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Friday, July 29, 2011

For the Love of Photoshop!

Hey everybody!

Today I was editing some photos to put on my blog and I was getting very sad because I couldn't get them to look the way I want.  You may notice in my posts that some of my photos look TERRIBLE.  Well, for one thing I don't have some fancy craft room, like this one that was posted on Craftaholics Anonymous.  No, mine is a desk, a sewing machine on the floor, a large tote bag full of yarn, a recycled comforter bag full of fabric, and other random boxes of things around my room.

It did look like this...

Yes, that's my bed to the right.  The above equals stress!

Anyway, it has slightly improved since I bought a new computer and I real desk.  However, like I said the sewing machine is now on the floor.

To make a long story short, I take photos of my crafts in my room, where I have terrible lighting.  Well, today I had enough and decided to do some research on how I can fix my photos.  I went to Amanda from Kevin & Amanda.  She does awesome photos and she gives tutorials on how to take photos and edit them for a blog.  In reading how to edit my photos I learned a lot.  She also has a link for the Pioneer Woman's actions for Photoshop.  So, I went to the Pioneer Woman and downloaded the actions.  Now, I had the first set of actions and I love them, but I learned something from Amanda- changing the opacity of the action.

An example:
This is the original- a photo I took last weekend on Mount Lemmon.

And the improved version!

You're probably asking: how did she do that?

Step 1: "Slight Lighten" action from Pioneer Woman at 50% opacity
Step 2: "Fresh & Colorful" action from Pioneer Woman at 70% opacity
Step 3: "Warmer" action from Pioneer Woman at 100% opacity

And that's it!

Pretty cool!

Give it a try for your photos for your blog or whatever.  And check out Amanda's various tutorials for photography.

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