Domestic Photographic

One of my goals has been to figure out how to use texture effectively. I can't say I've really figured it out yet, but after playing around for awhile today I think this one looks okay. I did a couple on photos of Moses that just looked TERRIBLE--I think its harder to make texture look good when there's a person in the picture (at least for me), but I'm hoping to get the hang of it. Until then, I give you this:

Original:

We took Moses for a stroll through the woods for his nap today. He slept in the ergo, and I got to take these:

SO busy lately. I did take a couple minutes to go to the store for a new highlighter (I used up my old one in all my frantic studying), and on the way there I saw this bee.

Moses' new favourite pass time is opening DVD cases and taking the DVDs out. He is a monster :/

Moses learned his first sign. He's doing the sign for milk in this picture.

I didn't take this, because I'm in it. I did edit it, though.

A little action happy, here. I promise I won't become one of those people who uses an action on everything, but this was fun. I'll quit it once they lose their novelty. A lot of these are blended combinations of different ones, but they are all by Coffeeshop.

I've been experimenting with actions since getting Photoshop Elements. Here's a tip--if you can't afford $80 for Elements 8 (which is $120 in Canada), you can do what I did and buy an older version of Elements on Ebay. It cost me $26, and maybe the newer versions are better, but as I have no frame of reference, Elements 6 suits me just fine.

For this photo, I used Coffeeshop's Butterscotch Vintage action, at 48% opacity. I still did my usual curve and contrast adjustments, and I lightened it quite a bit and lowered the saturation so that the action didn't overpower the photo.

It's about time, considering the fact that he's going to be ten months old in a week. Whoopsie.
We had to wait until he was sleeping, because otherwise he won't sit still and will throw the blocks or knock them over.

As I mentioned in other posts, I've been working on my black and white converstions. I think I've come up with a "recipe" that I like, at least for certain photos.

Today my macro lens filters came. I have a real macro lens on my wishlist, but until then these will do! I didn't have a lot of time to practice between studying and taking care of Moses, but I did manage to snap a couple pictures of my ring.