First Finished Product

I have successfully finished editing my first picture in photoshop! I took the picture I talked about in my last blog post and I figured out how to make black and white images. There are a couple of ways to change a picture into a black and white image, but I liked this one way the best, and I will tell you what it is!

Here are the steps I used to change my picture, with picture examples so that you can get a better idea of what tools/settings that I used to make my picture black and white and what tools I used to enhance the picture. The picture examples with the description will give you a clearer demonstration on what I all used to change my picture and how to access them in case you are wondering how to do it yourself in photoshop. 

Changing your photo into a black and white image: 

Step 1: Go to the top of your screen and select images

Step 2: Select the adjustments option
Step 3: Then click gradient map
Step 4: A bar will pop up, hit the okay option and then viola! Your picture is in black and white.

Step 5: When you are done, hit the okay button. 

Changing your exposure: 

Step 1: Go to the top of your screen and select images. 

Step 2: Select the adjustment options. 

Step 3:  Pick the exposure setting.

Step 4: Play around with the exposure, offset and gamma correction bar by moving the scale up or down until you feel that your picture is properly exposed.

Step 5: When you are done, hit the okay button. 

Changing brightness and contrast:

Step 1: Go to the top of your screen and select images. 

Step 2: Select the adjustment options. 

Step 3: Pick the Brightness/Contrast option

Step 4:  Play with the contrast and the brightness bar until you feel like you found the right option for your picture.

Step 5: When you are done, hit the okay button. 

Changing colour balance:

Step 1: Go to the top of your screen and select images. 

Step 2: Select the adjustment options. 

Step 3: Pick the Colour Balance option

Step 4: Move the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow scales up and down, until you find the right settings for you picture. 

Step 5: When you are done, hit the okay button. 

After I used all these tools on photoshop I was pretty satisfied with my picture. But I thought I'd ask someone else for suggestions on what else I could do to my picture, because Im always wanting to find new ways to improve my pictures. I talked to my friend Felicity, who is also doing photography for her passion project. Felicity is amazing photographer who has a lot of experience with photoshop. I sent my picture to her, asking for some advice on what else I could change to my picture to improve it. She suggested to add a little vignette to the sides of the picture and to add midpoint. She said these features would make the picture pop more. I googled it, and figured out how to use these tools. Here is what I did:  

Adding vignette and midpoint:

Step 1: Go to the top of your screen and select Filter.
Step 2: Select the Distort option.
Step 3: Pick the Lens correction option.

Step 4: A large screen will pop up showing a big version of your picture. To add vignette and midpoint to your picture, move the vignette and mid point bars up or down, until you are satisfied with how it looks. *Note: when the screen pops up with your picture a grid will be over it. If you want to move the grid because it is a little distracting, click the check mark box by the Show Grid option on the bottom right hand side of the screen*
Step 5: When you are done, hit the okay button.

Here is my first finished photoshop edit. I am very happy with how it turned out, and am already feeling more comfortable with using photoshop:

The before

and after picture!

Thanks again to my friend Felicity Pollard for the help with editing my picture! Check out Felicitys blog:http://devolpingnegatives.wordpress.com. She has some really beautiful pictures :) 

If you want to see more of my pictures check out my filckr account: My flickr account

Here are the youtube tutorials that helped me learn all the things I talked about:

Changing black and white pictures, contrast, brightness and exposure  

Adding vignette and midpoint

Video on adding vignette and midpoint

Complications and Successes

The beginning of the photo shoot, Miranda and
Taylor carrying their bags of clothing. 

I went on a photoshoot with my friends Taylor Vaags and Miranda Vlaming. Taylor and I will be working on this project together a lot so we decided that doing a photoshoot together would be fun and also helpful. Miranda came as a extra model. All three of us brought bags of clothing for costume changes and everything, which provided entertainment throughout the shoot! It was nice having Taylor there so that her and I could talk about what modes we were using to take different pictures and it was nice to be able to collaberate with someone during the shoot. We went to Kildonana Park around 3:30pm and didnt end up leaving until 5:30pm. Because of daylight savings, it was getting dark pretty fast so we also needed to move very fast, which we thought might be a bit stressful, but the pictures turned out nicely and we all had a lot of fun.

