Saturday, June 13, 2009

{the same but different}

the kids had a day off from school yesterday. we spent a lazy morning at home doing laundry, planning the menu and doing the shopping on line ! our groceries arrived this morning and i've put them away already ! it's 7:38 am (love it) i couldn't do all the shopping on line though because i needed stuff for dinner last night. but that's a whole nother story.

getting back to this story ...

about lunch time, we finished hanging the last load of laundry and got ourselves packed up for an afternoon at the beach.

welcome to winter in queensland !!!

the kids actually wanted to swim but the best i'd go them is walking in the water, and dodging the spray of the waves on the rocks. i took my camera, of course, and many many photos were taken. last night, after the kids were in bed, and while rory watched the footy, i sat and played in GIMP.

i did this photo with many different effects and can't decide which one i like best. what do you think ??

this is the straight out of camera photo ...

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if you are here visiting from melody's SOOC Saturday, you may want to stop reading here as the photo above is my submission for this week ... the photos below are anything BUT sooc !!! :)

here's my basic formatting ... what i usually do to most of my photos. i played with the curves, brightness and saturation just slightly and added a vignette to the edges and a black border around the outside.

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here, i used 'apply threshold' and it changed to this lovely black and white. i used a white paintbrush to get rid of everything but the kids and their shadows ... added a black border too.

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for this next one, i used the colorize feature and then messed with the hue, saturation and lightness to get this blue overall tone. i also rounded the corners.

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after i'd done a few of these, i decided to do a few more. i really was just liking all of the effects that were happening and thought i'd just try some stuff that i'd never tried before. the next one was an accident. i was playing with the brightness and saturation to make it vibrant enough to change to a nice sepia or black and white but i liked what it did so left it.

what i did was make it quite bright and then pulled the saturation up as well. this made the background pretty much disappear. i used the clone tool to get rid of the little rocks in the sand as i wanted just the kids and their reflection left. i did a vignette and rounded the edges. i love vignettes !! do ya'll know how to do them ? i can do a little tutorial if any of you are interested. it's easy peasy ! just let me know in the comments ..

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this last one might be my favorite. i don't know. i just can't choose. but i love what happened to the color of the sand and water !! i was messing with the 'auto' features on this one, where the program just does automatic adjustments. i used the auto equalize, auto white balance, auto color enhance and auto normalize. a little tweek with the brightness and contrast and here's what resulted ...

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oh yeah, i rounded the corners on that one too !

so, tell me ... do you have a favorite ? and what is it about that particular one that makes it your favorite ??

18 comments:

Mrs. Wallace June 13, 2009 at 8:14 AM  

What a decision!! They are all so nice...each in a different way. I think my facorite might be the last one though because you can see extra detail in the sand and ocean waves because of the colors.

Sarah June 13, 2009 at 9:05 AM  

Personally, I think I like the last one due to the detailing of it, and also the blue tones because I love the shadowy figures.

As usual, I love them all, but I think those would be my favorites!

Mari June 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM  

I was tryign to pick as I scrolled down and it was hard! I think my favorites are the second one and the second to last. I don't know why though!

A Captured Reflection June 13, 2009 at 10:15 AM  

Well I just love them all, being a lover of the contrasts how each picture had a different and beautiful quality. Oh I wish it was warm here - be so nice to be in the tees again!

Cheri June 13, 2009 at 10:33 AM  

My favorite one is the last one!!

Palmer and Co June 13, 2009 at 11:46 AM  

Um... IMPOSSIBLE to choose a favorite! They are awesome!! Ok, I really like the 3rd one of the kids in black with all the white. And, the 4th one. But really, they are all fantastic!!

jane June 13, 2009 at 5:16 PM  

this looks like so much fun. hard to choose, but i think i like the second to last one the best. have a great weekend bonnie- besos-jane

Khrista June 14, 2009 at 3:41 AM  

I would print the black and white one big and hang it in my house! If I were you of course... I love the contrast in that one. The focus is totally on the kids and nothing else! I also like the last one...Love the vibrant colors.

T'lia June 14, 2009 at 8:55 AM  

I'm voting for either the last one of the second last one. But they're all so good!

Anonymous June 14, 2009 at 10:10 PM  

Yes, I have a favorite! I like the plain black and white with the black outline...for some reason it really speaks to me.

SoCo mom June 15, 2009 at 8:25 AM  

I like the SOOC one, and a big vote for the black & white one.

Terri June 15, 2009 at 10:00 AM  

Oh my word - they are so cool. I love the last one and the one where's it's all purple and blue.

Rachel June 15, 2009 at 12:15 PM  

Those are cool! Amazing how much of a difference a little processing makes! The colors are so vivid on that last one!

Floortime Lite Mama June 15, 2009 at 9:38 PM  

Beautiful pix - what timeless magic children on the seashore have
I like the black and white one the best

Ms Muffin June 16, 2009 at 1:27 AM  

Wow, those are such cute photos. I have to admit I like the second - with the black border - most. I am not too much into effects and stuff. But I also really like the second from the bottom. It looks like art ... kinda reminds me of a book cover or something.
I am very impressed that you did that with Gimp. My husband is trying to get me to use it ... but for some reason I simply don't get the hang of it ... Maybe I should give it another try. Really amazing what you can do with it!

danette June 17, 2009 at 10:36 PM  

Wow, what a fun idea! I like them all, but I think my favorites are the first one w/ the vignette and the 2nd to last one.

Ellie June 18, 2009 at 3:07 AM  

They were all my favorite until I scrolled to the next and then it became my favorite. I love the blue one best. It's so pretty. But I also really like the last one best. The colors are so amazing. Those two are my favorites.

Tessa June 20, 2009 at 9:33 AM  

Just love what you have done. How come you have more time than I do? Is it just organisation? Jealous M-I-L


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