Cream Cheese Brownies

For Photo Friday's prompt "Edited," I chose to edit this picture of some Cream Cheese Brownies I photographed last Valentine's Day. To edit this, I applied the "Adding Backgrounds" tutorial I learned just recently, and for the background, I used this bokeh image from Digital Picture Zone.

Merging two images plus more editing using GIMP, I ended up with this:


Steps I did -

• Scaled image to 480x640.
• Scaled the bokeh image to 480 on the longer end - to fit the width of my brownies image, then pasted the bokeh image on a new layer.
• Made a selection around the brownies plus the plate using the Path Tool, then feathered the selection.
• Erased the bokeh images that touched the plate of brownies. Flattened the image after.
• Ran the National Geographic script, set to my own preferences.
• Gave it a pass of the Dodge Tool, just to lighten the color of the brownies.
• Ran the Manny Librodo Sharpening script, set to my own preferences.
• Added my watermark, flattened, and saved the image.

I am not sure if the bokeh I used was a good idea, but I did love the part between the plate, brownies, and bokeh background looked seamless. I guess feathering it was the key. It sure would look awkward if the edges was a bit visible.

Holidays / Christmas (SOOC)

Christmas is my favorite time of the year! Everyone seems to be kind, sweet and generous... and everybody is always in such a happy mood. When I found out this week's Good to Wow (Shoot and Edit) prompt is Christmas / Holidays, I just knew I had to participate.


This was taken last December at the nearby mall. Every Christmastime, every SM malls have their own Christmas decor set up for mall goers to have their pictures taken. I am not sure if it's the same with every branch (SM is such a well known mall, they have branches all over the country), but for their branch in Fairview, they had the Gingerbread House as the theme.

I took this picture using my cell phone while waiting for mom. That time, I still didn't have my camera because my old one (Canon Powershot A1000is) just died, so I relied on my cell phone to capture moments while I was waiting for me to have enough money to buy myself a new camera.

I will do very minimal changes for this image; although I still have to think of a way to deal with that lower right side of the image.

Memories (Edited)

I shared this image last Monday for the prompt "Memories":


A picture I took in 2008 using my Sony Ericsson K800i cell phone. Editing the image, I came up with this:


The biggest difference about taking pictures using a DSLR and a point-and-shoot camera (including mobile phones with camera) is the Depth of Field. I got to use a DSLR before (thanks to a friend) and I loved how the camera automatically highlights the subject, making it standout from the rest. Since I am a point-and-shoot camera user, I can't really create that depth of field that separates the subject to the background, so in order to achieve that, I need to rely on GIMP. :) I do love the drama between the images and the Cathedral, but I agree that the SOOC seemed a bit flat because there wasn't something that separates them together. That was where I based my main focus of the editing.

Steps I made:

• Starting with the original image size (2000x1500px), I used the clone and heal tools to erase the antenna on the left side of the image.
  
• I made a selection around the images using the Path tool then feathered the selection.
  
• Inverted the selection and applied Gaussian Blur, set to 10%.
  
• Scaled image to 640x480px.
  
• Ran the National Geographic script, settings adjusted to my own preference.
  
• Applied the Ancient Warmth action (levels adjusted after), then the Cooling - Wratten 80 filter (set to 25%).
  
• Added a layer of Kim Klassen's "Fall In" texture, set to Overlay at 100%.
  
• Brushed a layer of the Burn tool, set to shadow at 20%.
  
• Added my watermark, flattened and saved the image.

Using the Selection and Gaussian Blur method may be quite tedious, but for a point-and-shoot camera user, it was just what I needed to achieve that depth of field I want in some of my images.

Memories (SOOC)

I sooo miss posting for Good to Wow / Shoot and Edit. This week is about memories, and the first thing that came to mind was this:


This is the Baguio Cathedral (Baguio City, Benguet). Taken 04 March 2008 at around 5:30am, my sister and I traveled all night from Metro Manila to Baguio City (hmmm.. not all night literally, we left the bus station at 11:30-ish at night, we arrived around 4am), in time for dad's first year death anniversary. Dad's death anniversary was actually 05 March, but since we buried him in his home province (La Union), and the whole family was traveling to commemorate the day, sister wanted to have a little side trip to Baguio, and I decided to come with her. We left Baguio late that afternoon to meet mom and brother who traveled from Manila earlier that day.

I took this picture using my cell phone. That time, I saw a photo contest by Sony Ericsson about Philippine Travel (or something like that), and I submitted this as my entry. I didn't win, but I was okay with it; at that time I just started being interested in photography and I was more into getting knowledge.

I grabbed this picture from my Multiply account; I can't find brother's portable CD-ROM drive, so I can't access my files now. Well, I posted this on Multiply right after we got home and I still didn't know anything about photo-editing (other than adding the watermark using Arc Soft), so this one's definitely SOOC.

One funny fact: I was in Baguio City on 04 March 2008, 2009, and 2011. Am not sure why I didn't travel there in 2010...but I was in La Union that time, meaning I could just take the bus and sit for two hours to get to Baguio but I wasn't able to travel there.

Night (Edited)

I shared this night image last Monday, and checking the other pictures I took that night, I was questioning myself why I chose to share this, but since I already did, might as well try my best to come up with a good edit.

I am a point and shoot camera user, and because my camera that time (Canon Powershot A1000is) doesn't have full manual settings, the only way for me to get as much light into the image was to bump the ISO. Checking the EXIF Data of my SOOC Image (you can check the full data HERE), I set my camera to -2 exposure, 800ISO to make the fountain and the monument stand out. One thing I "hated" about this shoot was the flood light that totally ruined the framing, and this was an attempt to exclude the light, but as you can see, it was still visible (left part of the image).

Editing the image, I scaled it to 725px on the longer end first, then I made a 640x480 crop to take out the light on the left side. I didn't know how to manually minimize the noise on my image, so I first tried the "despeckle" action, but the image then looked like a painting after I used it. Going back to my cropped image, I then used an action I downloaded (Eg ISO Noise Reduction from the FX Foundry), but I made sure I kept the blur at minimum so it would still look like a photograph and not a painting. I then applied the Forest Action and gave the image a pass of the Dodge tool set to shadow at 10%.

I am not sure if the edit was much better than the SOOC, but this was the first time I used the Dodge tool as well the Noise Reduction function of the FX Foundry, so no matter what the outcome, I was happy to have learned something new.

Night (SOOC)

With my mother getting a little "crazy" over Facebook because it allowed her to communicate with old friends again, there will be days that I will be sharing the net book with her, so I am now really trying my best to resize and upload as much pictures I could on my own Facebook page, because I am neck-deep in pictures I need to upload.


I am now about to edit September 2010 pictures, and to make my editing easier, I am checking each of the folders and delete all those I didn't want to put in the albums. Reading that this week's prompt on Shoot and Edit / Good to WOW challenge is "night," I decided to go with this picture, which I took exactly a year ago today. :)

I am very much a morning person. With this prompt, I realized 90% of the pictures I have on file were taken during daytime (until sunset). I guess I personally prefer to take pictures during daytime partly because I am using a point-and-shoot camera and we all know most p&s cameras can't handle night shots that well.