For using photoshop I am having a bit of troubles. The program I am using is a older version of photoshp (Photoshop CS3) and all the tuturiols I am looking at requires the newer version. Also, Ive heard from some friends of mine that using the newer version of photoshop is also quite a lot easier to use, then the old version that I am using... which is a bit frustrating. At first, Taylor and I talked about splitting the cost and purchasing photoshop together, but it turns out that this program can cost around $600! Which is not what we expected at all. I have an interest in getting the newer photoshop program, but am unsure of how to I will be doing this. I guess for now, I will just have to look at tutorials with the photoshop that I have. 

I  am currently working on one picture from the photoshoot. It is a picture of taylor and miranda together. I love this picture because you can see how happy the two of them are together, and that they love being together which I like to focus on.  The problem with the picture is that our bags of clothing are in the background and it is VERY distracting. It probably doesnt help that the bag is hot pink either...haha. So I figred out how to take the bag out which is something I was very happy about! Here is the before and after shots of the pictures: 

Before, with a very distracting bag in the background 

After, a hot pink bag free picture!

How I did it: 
On the left side of the computer screen there is a bar that is called the toolbox. To remove an object from a picture you go to your tool box and select the stamp tool. Then you hit the alt key on your keyboard and you drag over a part of the picture that you can replace your unwanted object with. For example, I replaced the bag with the path that would have been shown in the picture if the bag was not there. So I dragged my stamp tool over another part of the path in the picture that is shown. Ater you do that you let go of the alt key and click your mouse and drag the stamp over the object you don't want. It looks like you are coloring a picture when you do this step! One problem I had with this is that when I was "colouring" over the object I wanted to remove, was that other part of the picture would start showing up, instead of the path that I had been copying! I found out that you just need to keep repeating the first steps because the stamp tool starts copying other objects in the picture as you move away from the original object that you are copying. Then after your object is removed from the picture, you go to the tool bar and select the healing brush tool and click and hold down the curser over the area that you copied. This tool allows things to blend into their surroundings, looking more natural.

Instagram post 

Being the typical girl teenager, I posted my pictures on instagram. I took two other pictures of Miranda and Taylor that didn't have the bag in the background I edited the pictures in VSCOcam and made the pictures black and white. I loved the way these pictures looked in black and white! So my new goal is to learn how to make black and white pictures on photoshop, so that i can make the picture that i took the bag out of even nicer :) So this picture is not a finished product...yet!

If you want to look at more pictures I took with miranda and taylor, check out my flicker account!
My flickr account

Here is a youtube tutor that helped me out a lot:
Removing unwanted objects

Editing Programs

I recently got the computer program Photoshop and just downloaded it onto my computer. I haven't gotten around do using it yet. I haven't decided if I should take some old photos that I took this summer, or go out and do a photoshoot to get brand new photos for this whole project. I think I may try doing a bit of both. 
I thought I would blog about one editing program that I love, and is super easy to use. It is an app called VSCOcam. It gives you a variety of different options. It isn't one of those apps that gives you bunch of ugly filters, and it actually enhances your pictures and makes them look professional. You can also adjust your contrast, exposure, temperature, clarity and make certain colors pop. 

Another basic editing program I use is iPhoto. If you have a mac, it probably comes with this program. iPhoto just deals with all of the basic stuff, and is the program I worked with last year. iPhoto helps you with straightening and cropping, contrast, exposure, saturation, definition, sharpness, and also gives you a few flitters. (That aren't very nice). It helps with the easy stuff, but doesn't really make your photos look professional, like the VSCOcam does.

I want to learn why and how the VSCOcam makes your pictures look so much better. I might add this to my project and try researching what the different filters VSCOcam does to your photos. I would really suggest to those people with smart phones to get the VSCOcam app, it is free and works great!

Passion Project is a Success!

Well I am officially finished my Passion Project! I just thought I would blog about a few couple of things.

