Edit Me! | Week 20

This week's very pretty picture is from Kala of The Wishful Lamb. Before I saw this picture, two of my photography pals just had their baby shoot, and I can't help but feel a little jealous because taking photographs of babies was something I dream to do. I was able to take a few pictures of Jamy (my friend Charmy's first born), but it wasn't really a shoot, but some pictures taken when mom and I visited her. I still dream of doing a baby shoot - complete with props and all, just like what Kala did here.


At first, I wanted to do a black and white edit, but playing around GIMP brought me to this sepia edit. Not complaining at all... as I also made another edit in black and white, but in the end, I still chose the sepia one.

What I did:

• Made a selection around the headband using the Path Tool, then feathered the selection.
  
• Inverted the selection and Desaturated the image, using the "Luminosity" as my choice.
  
• Scaled image to 640px on the longer end.
  
• Ran the Ancient Warm action.
  
• Added a layer of Kim Klassen's "Portrait Sample" set to Overlay at 100%.
  
• Ran the Burn Tool, set to shadow at 10%.
  
• Ran the Manny Librodo sharpening script, levels adjusted to my liking.
  
• Added my name stamp, flattened, then saved the image.

Texture Tuesdays | The "Do" Edition

It's been weeks since I last posted for Texture Tuesdays. This week's prompt is "Do," and here's my take:

* please mouse over to see the SOOC shot *
"Do make your own path."

Well, there will be a lot of arguments about that line, so I am going to leave it at that: short and to the point.

Anyway, I took this picture two Saturdays ago, when I decided to get back into jogging at Colinas Verdes. It being my "first day" (again), I took my camera with me just to capture scenes. Near the entrance of the proposed subdivision, I saw these three ladies about to start their jogging, too. The scenery, the colors, and the shadows just caught my interest, and I was glad to be able to capture this moment.

This was edited very quick and simple: After resizing the image, I just applied a layer of Kim Klassen's "Autumn Burst" set to Dodge at 75%, then I ran the Ancient Warmth action.

Edit Me! | Week 17

This week's SOOC is provided by Jill Samter, who is not only a talented photographer... it was also through her that I looked deep into myself and affirm that I am beautiful in my own special way. :) Anyway, like with the other SOOC pictures provided for the Edit Me! challenge, this was another perfect SOOC that actually didn't need much post-processing, but for this challenge, I came up with this:

First look at the image and I already felt how vintage it was. My first edit was actually something that focused more on the vintage feel of the image, but I decided to make another edit because I found my first edit quite dark. I decided to share this edit instead because even if there were changes in the colors, it still had a hint of the original colors of the image. I do love to keep the red barn (if it is a barn, correct me if I am wrong) red, the grass green, and the skies blue.

For this edit (as always I used GIMP), I did:

• Scaled image to 640px on the longer end.
• Ran the Golden Autumn lomo script (minus the grain, vignette set to 40%, exposure set to 0.5).
• Ran the Ancient Warmth action, after which, I adjusted the curves because this action kinda makes the image a little darker.
• Added a layer of Kim Klassen's "yesteryear" texture, set to Multiply at 80%.
• Flattened and saved the image.

Very easy edit, and I hope you like it.

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."

Texture Tuesdays | "Anything Goes Edition"

Last week, I shared two separate pictures (on two separate posts) of a millipede and a couple of snails. For this week on Texture Tuesdays, I am going to share a picture that features both critters.


Last Sunday, with rains stopping for a while, I went to check my ampalaya in the garden as I wasn't able to check on it the last three days. I was so overwhelmed to see so many snails in the garden - it was like a party! Some of our plants' leaves already have these holes, so I went to gather as much snails as I could to put a stop on the feeding frenzy!

They were surely getting on my nerves, but they are also a good subject for photography, so after taking out a batch of snails, I went to get my camera and hunted more snails. In one part of the garden, there was this big flat rock and when I lifted it, I saw these critters relaxing. :)

After a few minutes of editing the picture, I came up with this result:

Steps I made:

• Rotated the image 15 degrees to the right, then scaled image to 850px on the longer end then made a rectangle crop at 640x480.
• Ran the Mute Colors script, set to Desaturated Overlay.
• Added a layer of KK Canvasback texture, set to overlay at 100%.
• Added a layer of KK Summer Lovin' texture, set to screen at 60%.
• Ran the Purple Hue action.
• Ran the burn tool set to shadow at 50%.
• Added my name stamp, flattened the image, then clicked save.

Hope you liked the edit!