On this day, I thought it fitting to be a little spookier than usual. A little woo-hoo and what not.
One must ask oneself, is what I’m seeing about to see an apparition or perhaps a ghost? Is this the dreaded and feared “Farty Spirit of Biceps”?
Or could this be a simple slideshow built for my pure amusement?
You’ll never know, (insert evil laugh).
I love using weird photos to make birthday or thank you notes. This photo caught my eye while I was perusing my library. I knew something good could come of it. Here’s a quick tutorial on turning a bland photo into something worthy of printing off….
While on tour in Louisiana, we were invited to a crab boil. Here is my plate of food. No, I didn’t eat it all. I had some help from a certain Biceps.
In Lightroom, I used the pre-set, “Direct Positive”. This tends to add a burst of color, contrast and interest to photos. However, when I’ve used it on humans it makes them look like Oompa Lumpa’s.
I slightly increased the red and yellow hues, and added a little saturation to it.
Next, I used the paintbrush function and decreased the clarity surrounding the yellow tray.
Lastly, I used the vignette function and lens corrected the photo, darkening the edges. Here’s the final photo-ready for action.
This picture is cute, yes. But, let’s make it cuter.
Using Lightroom, I first made a copy of the photo so that I could mess with it by going to the “Photo” tab and clicking, “create virtual copy”.
I then used the Lightroom Preset, “Creative-Cold Tone”. But if you’ll notice, the sand and the concrete barrier are too bright.
I clicked on the “Adjustment Brush”, chose the “-” sign on “brightness”.
I increased my brush size to 16, decreased the feather to 75 and the flow to 97. I then “brushed” over the bright spots on the photograph.
After decreasing the brightness to -113, the sand and the concrete was now at the correct exposure to match the rest of the picture.
Here’s the final picture. Those kids are too dang cute.
I have a column called Together in Tulsa in the regional Oklahoma paper, “This Land Press”-which is both online and in print.
Writing this column is really the coolest job.
I get to invite strangers into my home, ask them all sorts of probing questions, dress them up in weird costumes and then photograph the incident. Later, when they’re gone, I sit around in my jammies and sip on a glass of red wine while I sort out all the information in order to write a story about them.
And, I get paid to do this.
So, here’s the latest couple that I wrote about, Aaron and Jessica.
And there’s plenty more where that came from. But, I’ll let you in on a secret. I do have my favorite couples. Here are a couple of my favorites couples, coupled:
Jeff and Amber Whitlatch
If you have a few or more than a few minutes, read Together in Tulsa-I recommend sipping a glass of wine and wearing jammies as you do so.
