I Heart Faces: Anything But Faces!

Something a little different this week at I Heart Faces. The theme is: Anything But Faces!

Here is my daughter in her pink Crocs playing a new game of hopscotch with the letters in her brother's name! She learns SO much from her 3 "big sisters" that live next door =)

Thanks for stopping by. Check out other interpretations at I Heart Faces!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I'm out of town this weekend, so hopefully this gets linked up to Ashley's Blog okay!!

Without further ado,here are my interpretations for this week!

Capture the Sky:

I wanted to take a new picture but the weather this week has been gloomy. So here's my favorite picture taken from my front door. That is my husband flying the plane on the left. Beautiful huh?

Life:

The never ending container of sippy cup parts. (My kids are 3 and almost 18 months)

Furry:



My Dogs Emily and Dakota! (They turn 8 in less than a month!)

Everyday:

My car. I've driven it everyday for almost 8 years. The 87,000 miles are all mine =)

Blurred:

I took this picture to use as an example of Focal Points for my upcoming Photography 101 Workshop.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you're having a great weekend!

Fix It Friday #88

Did this week's picture get posted late, or am I just that behind????

We are going out of town this weekend and my Photography 101 Workshop is next weekend.....so I must be the one that's behind!! LOL!

The model for this week's image is Angie Arthur's beautiful daughter!

SOOC:

Edit 1:

adjustments for my taste: Brightness +4, Contrast +20 and vibrance +15

In PSE7 I created an adjustment layer and increased the saturation +20 then used a black brush on 70% opacity to mask the saturation away from her skin. I then created a duplicate layer and used the burn tool to create a vignette. Sharpening using the High Pass Filter and blending mode set to overlay.

Edit 2:

Image from edit 1 then I ran Florabella's Luxe II action: Vanity.

Edit 3:

Image from edit 1 then I ran Florabella's Luxe II action: Tuesday.

I think edit 3 is my favorite! Whatcha think?

Sweet Baby {D}

A few days ago I had a wonderful opportunity to photography a 10 day old baby boy =) What a joy he was and we were even able to coax his big brother {A} to join in the fun! (With a few M&M's of course!)

Sweet Baby {A}

Sweet Baby A is finally here!!! Remember Renae's maternity pictures? They now have a beautiful baby girl =) Here are some of my favorite pics from the newborn session.



The bottom image has been a run-away hit! We're currently considering submitting it into some kind of military photo contest =) I'll be sure to update if anything cool happens!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Another Sunday and I was able to get pictures of all Ashley's prompts!

So without further ado:

Chocolate:

A chocolate rose from Valentines Day!

Numbers:

The 18th. A special day in our family =)

Canned Food:

My favorite Alfredo sauce. Yes, we will be eating it this week =)

Music:

A snapshot of my iTunes.

Stack:

A stack of King Sized Kit Kats (my FAVORITE chocolate candy) from my Valentine!

Have a great long weekend everyone! We'll be doing some shopping tomorrow =)

52 Week Project: Week 7

The theme for MCP's 52 Week Project Week 7 is: Open Your Heart.


Oye. A toughie. It took me a while to think of what to photograph, even what "open your heart" means. MCP is really making me think! LOL!





So finally, it came to me. Open Your Heart To Change. Yep, I know a lot about change. When you are a part of a military family change comes with the territory. Here is my photo:








Open Your Heart To Change. All the places I've lived. (Well, New Mexico is a stretch...Adam lived there while we've been together and I visited often ;)


A map of all the times my life has totally changed and I've had to open my heart to a new adventure.



I encourage you to join this 52 week project! Next week's theme is: The View From Here.

Fix It Friday #87

Another FIF over at I Heart Faces. The pose in the photo today is similar to one I already use for newborn sessions. LOVE it by the way ;)

SOOC:

A very nice, typical SOOC.

Edit:

basic edits in PSE 7. I created a levels adjustment layer and increase the mid tone brightness. I then created a background duplicate layer and changed the blending mode to 'soft light.' That is a really neat trick I learned a while back. It made the dad's shirt all black (the look I was going for.) That's it!

Edit 2:

Same edit as #1 and then I ran my favorite B&W action: Florabella's Vanilla.

Edit 3:

Same as edit #1 and then Florabella Luxe II action: Lullabye.

I like them all!

Hope you have a great Friday and long weekend!!!

Pixel Perfect Blog Hop

Woo...it's been really busy around here. Well, it feels like it's never not busy! 3 photo sessions this past week and a few days of AMAZING weather has kept the kids and happy and busy! I had to search a little bit to find a photo for this week's blog hop.

