Good to Wow Edit: Pumpkins 10.15.11

The time has come to edit my pumpkin pictures for the Good to Wow Challenge. This week I used white balance settings other than auto to capture my SOOC shots. I was very impressed with how they turned out and when I went to edit them there wasn't a clear need for editing. I wanted to try split toning as Ashley had suggested on her post, but I just didn't have the right kind of highlights and shadows. So I decided to keep the shots SOOC and make a collage. I have been wanting to give one a try for a while and I thought this was the perfect time.

To do so, I went to Click it Up a Notch and found an old post where Courtney links to free Photoshop and Lightroom collage templates. I decided to use Lightroom for this as my trial for Photoshop is quickly approaching its end and I already have the full version of Lightroom. The link Courtney provides is to a great assortment of templates and an easy to follow tutorial of how to use them - it can be found here. I followed the tutorial, added my SOOC pumpkin shots (with the exception of one as it just did not fit so I used a shot I did for Shades of Autumn), added a quote to the empty box in Photoshop and ta-da! A collage was created. I like the simplicity of it for my first attempt and I love seeing all of the shots together. I would love to add borders around each image in the collage. Is that possible in Lightroom? Regardless, I am proud of how this turned out. I think it is fun and a great capture of this time of year.

I would love to hear your thoughts. How do you do collages? Do you know how to add borders? Any freebies to share :o)? Thank you for stopping by!

Linking up with Good to Wow: Edit. Check out the amazing before and afters! 

Good to Wow SOOC: Pumpkins 10.15.11

For the Good to Wow Challenge this week the prompt was pumpkins. I was not too excited about heading out to capture the shots as the sky was overcast and the first pumpkin patch we drove by was so crowded that I couldn't see how I would get the photos I wanted. Driving down the road a ways we found a road side farm stand with a small pumpkin patch. The people there were friendly and it was the perfect setting to take my time shooting different angles. As for the overcast sky, I mentioned yesterday that I used the cloudy setting for white balance on my camera as I don't think I can dial in the Kelvin setting. I think it brought out the orange of the pumpkins and made the pictures feel warm. In some cases maybe a little too warm, but overall I am happy with the outcome. All in all it was a very productive day of shooting as you can see by the fact that I am once again breaking my own rule and posting more than one photo :o). Thank you for stopping by and I would love to know what you think about the white balance. Oh, and if you have a favorite please let me know. I had a very hard time narrowing these down!

Here are my straight out of camera shots...

Settings: ISO 200, 55 mm, ss1/100, f/5.6 (full manual)

Settings: ISO 200, 51 mm, ss1/320, f/5.6 (full manual)

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

Settings: ISO 200, 40mm, ss1/250, f/5.6 (full manual)

Settings: ISO 200, 55mm, ss1/160, f/6.3 (full manual)

Settings: ISO 200, 44 mm, ss1/320, f/5.6 (full manual)

"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all." - Stanley Horowitz

Linking up with Good to Wow! Head over and check out the other SOOC shots.