Class Presentation

Yesterday I presented my project to my class. I thought that everything went really well. I talked about how I got my Nikon D3200, how I really enjoy this camera and I feel confident on how to use my camera after this project.  I talked about how I completed my goal by learning 15 different types of photography and how I took 5 different pictures for each type of photography that I learned about, and how I posted all 75 of my pictures on my Flickr account. I also talked about some of the biblical through lines that we have been learning in my bible class. I haven’t talked about the through lines on my blog yet so I thought I would talk about them later on in this blog post. After talking about the through lines, I showed 15 of my pictures. I got a lot of compliments from my friends, which I was very happy about! J  I then summarized what I learned through this project. I learned more about the rule of thirds, what to focus on in certain pictures and what to blur, how to edit my pictures, to always take a lot of pictures and to always have fun when taking pictures! Obviously I learned WAY more then that, but only had 5 minutes to present so I couldn’t explain everything. On each of my blogs I wrote in point form about all the things that I learned about the type of photography that I focused on so if you’re interested in all that I learned about photography you should check them all out! At the end of this presentation I talked about how this successful this project was. I talked about how happy I am with my camera, how I learned how to take some nice pictures and that I honestly had a lot of fun! It ended up being a lot of work, but it was all worth it. I’m excited to use all the stuff that I learned through out this year with my camera.

 

Biblical Through Lines

The biblical through lines is something that my grade 11 bible teacher has been talking to my class about. There are 10 different biblical through lines. They are God worshipping, idolatry – discerning, Earth - Keeping, beauty creating, justice - seeking, creation – enjoying, servant – working, community – building, image – reflecting, order – discovery. I picked 2 of the through lines to describe my project. I chose Beauty Creating and Creation – enjoying. I think that both of these through lines have something in common. They both talk about reflecting on the beauty of the earth and appreciating everything God has made and created for us humans to enjoy.  Many of my picture projects involved taking pictures outside. Even though it was freezing most of the time I went outside, I really enjoyed this part of the project. Sometimes I would just fall into the snow and look at everything around me and think how pretty everything looked around me. And I got to capture all of those pretty things that God has given us with my camera and that was a huge part of my project. Without everything God has given us my pictures would look pretty awful! This project allowed me to appreciate and really see all the beauty that God has made and for this I am grateful.

Mentor

I was supposed to have a mentor for this project. I talked to my computer teacher Mr. Toews and asked if could help me out if I ever needed any. He agreed willingly. I never ended up needing him for anything though. My main help was the Internet. I learned all of my facts about the types of photography that I learned about through different photographer’s blogs and websites. I would kind of consider my sisters as my mentors as well though. They helped me decided on what pictures I should take and how I should take them. They also helped a lot in setting things up, being my models and holding things into place while I took pictures. A big shout out to them couldn’t of done this project without you guys! 

Resources

At the end of each blog post I put a link to the websites I used to research that type of photography. I suggest you check them out; they are really cool and helped me a lot!

Flickr Account

I was hoping to get a lot of feedback from people on Flickr. I was hoping that people would give me suggestion on how to make my pictures look better, but all I got was a bunch of compliments. Which of=f course was nice to get! But it wasn’t exactly what I was aiming for. If you have a Flickr account please check out my account! My account name is raychel.algera@gmail.com. Please leave comments and tell me what you think of all my pictures! If you don’t have a Flickr account but want to look at all my pictures here is the link to my account. You should be able too view them all without having to make an account.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/108981174@N05/sets/

Frozen in Time Photography

Things I learned about Frozen in time photography

- Type of photography where you try to capture a moment on camera

- This type of photography is mainly taken at events.

- Don’t get subjects to pose for you; you actually hope that the subject doesn’t notice you taking pictures of them.

- Shouldn’t use flash so that your subjects wont notice you

- Should try to get picture of people moving, laughing and looking genuinely happy. If your subjects don’t look happy you’re picture won’t turn out to be as nice.

- For beginners you should try taking pictures at family gatherings

- Take a lot of pictures!

I had one major problem with this project. My plan was to take pictures at my last Christmas family gathering. But my family gathering ending up being canceled so I no longer had any events to take pictures at, which is a big thing for frozen time photography. And since this passion project is very close to being finished I couldn’t sit around and wait for the next big event to happen in my life. So I had t make my own event… I took pictures of my sisters playing Just Dance on the wii! I figured since the wii game keeps my sister moving and they enjoy doing it I could get some good frozen in time pictures from it.

