 2 year old is near impossible!  In all my shots the lighting is off or she's got a funny face, or her hand is in the way.  I've been trying for over a week to get a good shot!



I love this shot of Tottie (Taken with my Canon SX20, program mode, f 4, 1/80, ISO 125)  but it's too far away and I don't like where her hand is.



I cropped it but I still don't like her hand.  I also don't like the break in the fence above her head.  I coloned both of those out and bumped up the saturation just a smidge using Gimp photo editing software.  Now I finally have a portrait of Tottie I deem worthy of my wall!


Hey, check back a little later in the day.  It's my 1 Year Boggerversary today (!) and I'm putting up a post related to that!

For more Before and After fun, click on the button below:

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I finally have the time to participate in Ashley's Scavenger Hunt Sunday!  Ok, if you want me to be completely honest, I took most of these pictures this week without even realizing they would be great for this meme.  Without further ado:

1) Pink

2)  Books

3)  Fall Colors



4)  Leaf

5)  Orange

To see how you can play Scavenger Hunt Sunday or to check out other people's finds, click on the button below:



Before and After

I saw these boots sitting next to the fire truck at our block party and thought they would make an interesting picture to play with.

Before or SOOC...

Edited using Photoscape: 1) Cropped  2) Filter > Film Effect > Cinema High  3) Filter >Antique Photo > 04

Not exactly what I had in mind when I took the picture but it will do.

For more Before & After fun click on the button below:

Just For Fun...

You know you're a mom when...

this brings a huge smile to your face!

This post inspired by:

and Black and White Wednesday by The Long Road to China Click on the button and link to see more fun!