Before and After - Jel

Tutorials to follow, I just want everyone to see why I'm loving my photoshop right now ~_~
I really don't know how I got to this, I used mainly the dodge and burn tool but I'm pretty much sure I did something with the hightlight/shadow button.

I'll update this as soon as I can.
Good night everyone!!

UPDATE
My second time to do non-self portrait.

I used one light behind Jel.

Light behind, slightly lower than the head.

Messing with the light.

Not my kind of editing. As much as possible I stay away from pictures that need a lot of "anime" editing.

I love surreal but not like this. It took me a couple of days to figure out how to to create the lighting effect.

Anyway, I envy photos taken with lenses with wide apertures. For me, DOF adds an extra "boom" in a portrait. I spent 30 minutes today browsing ebay for prices of 50mm 1.2 and 1.4 and said to myself, "I'm gonna getcha, baby!"

For the meantime, I'm gonna keep my photos sharp as much as possible, because I know dof and bokeh effects are far from reality at this point.

Happy reading to my fellow reviewers!

Falling Down Outtakes and Editing

Everybody has their own way of expressing themselves and it so happen that mine is through photography. I’m a quiet person, someone who loves to stand back and watch how everybody is doing. There is always something I can say about a person, ALWAYS, but I keep them to myself, a thing that I really like because it keeps me away from trouble. But the thing is, too much silence can be noxious.

I have chosen to abandon my photography for a while because every single photo that comes into my mind dictates negativity. A big mistake I can say, because it left me nothing but myself drowned in my silence where my anger has no way out but to bounce back to me. It left me crying silently for nights. It took me weeks to figure out I needed to talk to someone else.

I remember my psychology teacher once said, one needs to vent out stresses in life through what we call defence mechanisms, to maintain self integrity, to maintain balance in life, to keep life moving.

As the famous Albert Einstein said, “Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance, you must keep moving.” After two weeks of wasting my time, here is my come back upload to flickr.

http://flic.kr/p/8XP8bN

I tried tossing the chair but it was too heavy for me to flip while I'm on it. I did try putting something under one side of the chair but I didn't work as well. The next attempt was to do it in photoshop.

The first shots were flipping the chair.

Combined those shots to make something like this.

I used the copy and transform tool meticulously to clear out the background.

The second shots I did hair flips using a fan to give a sense of motion.

Copied myself and a part of the chair, and layered it on top of the first image. I used the transform tool to flip the the second image as if I was sitting on the flipped chair from the first image and there you go.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinpasol/5226099094/

Hope everyone is fine ~_~

Miss Invisible Lighting

 I used the Magic Wand tool to copy the highlighted part, I discovered the tool yesterday, and it made my editing a lot easier wohoooo.

Manipulate the color balance of the three (shadows, midtones and highlights). I played towards yellow for the highlights and cyan for the shadows.
Final retouching done with Dodge and Burn tool.

Hope this helps.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinpasol/5165045311/

Imortal Before and After

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinpasol/5146017530/

Man's greatest fear

The thing that man fears the greatest is himself.

Things I used: Remote, Flash (3m from my right)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinpasol/5135435819/

Before and After

 As much as I wanted to shoot outside, I couldn’t because it was raining so hard so I got back to my old photo room. Here are some of the outtakes.

First, I did clear the background. I used cloning and transforming to cover up unnecessary stuffs.

I manipulated curves and color balance as well as lighting effects.

Before and After

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinpasol/5120398355/in/pool-78841270@N00/lightbox/

Not everything can be photoshopped.

I have learned a lot of things tonight, photography wise, and I want to share it with you guys.

Technically, I haven’t missed a single photo day of my 365, but I wasn’t on flickr everyday. The reason why, because I thought I knew enough.

I thought I knew enough because when I shoot outdoors, most of the time I get a good exposure. When I shoot indoors, I know exactly when to raise my ISO, manipulate my aperture and have the focus I wanted, when to shoot in tripods for long exposures, to where I position my flash, blah blah blah blah.

I thought I knew enough, until tonight.

There were a lot of things going on with my work lately and there wasn’t a time that I got home not exhausted. To compensate for my 365, I still shoot, even if it’s not that creative, simple things that will make me remember the day when I look at the photograph. The bad thing was, it became a habit, until I wasn’t even trying to shoot something flickr-worth. I did a lot of planning, concepts, dresses, lighting, title down to the smallest detail, but no photoshoot happened.

I was okay with it for a while, not until tonight, when my cousins Joy, Ice, Glen and I did a photo shoot. We were so excited but my enthusiasm slowly turned into disappointment when I didn’t get the results I wanted.

"How's the light position again?"

"Why can't I make this thing look good?"

"What is happening with me?!"

For the first time, I only got 5 good shots out of 300, isn’t that frustrating?!

Not everything can be photoshopped. You need at least a good shot and make it look outstanding with the help of photoshop. Photoshop alone can't do your work!!!!

Photography isn’t just manipulating your camera or sitting with your laptop all day. You cannot learn photography in few days, or weeks- it takes a lifetime and unless you let it become a part of your life, you will never learn. Tonight I realized that I did spend thousands of pesos for my camera to bring out my creativity, not to learn to cheat myself.

Honestly, now that I am browsing the outtakes, I feel sorry for myself. I recognize that I haven’t been in my best and I'm starting to miss my old self- the one who is excited to be home early to catch the sun set at the attic, the one who goes for a photowalk, alone, the one who wastes the rest of her night with her laptop photoshopping, the one who spends two hours in a book store reading photography magazines.

Photography isn’t simple, it takes a lot of valour and dedication.I realized my perseverance is starting to fade out, and it scares the hell out of me. I thought I knew enough, now I realized I know nothing.

Aishelle, Joes, Glen

Thanks to them for I realized what a jerk I was.

BEFORE AND AFTER of our photoshoot.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinpasol/5117951570/

Here are some of my 365 not posted to flickr. All were taken with a samsung cellphone. How idle I was- the queen of procrastination.

It was a cloudy day. We went to eat crepes after work.

On our way home from a birthday party.