Before and After: Ferris Wheel 09.17.11

I came down with a cold or something yesterday. I am not feeling too hot today, but editing this photo made me feel a bit better :o). I took this at the Puyallup Fair on Saturday. I have seen so many gorgeous ferris wheel shots lately that I just had to try my hand at it as well. It was a rainy day and I was sad that the sky behind the ferris wheel was so drab. In my edit I decided to play with the tones using Pioneer Woman's actions. I think I have tones on the brain from Tones on Tuesday, my first link up I am hosting. I like the old photo feel. Thoughts and critiques are always welcome!

Still time to link up a photo with altered tones in Tones on Tuesday:

Before 

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel Ti1 

Settings: ISO 200, 55mm, ss1/200, f/5.6 (full manual)

After

Edited with Adobe Photoshop

Used Pioneer Woman's Vintage and Lovely and Ethereal Actions

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go." - Dr. Seuss

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Before and After: Lily Pads of Beaver Lake 09.03.11

There is no denying the power of editing and I have been using it this week to take my photos to a different place. I did some selective coloring yesterday and a creative color enhancing edit on Tuesday. The before and after I chose for today is from my color enhancing edit. While I love both of the edits I did this week, they are both creative edits as opposed to clean edits. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I do think it shows me that I have a ways to go in developing my photography skills. I love that I can take a picture that did not turn out amazing SOOC and make it an artistic representation. But through experience and more learning I hope to capture photos SOOC that leave me feeling the same way I feel after these edits. 

With my edit my main goal was to remove the tree trunks in the reflection of the water. This ended up removing all of the lines in the water which I do miss a bit. I am not sure how to accomplish both in Lightroom. I would love any tips or suggestions and I would love to know what you think of the original versus the edit. Thanks for stopping by!

Before 

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel Ti1 

Settings: ISO 100, 250mm, ss1/6, f/6.3 (full manual on tripod)

After

Edited with Adobe Lightroom

"It is only by loving nature, and going to her for everything, that good work can be done; but then we must look to her for the materials for pictures, not for pictures themselves. It is nature filtered through the mind and fingers of the artist that produces art, and the quality of the pictures depends on the fineness of that filter." - Henry Peach Robinson

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Before and After: Capitol Building Corridor 08.28.11

First day of school went well, but I am exhausted! So, I am going to keep this short and sweet. For more information about this conversion, check out my post from yesterday. I love what the black and white did for the photo, but I am dying to know what you think about the original picture. Is it better in color? As always, thoughts and suggestions are always welcome!

Before

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel Ti1

Settings: ISO 400, 18mm, ss 1/25, f/5.6 (full manual)

After

Edited with Adobe Lightroom

"There's something strange and powerful about black-and-white imagery." - Stefan Kanfer

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Before and After: Enumclaw Sunset 08.21.11

This week I have been working my way through my plethora of pictures that I took during the sunset on Sunday (as you can see from all of my posts this week :o). The shots are very similar, yet different in lighting, sky and the grasses. I love the subtle changes. For this before and after I went with a creative edit as the last edit I did was more clean. I again used Courtney's (from Click it Up a Notch) tips for editing silhouettes that I used on one of my previous sunset posts. I upped the blacks and contrast, the temperature and tint, vibrance, clarity and saturation and finally underexposed it a little bit. I usually like the more natural look when editing my photos. I know this time I went a bit over the top with the colors, but there is something, that in this case, I love about that.

I would love to hear your thoughts and critiques on what works and what I could have done differently. Thank you for stopping by!

Before

Taken with Canon EOS Rebel Ti1

Settings: ISO 100, ss 1/16, f/18 (full manual on tripod)

After

Edited with Adobe Lightroom

"A picture is a poem without words." - Horace

Linking up with Pixel Perfect Blog Hop. Head over and see the over before and afters!