Edit Me Challenge

Crikey that came round awful quick didn't it!
Oh well I'm not complaining because I just love seeing what the next image is that has been submitted  for the EditMe challenge.

This weeks guest judge and image owner is Tara of Wild Ginger Photography whose website is full of amazing images ranging from adorable babies to fine art.
Grab a coffee, head on over to Tara's place and prepare to go all googly over the adorable images.

So here is the SOOC submitted by Tara

and this is my edit

I did warn you! Adorable huh?
It's no secret that I panic a tad when it comes to editing images of children, after all, these are someones adored ray of hope and sunshine and I am sooooooo aware of how easy it would be to insult a person with an edit that I interpret as 'different' and others interpret as .... well..... wrong! (I love putting googly eyes on things and turning them into neon glowing objects) sigh!
Can't do that with such gorgeous images as this one though - even I would agree it was just wrong!

So here's how I did it. (yes I do remember almost every step for a change - yay me!)
Opened the image in CS5, created background copy (many mistakes mean I now remember that one!), tight crop keeping image dimensions,  added another new layer and filled this layer with white.
Then I added extra canvas around the image in layer1 and then added a bit of space inside the image on the background copy.
Added a layer mask to the background copy, went into filters, brush strokes  added a sprayed strokes effect and then trimmed the canvas size.
Finally I did a tiny bit of sharpening and then just played with exposure, levels etc until I got the look I wanted.

Thank you to both Tara and the EditMe challenge team for hosting this challenge, judging our edits and submitting such gorgeous photos.
Thank you also to all you faithful followers and looker inners (I've just made that word up). I hope you enjoy this challenge and don't forget to head on over to Taras website and /or the EditMe blogsite to check out the other participants entries or to even have a go yourself.


 

Yay the 'EditMe Challenge' is back after the holiday break and boy have I missed it.

The challenge has a brand new member to the team who just so happens to also be the judge for this week. So a huge Hello to Sarah of  'Naptime MomTog' I hope you enjoy checking out all the Edits for this week and future weeks to come Sarah!
This weeks photo to edit is Sarahs son Dustyn and his adorable dog Dudley and if you head on over to her fabulous blog you will find many more gorgeous images.

My initial reaction to this photo was 'Eek, another one of someone's beloved child. Another chance to get it all wrong and possibly insult somone'. However I loved the image - who couldn't love a picture of a child and his best pal - so I figured I'll just go for it and see what happens.

Here's the SOOC

and here's my edit:

Being a New Year and all that I had promised myself that I would finally remember to write down the steps I took in my Edit, however this time I didn't record them because I really did just open the image and play.
I did open the image in CS5 though, made a background layer and then simply messed with whatever I could find to get the tone I wanted, which happened to be a bit of a HDR type thing.
I hear talk of various filters that people use for edits but I haven't a clue how to use half of those things or even where to get them from in the first place lol - Hmmmmm, maybe I should make it a goal this year to dabble and learn a bit more about editing photos.
Anyway once I had the tone I wanted I cropped the image slightly and added a Black border.
I did think about adding some wording but with my imagination being as basic as it is I just couldn't figure out what adaptation of a boy and his dog to use or where to put it. So I convinced myself it doesn't need it anyway - which it really doesn't.

Anyway there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this Edit Me Challenge, if you want to join in and have some fun editing images then mosey on over to the Edit Me blog page and you're in!
Thank you again to Sarah for the piccie and for judging and for joining the team so we all get to have such fun!

 Edit Me:

Another week, another edit.
I so look forward to these weekly edits and love a piccie that challenges me so I was quite pleased with this weeks submission from Alita of 'Alita jewel's treasure'

Here's the SOOC

and here's my edit:

Opened the image is CS5 and after spending a good hour wasting time by getting everything wrong I decided I was being too technical so started over and kept it simple.
Opened HDR toning in image adjustments and moved the multitude of sliders until I got a half decent image.
opened curves and created a loose 'S' curve.
Created a white border by changing canvas size and that was it!

Hope y'all head on over to the 'Edit Me' challenge, take a look at the other cool edits and maybe have a go yourself.



Edit Me: Week 25

Well that was a panic. I completely forgot about the challenge this week and would have missed it if I'd not popped on to check out my blog.
I downloaded the image in a rush, edited it in a rush and just as I was blogging it I lost internet connection for a few hours. Wouldn't normally be a problem as blogger would save it BUT I, in my wisdom, started a stand alone page in Blogger for the Edit Me weekly challenge so it didn't save - Arghhhh!

