At War with Elements

Oye.
Y'all would not believe the morning I've had.
{well, maybe you would.}
PSE 8 and I went to war last night and this morning.
It started out with a simple problem of not seeing what I should see in my effects window, despite installing my new action properly.
Long story short, Elements pretty much jumped out of my computer, came to life and was somehow skilled in ultimate fighting.
{'cause that analogy makes sense, right?!}
But thanks to this guy, I was able to stop the program from crashing as well as fix a few other annoying things.
Now I'm able to see and use all of my wonderful actions that I'd forgotten about!
:)

{awesome tip of the day: do not use subfolders within your photo effects folder. seriously. quit it.}


Anywho, after all that I needed a super simple edit. And here it is...

Before:

After:

As you can see in the sooc shot, my white balance is all sorts of outta whack.
Thankfully, I shoot in RAW mode and don't have to worry about that as it's easily fixable in post processing.

Given the dark frame of the door against the white bathroom fixtures, I knew I wanted this to be converted into black and white. So I ran Nelly Nero's "Ain't Life a Peach" action on it and whalaa!
{I can't remember which set this action is in, so you'll have to dig to find it I'm afraid.}


 

Country Living

I have so many things to share with y'all!!!

* First, be sure you visit Mountain Mama to enter her giveaway for any 8x10 print from my Etsy shop!

* Second, if you have any desire to get to know me a little better go to Yours Truly to read the interview I had with Jess!

* Third, if you haven't yet participated in the June Quarterly Top 5 link-up you have only one day left to do so...and then you'll have a chance of winning an 11x14 print from my shop or one of two other fab prizes!

* Fourth, did you notice my new watermark?! It took me a while to get around to it, but I'm pretty happy with the look.

*And fifth, if you participate in Sweet Shot Tuesday and read what Darcy writes did you notice anything really super cool last week? Like, I totally won the awesome shop credit to Paint the Moon?!?!?! I'm still a bit giddy. I got the Moxie Set and you can rest assured that you will get to see all 26 gorgeous actions in...well, action.

Oh, and I have to tell you this funny story...so, while I was looking through the before/after gallery trying to pick out which set I'd get, my husband came over, looked over my shoulder and asked why I'd want to win pictures of other people...oh yes, he was serious. Anything photography related is completely lost on him...I'm sure he feels the same way about me and sports.

...there's also one more totally exciting thing going on, but I'll wait to share that info until it's done...

*****

We spent the holiday weekend with my husband's family. His parents live in a small town and his brother and family live on the farm. We spent a good part of Saturday at the farm: harvesting several acres of wheat that Grandpa set aside especially for the kids (shots to come), swimming, cooking out, shooting off some fireworks and once the kids had gone home with grandma and grandpa, my husband, BIL, SIL and I played Rock Band! Talk about unexpected fun...we had a blast! It's weekends like this that make me wish we still lived close to them. God certainly blessed me with amazing in-laws and I am so grateful for that...I know too many people who can not boast this same thing.

This is about the extent of the fireworks shots that I got. We didn't watch any 'real' fireworks shows....next year, by golly, I am going to a big show...by myself or not! 

We did watch the huge and amazing fireworks spectacular that was aired from NYC. Talk about breath taking! While we were watching, my son told me that I should go get my camera. LOL!

(for the record, I almost did.)

 



And here's one for Touch Up Tuesday.
I love country views and old red barns!


Before:



After:


My edit reminds me a bit of The Wizard of Oz...but, I am in Kansas after all!




Step 1. Splice in a blue sky photo - the original sky wasn't doing it for me.
Step 2. Run Paint the Moon's Tilt action.
Step 3. Run Paint the Moon's Heart and Soul action.
Step 4. Add a rainbow using this tutorial.
Step 5. Straighten image.

Me, My Girl & Iris

...did anyone get that title?!
It was supposed to be a spoof off of the movie title "Me, Myself and Irene".
Anyway, on to the photos!!



This was taken by my 5 year old son with my dslr.
I think I did a pretty good job hiding my nervousness!
;)







And here are the irises.
Normally I have such difficulty photographing these particular flowers, but for whatever reason this day was a good one!

 



Before & After:


I wanted to brighten up this shot and give it a touch of seventies.

One Terrific Tuesday

Bubbles in the bath.
I miss those days...for myself, that is!
;)





***




Just colorful spools of thread.
No rhyme or reason, I just thought they were pretty!





***

Bottles from "around the house".

I have a habit of keeping pretty glass jars. This collection is mainly jars that had a past life: an olive jar, spaghetti sauce jar, and a club soda bottle. The cute little one is from the craft store...I couldn't resist.

***

SOOC:



Edited:





I use PSE 8 to edit and did the following:
Step 1. Crop and straighten.
Step 2. Ran Paint the Moon's newest freebie action, Jubilee.

Thankfulness

I'm so very thankful for unexpected reminders of Christ and how much He loves me.

(This is a window in a chicken coop.)

    

~~~~~

I'm thankful for the beauty of Autumn, as fleeting as it is.

~~~~~

I'm thankful for the variety of things in our backyard, even though it's cold outside!

 

~~~~~




And I'm thankful for Captivus Living's new challenge that encourages us to try those seldomly used tools in photoshop!

Wow. 

This was insanely fun! 

A little too much fun, perhaps.

Vincent Van Gogh is hands down my all time favorite painter. 

Starry Night is my all time favorite painting. 

So I wanted to create a Starry-Night-Van-Gogh-esque type of photo.

 

I use PSE 8 and did the following:

Step 1: Filter > Distort > Liquefy. Using the 'clockwise' and 'counter-clockwise' buttons, swirl the background.

Step 2: Filter > Distort > Liquefy. Using the 'bloat' button, enlarge the main flower and stem.

  

Windmill

I knew I wanted to go a vintage direction with this shot.
I tried a few different edits, but couldn't decide which I like best.


SOOC:

I ran PW's Heartland action for the first edit,
adjusted saturation and lighting levels for the second,
and ran PW's Soft & Faded action for the third, but removed the soft layer.