Fun with Photoshop

As I have mentioned (I think . . . or maybe I just thought it?), I got a fun new camera for my birthday last year, and I started taking lessons, most recently with Heather and Amanda. Learning photography has been an incredibly frustrating and humbling endeavor, to say the least. On the bright side, I've been taking way more pictures of my kids lately, which was the whole point to begin with.

At some point it became pretty clear to me that learning how to edit digital images is more than half the battle when it comes to turning out good photos. This should have been great news, but I knew that what it really meant is that I had to learn how to work Photoshop in addition to learning how to work my camera. I'll probably have grandkids to photograph by the time I figure it all out.

Still, between getting some encouragement and inspiration from Heather, who is making the best of her time on bedrest by really getting this whole editing thing down pat, and the fact that I'm taking an online children's photography workshop with Amanda and Betsey that is forcing me to get waaaaaaaay outside of my technical comfort zone and work with "actions" in Photoshop Elements, I am starting to figure out how to edit my photos. Don't ask me to whiten your teeth yet (unless you also want your soft palate to have white streaks), but I've been having some fun playing around with simple "double click and adjust" Photoshop actions.

Here is Caroline straight out of the camera ("SOOC"):



And Caroline after a little tinkering:



Jacob and Elizabeth SOOC:



Jacob and Elizabeth "soft and faded:"



These are not my kids, but a couple of macaws at the zoo {my kids can be as noisy as the macaws, though}. Macaws SOOC:



Macaws with a little help:



I hope that someday I will really understand what I am doing (and become a lot quicker at it). In the meantime, it's been fun playing around!