SOOC:

My son after he and his sister got into a splashing contest ;)

Edit:

Basic edits in LR3 and then Florabella Luxe II actions: Smitten and Vivid Color.

Stop by Monica's blog to see more before and afters! Hope you having a great week!

I Heart Faces Challenge: Red

This week's photo challenge at I Heart Faces is: RED. Perfect for Valentines Day and perfect for the maternity session I had this weekend!

This adorable couple will be welcoming their little Buckeye in about 6 weeks!

Stop by I Heart Faces to see other interpretations of RED!

Fix It Friday #86

A seriously adorable picture for us to edit today! This little model is Rachel Durik's daughter. I've had the wonderful opportunity to meet Rachel in person and take one of her online Lightroom classes. She is SO nice and I only wish we could've met when I was living in Florida (where she is) and not after we moved to Oklahoma!!! If you're interested, check out Rachel's blog too. =)

Moving on....

Here is the SOOC:

After looking at one of the I Heart Faces FIF tutorials by Andrea Riley, I wanted to give her look a shot.

Edit 1:

I really like it! I've recently re-discovered the burn tool and have found a lot of uses for it! Seriously, the learning never ends in Photoshop!!!

Edit 2:

I took the base ACR edit and ran Florabella Luxe II action Vivid Color. It is very cool, you run the action and then "paint" on where you want the vivid color to be (here I painted vivid color onto her red hat, pants and blue jacket).

Edit 3:

Same basic ACR edit and then Florabella Luxe II action Smitten.

Edit 4:

Same basic ACR edit and then I finally had the time to play with the 2 B&W actions in the new Florabella Luxe II set. This one I actually LOVE, it's called B&W Blush. What a nice rosy color added to a B&W image!

Feel free to let me know which edit you like the best! More edits of this image can be found at I Heart Faces!

Happy Friday everyone!!!

Pixel Perfect Blog Hop

It's been a cold but busy week here in SW Oklahoma! We survived the "snowstorm" with only 1 inch of new snow. I've been staying busy with the kids and 2 newborn sessions! How fun!!!

Here is a SOOC from my session of an adorable little girl on Monday.

B&W edit through LR3 and PSE7. Obviously an increase in exposure, brightness adn contrast. I also had to use the healing brush to get rid of the paci marks left on her face ;) Then a B&W Florabella action in Vanilla.

Hope you are all having a wonderful, warm Thursday!!!

To see more fun edits stop by Monica's Blog!

52 Week Project: Week 6

Phew, I lucked out with the theme for MCP's 52 week project this week. The week 6 theme was: Words. Well, one of Ashley's Scavenger Hunt Sunday items was "quote." Awesome, time to double dip!!!

Here is my quote/words for this week:

This is on my master bedroom wall. I nice reminder every day to make that day count!!!

Have a wonderful Wednesday everyone!!

Florabella Luxe II Actions

I really LOVE Florabella's products, especially their action sets! I have the B&W action set and the Luxe set. When I heard that they were creating a Luxe II set I was SO excited! Of course the Full Photoshop versions came out first and I patiently waited to the Elements announcement. This past weekend they were released and I snapped them up!!!!! (get on their mailing list and you often receive coupon codes.)

Anyways, I wanted to let you all know what I think of the new actions and show you all some Before/Afters!

There are 35 total actions (23 main actions & 12 enhancing actions). I've only played with the main actions so far. I think I'll check out the enhancing ones soon and report back!

So here we go:

(I tend to like more simple edits, I've turned down the opacity A LOT for most of these. You could easily create a more dramatic effect in your own editing) These are all images from the I Heart Faces Advanced Photography Workshop I attended in Dallas, last November.

Basic Edit (through LR3)

Smitten

Sugar

Vanity

Basic LR3 Edit

Tea Time

Pollyanna

Basic LR3 Edit

Tuesday

Timeless (MY FAVORITE)

Lume

Basic LR3 Edit

Trixie

Basic LR3 Edit

Blush

Envy

Love

Posh

Swoon

These are not all 23 actions. Honestly I didn't like them all and only showed my favorites. Granted, not every action is the right fit or each image. I do LOVE this set and hope you found this review useful. If you choose to get Luxe II I'd love to see what you can do with these actions!!! Have fun editing!!!

I am not being paid (although that would be nice) for my review. Just thought I'd let y'all know =) And please do not download any of these images, thanks!!