For taking pictures I ended up using my action shot mode just because my sisters were moving so fast! They were almost moving too fast because I got so many blurry photos! Like most of the pictures I go of my sisters dancing most of there body was in focus, but an arm or foot would be blurry because that was the body part that was moving so fast. Unfortunately there wasn’t much I could do about this. So I just kept taking pictures! I’m happy how these pictures turned out, but I really wish I could have taken some pictures at an actual event. I guess ill just have to take them at my next family gathering just for fun of it!

Websites I used:
http://www.imagemaven.com/event-photography/

DIY Music Photography

I decided to try something different, something challenging but also enjoyable involving my camera. What I did was I went on Pinterst, and looked at the photography pins. Most of the photography pins are different types of photography examples like portraits, still life’s, landscapes etc. But the ones that I was interested in were the DIY photography ideas. It’s these interesting unique ways of taking pictures. So I took some examples off Pinterst, and tried to copy what they did. I took 5 different photos that had music somewhat involved in them.

For the first picture I used headphones, pencil crayons, a piece of paper, tape and sticky tack. I wasn't really happy how this picture turned out. I liked the one on Pinterst a lot better. Drawing the music notes took a long time. And after drawing them all I realized that I should have drawn them more to the left side of the paper instead of the center. That was frustrating, and since it took me so long to draw I didn't feel like re drawing it so I just used the one I made. Getting the headphone to stay in position was actually kind of difficult. At first I was trying to hold the headphone in place while trying to take the picture but that did not work very well! What I ended up doing was taping the wire from the headphone to the table that I had the picture on, and I put some sticky tack on the speaker and stuck it to the paper. It worked out all right. It was not one of my best pictures.  

For my second picture I used an acoustic guitar, sheet music and CD’s. I was very proud of how this one turned out. The one I saw on Pinterst actually used an electric guitar and a cord. But since I do not own an electric guitar and only had an acoustic guitar I just used that. Acoustic guitars don’t usually use cords so I decided not to use one for my photo. The one on Pinterst also didn’t use music sheets; I just added that to my picture because I thought that it would look cool. I didn’t have any problems while taking this picture. I took it by some windows so I wouldn’t have any problems with lighting. This picture was one of my better ones, and is also my favorite picture.

For my third picture was the easiest one to take. I got my sister Danielle to hold up an old tape outside and I took a picture. I had to do a lot of editing though. I cropped it so that the tape would be centered, and I repositioned it so that the tape was on an angle. I edited it into a black and white picture and turned up the contrast and exposure. This picture took me around 10 minutes to do!

For my fourth picture it took awhile to set up but I had no problems with it. I used a bulletin board, a black cord, sticky tack, a music tape, pins, tape, a blank white sheet of paper, and star stickers. I have a small bullet in my room. I used my bulletin board so I could pin the white piece of paper up and so that I would have been able to pin the cord to the board. What I did was I placed the star stickers on my paper and pinned the paper to the bulletin board. Then I took my black cord and pinned it to the board and made sure that the cord would overlap the paper. I ended up taping the cord to the bulletin board just for more support. I took the music tape and pulled the tape out. I taped the end of the loose tape together. Then I put sticky tack on one side of the tape and stuck it on the paper just above the cord. It looks like the music tape is being supported by the cord but it is not. I think put sticky tack on the music tapes tape and tried my best to make a heart shape. I then stuck the heart to the paper as well. I edited this picture to make it have an old fashioned kind of look. I have example pictures to show what I did a bit better.

Black cord pinned and tapped into place 

Full view of project 

Heart sticky tacked into place 

For the fifth picture I got my younger sister Serena to help me. It took awhile to get her to hold the music tape in the exact position that I wanted her to hold it, but we eventually got it to work. I edited this picture a lot. Serena kind of looks blurred, but that’s how the picture is supposed to look. The point of the picture is that the music tape is the main focus. I edited this picture so that it was kind of faded, making it look kind of older. Its very simple looking, but that’s the way I wanted it to look.

This DIY music photography was a lot of fun. I might try doing something like this again. Here is the link to the Pinterst website that I got these music photography ideas from. 
http://psd.fanextra.com/articles/25-inspiring-examples-of-music-photography/