Edit Me! | Week 7

Before I proceed to my edit, let me just say thank you to the judges of last week's Edit Me! for choosing my edit as one of the top 3 edits.


This week's photo was by Branson of "My Reflection of Something." I almost didn't join this week's edit because seeing the image, I really thought I couldn't come up with an edit. I kept the copy of the SOOC shot in my folder and would look at it from time to time to see if some idea would spark. Personally, any flag photo was perfect as is, and as simple as this image may be, it was powerful enough to convey a message.


I edited this picture about 30 minutes ago. At first I wanted to do a square crop, but I am a fan of white space, so in the end I still went with the rectangular crop. To end up with this image, I combined four elements: the flag image (which I cropped to 640x480 - taking out the curve on the pole down), an image of a reddish sky (which can be seen at the top of the image), Kim Klassen's "Serendipity" texture (set to Overlay at 100%), and another image (the sky with sunrays). I erased the texture and images on the flag and pole area as I added each element, and I also gave the image a pass of the National Geographic script, as well as a pass of Urban Acid script before adjusting the curves. Finally, I gave the image a pass of the Unsharp Mask tool.

The quote I got from Think Exist.

*** Jenn ***

Texture Tuesdays | The Golden Edition

It's the Golden Edition here on Texture Tuesdays, and for this prompt, I decided to choose an image that has a big white space so the texture will be seen clearly.

*please mouse over to see the SOOC shot*

I am editing pictures from my 05 June 2010 folder and saw this image. I instantly chose this one because it had the space that I wanted and because the space was of similar hue to the original background. I took this picture at a flower shop in Gateway Mall, before my friends and I went to do a photo shoot.

Steps I made to come up with this edit:

• Resized image to 640x480.
• Applied a layer of Kim Klassen's "Golden" texture set to normal at 65%.
• Ran the National Geographic script using the default settings.
• Adjusted the levels to my liking.
• Applied another layer of Kim Klassen's "Golden" texture set to soft light at 40%.
• Gave it a pass of the burn tool set to shadow at 50%.
• Added my namestamp and flattened the image.

I actually made another edit...

...but my sister thought this was a little too brown. To make this, I did:

• Resized image to 640x480.
• Applied a layer of Kim Klassen's "Golden" texture set to normal at 65%.
• Ran the Urban Acid script set to 20%.
• Adjusted the curves.
• Applied another layer of Kim Klassen's "Golden" texture set to soft light at 100%.
• Ran the Brauer's Warm script set to 25%.
• Gave it a pass of the burn tool set to shadow at 10%.
• Added my namestamp and flattened the image.

Which did you like more?

*** Jenn ***

Quotography | Summer

This week's prompt on Quotography is "summer," and I chose to share this picture, which I took in 2009 while having a vacation in Coron (Palawan) with friends I met at a forum. October may not be a summer month here in the Philippines, but like what the quote suggests, "There is eternal summer in the grateful heart." There are so many things I am grateful for this trip - thankful that the sun shone most times (though there were some rains, too), thankful that I got to be part of this trip, and thankful that I was able to be in paradise for a few days.

*** Jenn ***

Scavenger Hunt Sunday 062611

Welcome the sunshine! Oh geez... I thought rain would never stop! Anyway, pictures for this week's hunt was taken just today because the rains made me lazy to do many things - add to that a very big blow I experienced last week... my Paypal account was hacked. Well, I have decided to let it go and start anew.

My take for this week's hunt:

01. Windows / Doors

This is our front door. We had this one for many years now... my late father had it specifically done for our house. The "J" in the middle symbolizes our initial (all our names start with "J"), and it also had a diamond... a motif we have here in the house.


02. Eyelashes

One confession: I have a strong fear of dolls, preferably those that move. This doll is one of those, and I really didn't want to use this as my subject, but my sister couldn't pose for me because she said she just emptied her mascara stick. This was the only picture I took of the doll, and I tried my best to fight off the goosebumps as I edit the picture and upload it.. right now, forehead has beads of sweat, but I needed to do what I need to do, so there. :)

03. Paint

On my personal blog, I decided to talk about little vanity things. I started with some nature-friendly facial wash, toner, and moisturizer... and since I have quite a lot of nail polish now, I decided to talk about my "nail color of the week," so I took pictures of my freshly painted nails.

I am now starting to like this cheap nail polish brand - only p16 (0.36usd) per bottle. Well, there was once a report about cheap nameless nail polish causing nail problems, but since this one has a label (including the manufacturer's name and address), I am very confident that this brand is safe.


04. Leaf Veins

When I started re-planting the small bell pepper seedlings a few months ago, I thought this plant was one of those seedlings because it grew near the bell peppers and the leaves looked similar. However, I got surprised seeing this one growing faster than the others, and now of course I know this wasn't a bell pepper.

Thankful for the sunshine, I was able to take this picture with a little extra... the house fly.

05. Nameless Portrait

A very quick picture of my sister I took a few minutes ago, wearing a pair of shoes my mom bought at a garage sale.

Cheers to a new week ahead!

*** Jenn ***

Edit Me! | Week 06

This week's photo was provided by Vic of "A Cup of Freck." Thinking of how to edit this picture was a bit of a struggle because part of me wanted to keep the image as is. Playing with some settings using GIMP, I came up with this:

This was a very simple edit - like I said, I wanted to keep the image as much as I could, but if you wanted to know how I ended with this, here are I steps I made:

• Resized image to 640x480.
• Gave it a pass of the "Ancient Warm" action.
• Ran the "Urban Acid" script, set to 30%.
• Added a bit of noise.
• Used the "Burn" tool, set to shadow at 10%.
• Added my name stamp, flattened image, then saved it.

The "Ancient Warm" action was something I downloaded quite a long time ago when I searched for GIMP actions. The "Urban Acid" script, I downloaded from the GIMP Plugin Registry.

*** Jenn ***

Black & White Wednesday | White Flowers

I took this picture last year at the Sidcor Weekend Market. I originally shot this in color and changed it to Black and White using different actions and script, before adding a layer of Kim Klassen's "Pour Vous" texture. The texture was brownish, and seeing the image looked brown than b/w, I changed it again to black and white.

*** Jenn ***