I have been so busy lately, but it's the kind of busy that doesn't feel like busyness. I've been fun busy. We've had family visiting (that's my sweet niece, Paisley in the photo above), trips to the pumpkin patch and farm stand, hay rides, Halloween parties, leaf collecting with my little ones... Fall is such a lovely time of year, is it not? There's something about the crisp autumn air that just makes me feel hugged. It's just...nice. We've already had our "trunk or treat" party at church and my rock star, mermaid, and bumblebee each came home with more candy than any person should eat in a lifetime. In our family, we let our kids choose a few pieces of candy and then they leave the rest by the front door for The Great Pumpkin. He takes the candy and leaves a present instead. I really love our little traditions! I always feel like we have to get as much family fun in as possible before the winter comes and we turn into cave people.
I hope you've been able to enjoy this season in your neck of the woods! (Make sure you leave a comment so we can hop around and visit your blogs to see what you've been up to!) Here are a few blog frames to make posting those fall photos that much more fun! As always, just click on them for the full-sized .png versions and then save them to your computer so you can customize them with your own images. Enjoy!!!
I do have some more post-processing posts coming up for you, but since it's getting close to the holidays I thought this would be the perfect time of year to start thinking about photography-related gift giving. If you know someone who loves photography, this list may help you pick out the perfect gift. Or if you're the one who's always behind the camera, you might want to leave this post on your computer where someone else can see it!!! Each and every one of these items has been lovingly hand-picked by me for you! Some of them have even already made it into my own personal collection...
Wishing you all a blessed weekend! I'm off to take care of a sick toddler-- No Fun.. I know! But I'll leave you with this Pretty Kitty that is sure to melt your heart!
Some of the most frequent questions I get about post-processing have to do with actions.What are they?Do I use them?I do use actions.I love them!Used skillfully, I think they really elevate a photo beyond snapshot status.An action is like a short cut for a long Photoshop process. So instead of going through 10 or 20 individual steps in Photoshop to get the look you want, an action puts them all together and does them really fast for you.It is like a recipe to get a certain look.
Actions don't come with Photoshop, you need to get them separately.There are a lot of sites that make actions that you can buy, although The Pioneer Woman has some great FREE ones.There are soooo many action sets out there.For my photography business I use and love Totally Rad Actions.But for this tutorial I'll be using the free sets from The Pioneer Woman (she has super easy instructions on how to download and install them).
So let's get started!First of all, in Photoshop make sure you have the Layers, Actions, and History windows open. They are probably already opened by default (located at the right side of your screen) but if you don’t see them, just look at the top of the screen and click on Window and then Layers, Actions, and/or History.
Each action has a name, and in Photoshop you select which action you want, and then click the "play" icon to "play" that action.
Then it quickly goes through each of the individual steps and creates a new layer or layers on top of your image. You can use these layers at their full 100% strength, but I almost always change the layer opacity to tone it down to my liking.
When you're done adjusting the layer opacity, you right click on your bottom layer and choose "flatten image" which merges the new action layer/s into the original layer. You can then leave it as is, or you can apply other actions.
Let's do an example photo together (click on YouTube icon to view larger on YouTube)...
Hello favorites! The weather in Michigan has been freakishly glorious this week so my little ladies and I have been doing lots of what I call Wellie Wandering. You're never too old to go exploring and I get as excited about our little discoveries as my children do. Rain boots and sunshine are good for the soul. So, in the spirit of adventures big and small, here's a little design I made that can be used in your posts or on your sidebar. Customize it with your own text and enjoy the heck out of it! :)
{click image for full-sized version}
Look for a big fat batch of brand new backgrounds and goodies at ShabbyBlogs.com tonight and tomorrow!
