Learn to Play, Play to Learn

Recently I have been working on expanding my skills in photoshop. I have watched some of the online tutorials, purchased a disc on some of the basics and last but not least I have played and pushed bars and buttons, slid sliders and observed what changes were made to my image by doing this. One of the best features of Photoshop CS4 is the ability to work in layers never really altering the image unless you decide that is what you want. Therefore, if you don’t like something you simply go to your history tab and delete the last change which is in its own layer and poof, it is gone. No harm done. Really neat stuff. Furthermore, I have learned more about this program and its abilities through this playing method than I have with all the time spent reading and watching tutorials, which often times assumes you know more than you do or are so basic it is of no use at all.

So........What is my point? Simple; learn to play and play to learn. I have had hours of fun playing with photoshop and have created some really cool effects.  Below I have posted some of the the resulting images from my playing to learn, and expect to have hours more of cheap entertainment with photoshop as I learn more about the plethora of filters, textures and other tools I don’t even know how to categorize.

Above are two shots, one is the original shot taken straight from the camera. This shot was doomed from the very beginning. It was mid afternoon and the sun was shinning straight into the lens. I angled around to get into the shade and then the lens distortion made the old train station look like it is leaning back away from me. I took 5 shots intending to do an HDR. I processed it in Photomatix and the sky has a halo around the building. (I still haven't figured out how to fix that) First though I wanted to correct the lens distortion so I opened the HDR image in Photoshop and clicked on Filter--> Distort--> Lens correction. The image appears with a panel to the right with all manner of sliders bars. At the bottom you may choose to use a grid if you just want to perfectly align the image either horizontally or vertically. Just play around with these sliders some of the effects are interesting and it's good knowledge to have when you do have a nice image you want to save from lens distortion. The last button I clicked in the section was the on the bottom right, labeled Edge. There are three choices, background color, edge extension and transparency. I chose edge extension and it produced what you see in the image on the right. Kind of added to the story of the Old Train Station falling into decay.

                                
In attempting to create an image for my Christmas cards I have met with many hours of frustration because I can't get the exact look I want. The first image is an HDR of 3 exposures. The problem with shooting Christmas trees is the varying degrees of light and the different types of lighting. I was hoping that HDR would help solve that, but there obviously is need for Photoshop. Once again I have not succeeded in achieving the look I want but while playing around with different features to see what they do, I got the second shot. Not Christmas card stuff, but fun, at least I like it! This was achieved by opening the image in Photoshop and clicking on Filter--> Stylize--> Glowing Edges. From there all that really needs to be said is have fun.


Here are a couple more images. See if you can figure out what filter was used.

 

I hope you enjoyed your visit and have been inspired to leave your comfort zone to play and learn.

As always, Have fun with Photography and don't forget to visit me at PhotographybyLauraLee.com

Till next time,

Laura