Texture Tuesday

This weeks challenge at Kim Klassen's is to use her new texture Simplicity. I think I picked the wrong photo for the texture and settled on using it in the background only using the brush to erase it off the flower petals.  After the texture was applied I did some lighting of the flower centers with curves in photoshop.   It really has reinforced for me the that not all photos go with all textures, they should be carefully matched.  If you hover the mouse over the photo you'll see the before and after.

Macro Monday and a mum

Friday night I bought a little bouquet of white mums from the grocery store to help get me through another winter weekend.  It's been my practice lately, when I've got something new to photograph, to start with a lens and capture every angle I can, change lenses and start all over again.  With this little bouquet I first brought out the macro lens and placed a white background behind the flowers to try and get some white on white shots.  Technically, none of these are macros but close ups.  I just didn't think Close Up Monday sounded as good as Macro Monday.

Nuking a CD

After reading a blog posting by Fotomom about Rainbows I was intrigued by the idea of placing a CD in the microwave.  Not sure if I should put it on a paper plate or a glass plate I opted for the glass plate.  If you try this make sure to use an old plate as I don't think the burn marks are going to come off.  We've all done photos of the light refracting on a CD and placed the water drop to catch the rainbow, but this does have a new and interesting effect. The cracking of the interior of the CD, I guess this would be gaps in the data, produce beautiful lines almost like a spiderweb.

This first photo was taken with a 24-70 lens and the light was produced with a little Ikea desk lamp.

In Photoshop, the Oilpaint option from Pixel Bender was added

Lastly, the Poster Edges filter was added

I then added a few little drops of glycerin and changed to my 105mm Macro Lens.

Added the Oilpaint option from Pixel Bender

And finished off with Poster Edges in Photoshop

Texture Tuesday

This weeks' Texture Tuesday challenge word with Kim Klassen is "story".  Well, this is the story of my "new" little green jar.  It's a half pint size and the most beautiful shade of green.  We found it on a basement shelf in my Mother-In-Law house.  Perhaps it was placed on this shelf because she knew it was so special.  It would have been many, many years since she filled this little jar, perhaps with Chokecherry or Pincherry Jelly, Saskatoon Jam or maybe even Mustard Pickles.  It's sat empty and alone for quite a few years and now it sits in the entrance on an old table that will be refinished this summer.  Not filled with jam or pickles right now, the best I could do this weekend was Dogwood and grass.

The textures used on both photos were Kim's Providence as well as a texture by LenabemAnna. I hope you enjoy my little jar as much as I do as I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of it.

Spring for $3.99

The weather in Alberta the past week, to put it mildly has been frightful.  The temperatures have been averaging around -25C ( -13F ) with wind chills down to -40C ( -40F ).  It's looking better for the upcoming week but it's now starting to snow.  While picking up a pizza for supper last night, the grocery store had bundles of tulips for $3.99.  I don't get a lot of flowers in the garden until May when we make a trip to the greenhouse to pick up bedding plants, so I thought $3.99 was a pretty cheap price to bring a little bit of spring into the house.  The tulips haven't started to open yet so they should be good for a few days of daily shots.  All photos have been edited in Photoshop and NIK Color Efex 4 with a layer of Kim Klassen's textures added.

Texture Tuesday - The Cyclamen

This week's challenge for Texture Tuesday is to use a layer of Kim Klassen's texture Embrace. I used it last week for landscape photo's as I love the texture and depth it gave to the skies. This week I tried it on a photo of a Cyclamen to give the background a little more interest.  I used 2 layers of Embrace followed by a layer of Sweettart.

Here's a screen shot of the layers in CS5

Here's a few more, because it's hard to stop at one flower shot.

Texture Tuesday

This week's theme at Kim Klassen's is an easy one.  Just use at least one layer of any of her textures.  Her new texture, Embrace, is easily one of my favorites.  Love everything about it.  I've been trying the past few weeks to do pretty, still life photos but since they're still a work in progress I dug up a few photo's from around Irma that I had passed on processing previously.  I thought Kim's new texture would work on them, so I used Embrace on all four photos.  For each one the texture has been rotated 90 degrees CCW. Hover your mouse over all images to see the before and afters.

This abandoned farm house is not far from my sister's. First a layer of Embrace with the blend mode of multiply set to 79%, another lay of Embrace with the blend mode of screen at 56%, then a few tweeks in levels and curves.

The lonely tree stands on the fence line in my brother-in-law's pasture. I've not seen it during the summer but apparently it's a Maple tree. First a layer of Embrace with the blend mode of overlay at 67%, then another layer with the blend mode of multiply at 38%, a few adjustments in Curves and Hue/Saturation and finally a Cyan filter to bring out the blues in the sky.

This building has always fascinated me when we drove by. Last month we were lucky enough to be able to go into the field. Turned out to be a granary standing on it's last wall. This time I used three layers of Embrace. The first at multiply 100%, the second at screen mode 74% and the third again at multiply mode 99%. A layer mask was applied to each layer to partially soften the texture in the center. Lastly a little adjustments with Curves.

We drove by this field of cows, early in the morning while there was still a light covering of fog.  Only one layer of Embrace was used set to multiply at 66%.  Finished up with Levels and Curves and added a warming filter as well as removing the fence line.

New Blue Jars

A few weeks ago, my wonderful Brother-In-Law introduced me to Pinterest.  While wandering aimlessly through the pages, I found a pin to a DIY craft blog explaining how to make blue jars with glue and food coloring.  I knew immediately why I've been saving a box of jars.  After waiting for them to dry, I took them downstairs with the natural light coming in the windows and noticed a rainbow on my husband's grandmother's baby high chair.  Se used this during the 1920's and 30's for her babies.