52 Photos Project - All Dressed Up...

Reusing the pic of Violet I took a couple or so week's back on our first shoot of the year for this prompt.

 

Matt Edit How To...

I thought it was time I did something constructive and posted a quick 'how-to'.  You see a lot of images with a matt edit on them - some people love them, some hate them.  I think it looks great on the right image.  Like most edits it's very quick and easy to achieve in LightRoom - so here goes.

So here's my original image of Pepper being a diva under a blanket,

and this is how the histogram looks.

NB You don't have to take any notice

of your histogram if you don't want to, I'm only

showing it to illustrate what I'm doing and why.

What we want to do is lessen the contrast and squash the tones together toward the centre of the histogram.

So here's the first edit. 

 On the Tone Curve in RGB mode I've brought the shadow point up (left side) 

and the highlight down (right side).  

Note what it's done to the histogram.

I used the contrast slider to add slightly more contrast than I had...

 The Tone Curve is great for working with different

colour channels too.  I wanted a more 'vintage' feel to the image so

I used the Red channel and took

the shadows very slightly up and the highlights down.

I then used the same technique with the Blue.

To show you can play around with the Tone Curve

to get the effect that best suits your image and the effect you want,

here I've taken the original photo and moved only the

shadows pointer, but also brought the curve down slightly.

The whole thing is now 'punchier' with brighter light tones. 

Here's the same image with the saturation

slider taken right down to the light.

I think the matt effect particularly 

suits black and white.

So play around with it and have fun.

Song-ography...

The Lazy Song...

Some people have been very lazy this week... others of us have been jumping around like jumping around things taking photos all over the place (although there's always time to stop for tea).

12/365...

First frost of the year...

11/365...

The weather held for our first outdoor shoot of the year...

10/365... 'Life's but a walking shadow...'

Pepper has a moment of

nihilistic angst in the hall...

9/365...

Ralph learns about the mysterious and ever elusive red dot...

8/365...

Ralph was being a little bugger again this morning, he annoyed Charlie, accidentally slashed my finger, killed the rug, stole some food, and jumped around on the stairs - and that was all before 7am :-)

7/365...

Juiced veg for breakfast - am trying to counter the effect of Christmas.

Cats on Tuesday...

In which the cats did sod all really!

 Pepper watched the rain...

Charlie watched the rain...

(and me getting wet!!!)

Mrs P thought about watching the rain... 

... and Ralph didn't care

as he'd found another Christmas

decoration to kill.

Charlie and I tried out

my new infa-red remote for my camera :-)

Finally, Charlie enjoyed himself thinking

up threats for anyone who might try to

use his images illegally...

More kitties at Gattina's Cats on Tuesday.

6/365...

Angel...

5/365 and Songography...

'Unwritten'...

New day, new month, new year... There's always this terrible kind of pressure in January to CREATE THE NEW YOU, or MAKE THIS YOUR BEST YEAR EVER! I'm not into new year resolutions for precisely that reason - you  end up feeling like a complete failure when you get to February and you haven't been to the gym every day, got your finances in pristine order, or you've failed in your attempt to give up chocolate.  Instead I try to remember to be very grateful for what I have now,  to enjoy every day for what it is and to take whatever opportunities come my way.  As for past mistakes, well, whatever decisions we've made in the past, we don't have to keep letting them affect us.  Every cell in our bodies has changed countless times since this time last year, none of us are the same people we were, and we have the chance to start again from day to day, minute to minute, to keep on being 'unwritten'.  

Namaste...

New day, new opportunities...

 Red sky in the morning may mean shepherd's warning,  

but it also means make sure you have

your camera at the ready :-)

For my 365...

Out with the macro filters
and a rather blingy belt buckle.

More entries over at Kathy's blog.

4/365...

Ralph is mainly being bored today because it's raining, he has ABSOLUTELY NO TOYS that he wants to play with (!), and the other cats are asleep.  It's a recipe for potential mayhem.

3/365...

Out to lunch at the meditation centre - I love going to fully vegetarian eateries :-)

Linking to:
1440 at Finding Serendipity.
Photo Story Friday

2/365...

Christmas is officially over - the decorations are being packed away today (no way do they get left up until Twelfth Night).  Ralph is now experiencing gloom because all of the shiny toys he liked to trash are disappearing.  I do enjoy the build-up to Christmas, I love seeing the Christmas lights in the streets, and carol concerts, and the house looking festive.  I don't enjoy the hype, the insane consumerism and the forced jollity of it all, and right about now I'm ready to move on.  David won't want to admit this but we've grown very fond of having fairy-lights on the banisters, so we may have to keep them out (if Ralph doesn't decide to visit the curse of the claw on them and/or electrocute himself that is.

Settings: 1/30, f/4, ISO250, 35mm
Processed in LR5, texture and text added in Elements.

Linking to

You Know You're Mad When...

You agree to attempt a 365 photo challenge on Flickr...