Miles Away

Crack Me Up

* please mouse over to see the SOOC shot *
Better late than never for my Texture Tuesdays post; I was busy preparing my stuff as I will be traveling tomorrow morning. Anyway, for the "Back to School" edition of Texture Tuesdays, I decided to use an old picture, which I might have shared on this blog sometime ago, but since it's been eons since I left school, and no one in the family are going to school, this was probably the only picture I have that is related to "schooling."

When I was still a student, I do love to snack on chips and cracker nuts while reading my notes or doing my homework. I guess that would also one of the reasons why I couldn't lose weight while I was still at school. Hahahaha.

Processing the picture, I did:

• Desaturated image (choosing "Average" on GIMP)
• Applied a layer of Kim Klassen's "just stitched" texture, set to soft light at 35%
• Erased parts of the texture in the bowl of cracker nuts
• Applied a layer of Kim Klassen's "sweettart" texture, set to overlay at 100%
• Ran the Split Tone script
• Ran the Unsharp Mask tool set to 0.17
• Flattened and saved image

ps - I am supposed to do Nathalie's Back to Basics meme, but because it's raining here every afternoon, I wasn't able to see "birds on the ground."

Shadows (SOOC)

It's nice to be back sharing images for Shoot & Edit (Good to WOW), and although I might not be able to link up on Thursday because I will be traveling out of town and I won't be bringing my net book, I'd still share my images. :)


This week is about "Shadows," and the first image that came to mind was this picture of my sister and I taken last February. That time, we were very enthusiastic to walk more or less a kilometer going to Colinas Verdes where we would jog for about an hour.

I took this on our way home. I noticed our shadows and I asked her to stop a bit and asked her a favor if we could form a heart - I was thinking if this is possible as I want to take a similar shot of my brother and his gf given the chance. It was difficult to take this shot as I create the other half of the heart while trying to take the picture, good thing my cell phone was handy enough to make this shot.

Quotography | Dreams

Oftentimes, I'd search for a picture I'd use for the Quotography meme before I search a suitable quote for it. This week, it was the other way around... I searched for a quote before I rummaged through my files for a picture I would use.

Searching for "Dreams Quote," I chose the first link and reading the very first quote in that category, it made me think of this picture, which I took in 2009 during a travel in Coron, Palawan. My pal Erick and I were setting up to take pictures of our other pal Honey_Kei when I saw these birds flying from afar. Since my camera was already switched on, I just waited for them to pass by over our heads.

My travels are products of my dreams. From walking through the cobbled-stone road of Calle Crisologo in Vigan, to trekking towards the crater of Mt. Pinatubo, I weaved these dreams and believed for it to come true... and in God's own time, I was able to make my wishes come true.

Next dream destination - the Batanes Group of Islands.

Edit Me! | Week 14

I missed two weeks of "Edit Me!" because of certain life events. Happy to be back :)

This SOOC image is provided by Amy of Mimibeth Photography. One of the things I love about Edit Me! is that the SOOC images are so pretty, it makes editing quite difficult. :)

I hoped to download a digital frame to add a little embellishment, but the one I downloaded will make the edited image look smaller, so I ditched the frame and just stayed with the image. Another simple edit for me, and here were the steps I made:

• Scaled image to 640x480.
• Ran the mute colors script, choosing the "desaturated overlay" in the selection.
• Added a layer of the "crumpled paper" texture set to soft light at 100%.
• Ran the Manny Librodo sharpening script.
• Ran the Burn tool set to shadow at 40%.
• Added my name stamp and flattened the image.

It's so great to edit pictures again. I surely missed doing this. :)

Celestial Bodies

The next exercise on Back to Basics meme was to take a picture of celestial bodies. I am super thankful that this challenge came up during the full moon, as I cannot think of any way of presenting my image.

I know, this lacked composition... and that this isn't that pretty - I took this picture without the help of the tripod (the moon was still "too" low the time I took this, the houses were covering the sight and I had to extend my hand just for my camera lens to capture the moon). My saving grace was the shutter speed - even if my hands weren't that steady, I still was able to capture it well, I think. :)

Some technical aspects:

Camera - Canon Powershot SX130is

Date & Time - 15 August 2011 / 21:42

Exposure - 1/1250

Aperture - f/5.6

ISO - 400

To view the complete EXIF data of this picture please click HERE.