Photoshopaholic!

Hello, my name is Fermicat, and I am a photoshopaholic.

PDM got me Photoshop Elements 6.0 for Mac as a birthday gift. Here it is just a few days later and I am already addicted to messing with my digital photos. I lusted after this program for months. Digital photography is fun, and I wanted to take it to the next level: creative art (or pure crap, depending on your perspective). Not only do I find lots of stuff in my photos to fix (limitations due to both camera and photographer), I keep seeing really interesting, unnatural special effects on other people's Flickr photos that look very cool. I want!

So much to try... old fashioned hand tinted look, Orton effect, fake HDR, fake LOMO, removing clutter from photos, mixing objects from different shots, or creating a totally unique effect. While experimenting with these special effects, I am also trying to learn how to use Photoshop Elements. I know enough to be dangerous. There are probably better ways to do what I am doing, but learning by trying things is not a bad way to go.

This distraction is not good for my study plans. Another downside is that I am monopolizing PDM's Mac. Oh well. The newness will wear off soon and things will calm down. In the meantime I am having a blast taking ordinary photographs and making them into something special.

The Varsity street scene at the top of this post is my first attempt at the LOMO technique. It took me a couple of hours of adjusting to achieve. The boring photo I started with can be viewed here. The one below combines the Orton effect with fake hand tinting to create a dreamy, ethereal feel. I made a Flickr set to showcase my creations. There are several Orton photos in there, some hand tinted shots, and an attempt to recreate a vintage postcard type of look.

Weedy and Seedy

That was my herb garden this afternoon after a summer of near total neglect. Since it was merely in the mid-90s today instead of 100F, I decided to spend some time outside tending to my plants. Other than some quick harvesting here and there to make dinner, I haven't done a thing to the herb garden (or any of my other gardens) since June. When I went out to inspect the bed, I found overgrown untidy plants, with weeds running rampant, herbs all shaggy and gone to seed, brown or dead foliage, leggy and flopped over stems, and lots of spider webs and yard debris. What a mess!

It's fixed now, and looking a lot better. I should have taken before and after photos, but I'd almost be too embarrassed to post the "before" shot. As a reward for the hot, hard work, I harvested three big bunches of mint, thyme and oregano that are in perfect shape for drying.

I had some company while I labored: Moxy, on one of her first forays into the outside world (Zima was out there, too). Now that she is a year old and has had all of her "outside" vaccinations, we are letting Moxy join Zima as a part-time outdoor cat. We'll let her out while we are home to keep an eye on her. So far she is cautious and is not used to the heat, but seems to love getting to explore and experience new things.