So forgive me for the fact that the Edit Me challenge keeps moving around on my blog, it's no longer going to be on a stand alone page because no one knows it's there. lol. However, this may change in the future.

Any way, I digress.
This weeks image is one of my favourites so far. I love inaminate objects cos I figure I can't really offend anyone with my edits.
This weeks judge is Misty from 'Through a Photographers Eyes'. A cool looking mum who has a wonderful website filled with amazing images that I could only dream of achieving, tutorials and her own challenge titled SHOOT.EDIT.SUBMIT.
Take a mosey on over there and I promise you'll be inspired!

So here is this weeks SOOC

whimsical tracker (forgive the attempt at country talk)

and here's my edit

As for what I did to achieve it, well, in my defence I did actually save detailed instructions this week so yay for me. BUT I disposed of them after I had written them on my blogger before I realised that they hadn't been saved to the stand alone page. So, I'm going to have to give basics of what I remember.........for a change!

I opened the SOOC and a background image in CS5 and worked on the background first.
CTRL + I to invert the tones.
CTRL + A to select the image. CTRL + X to cut the image.
Create a new Alpha channel, select the channel, CTRL + V to paste the cut image.
CTRL + click on Alpha channel thumbnail to select all white areas.
Click on RGB channel to activate it.
Add new layer.
Invert the selection.
Alt + Backspace to fill the selection with foreground colour.
Create square area using polygonal lasso tool and feather 2pixel.
Duplicate selected portion.
Open Eraser and choose a brush to erase the edges as desired.
Open SOOC and desaturate the image.
CTRL + A then CTRL + C to copy the image to clipboard.
CTRL + click on previous layer.
Edit & Paste 'into' (not just 'paste'. Took me ages to figure that one out).
With photo selected used dodge and burn as desired and touched up with previous eraser brush.
Create new fill/adjustment layer, photo filter and then Sepia. Messed with the sepia and clicked 'preserve luminosity'.
Fiunally I flattened the image, saved as JPEG and Voila!
May seem alot of moves but there were many more. Some were tutorials from the net but alot I had to chop and change to suit.

Hope you enjoyed, thanks for taking a look. Now head on over to the 'Edit Me' blog and look at all the other fabulous entries and you never know, you may be challenged to have a go yourself.



Edit Me: Week 24.

Another fab image to get the creative juices flowing.
This weeks rather cool image is from Branson of 'My Reflection of Something'. The image is of her grandfathers Brownie Hawkeye - see, it even has a cool name!
Branson is also this weeks guest judge so Thank you Branson.

This is the SOOC:

And this my Edit:

I'm on the ball this week - finally! Well sorta! I actually remember basically what I did so I;ll get it out before I forget.

Opened the image in CS5.

The next part was a whole waste of time duplicating layers and adding layers and changing blend modes because I was going for a Black & White, seriously grainy, old film type photo. I couldn't get the result I wanted though so I flattened the layers and worked with the HDR type image I was left with.

So next I opened the filter menu and added a film grain from there (why didn't i just start there in the first place - duh!).
I messed with the adjustments until I got roughly what I wanted and got out of there before I overdid it with some fancy schmancy over the top filter.
Finally I clicked select all, then stroke and added a Black border of about 10 pixels.
Flattened the image again and Voila!

OK I may have exaggerated in my initial claim that I retained all the info of the steps I took but hey, I tried right! That's gotta count for something.

So thanks for popping by, hope you liked!






Edit Me: week 23.

OK so I missed last weeks Edit me because I couldn't find the link for love nor money. Have it now though!
I've decided that as I intend to enter this weekly I may as well have a page on here dedicated just to the 'Edit Me Challenge'.

This weeks image was donated by Wendy Wright who is a writer and photography and has obviously enjoyed time at Disneyland. Check out her awesome site at 'Sunflowers Photography' - be warned, it's pretty darned awesome and you will want to spend some time in there.
;

So this is the SOOC

And here is my edit

Basically I used a cartooniser on the image - it's the only thing I could think of to do, especially as the scene is such a cartoon type theme.
Once I'd added the Cartooniser I adjusted all of the many settings to get the exact result I wanted. I didn't want too heavy an adjustment as it took all the detail away, I wanted to make sure the characters (lol) were still recognisable as individuals.

Loved the challenge this week, thank you to Wendy and also to the Edit Me hosts.