A New Day, A Different Way The creative and photographic endeavours of a woman trying to add color and beauty to her world.

I love this mural.  I took this photo when I was in Toronto, this is a large mural that takes up most of the side of a building.  I love the colors, the combination of portrait and abstract and just everything about it.  I didn't actually do much of an edit on this one.  I used the spot healing tool in Photoshop Elements to remove the power lines that hung in front of the mural and I did a slight levels adjustment to brighten the white a little.  

It appears I have managed to stick to my challenge for a second day, yay me!!  The photo I chose for today is one I am really unhappy with.  Last year we made a trip to the Ft. Steele Heritage Town outside of Cranbrook, BC.  It was a very bright and sunny day, one that casts really hard light so while I had great subject matter I wasn't really happy with the resulting photos.

I'm still not sure I love this photo but I was trying to soften the effect of the harsh sunlight.

Here is today's photo:

Again, not really in love with the after shot.  But I do think I was successful somewhat in lightening the shadows with a levels adjustment, I did adjust the black or the white just the colors in the middle.  I then ran Nelly Nero's Chocolate Fade Photoshop action to give it a feel more in keeping with the vintage of the wagon.  Overall maybe I just think the photo is a little boring, and no amount of editing can fix that but I'm still glad I played with it.

I love taking photographs, but I have come to realize I dislike editing photographs.  Cropping and adjusting levels trying to make them perfect.  I just don't find that part fun.  If the straight out of the camera shot isn't good enough (and they seldom are even for very seasoned photographers) I just don't play with it. 

So in an effort to change this I set myself a one week challenge.  Just one week nothing too ambitious, of picking a photo out of my archives, editing it and posting the before and after shots here on my blog.  My thinking is perhaps if I could see a weeks worth of posts with the edited photos it will inspire me to keep editing my photos. 

So here are today's before and after shots.

I love taking photos of flowers with my macro lens.  I never know what I will end up with as the lens doesn't always want to focus on what I want to focus on.  This one turned out okay in that respect but to me the original is a little dark and dull.  I wanted to soften the effect and lighten the overall effect. 

I started by cropping the photo a little, I did a slight levels adjustment and then added three layers of texture using different blending modes in Photoshop Elements.  I am a lot happier with the after shot however looking at it now I see that I would like to go back in and bring out a bit more of the green from the middle of the flowers, and really that's the goal of this little challenge.  To allow myself to see what I am missing by not editing.