Before & After

BEFORE & AFTER:

I have decided to show you a few before and after photos from my taking the photo to the after editing image.

I love taking photos, but I also love the editing side of it.  I don't find myself to be a very creative person,  yet I love when I can lose myself in creating something with my photos.

And some people will say it is fake; but when an artist draws or paints, is that real?  It is no different.

I have seen some of the most amazing photos ever on IG, from "artists" who take photos they have taken themselves, and merge them together in Lightroom or Adobe to make a final composite image.  I'm not there yet; it is all app work for me.

I posted this caption with one of my recent photos on Instagram:

"Use what talents you have; the woods would have little music if no birds sang their song except those who sang best." 

I'm not the best at photography or editing, but I do my best and contribute just a little to the "music in the woods."  Sometimes I see a scene, snap, but know that there is nothing usable about it unless I go crazy and edit it.  Add a little bit of surrealism to it.

So, here goes.........

This was an OK shot, I just decided to do something different with it.  Just to have fun.

I like adding the surrealism into photos.

So, I added the moon, stars and light twinkle with AlienSky app, and the background using PicMonkey.

If you look close enough, you can see a dancer in the window.  She is from the Rhonna Designs App.

We were driving down the road late afternoon, and I liked the way the sky started to look (someone else was driving), so I shot this with my camera through the car window.  

I almost tossed it, but decided to play around with it a bit.

I have lots I play around with and still toss.

Once again I used the background from PicMonkey

The Lightning I believe was also from Pic Monkey, and the moon and stars were from AlienSky app.

The little deer was from the Rhonna Designs App

This was a dandelion shot that just wasn't as crisp as I would have liked.  Plus no color or anything else interesting about it......

So, I used the Reflect app and added the water and it gave it a lovely DOF & reflection

This was a sunset shot at one of our lakes.

There was nothing wrong with it, other than the fact I had posted several other shots from there recently and needed something different.

So, again, I used the Reflect App, this time finding many more options other than just a reflection. 

It is surreal and looks like it is from somewhere else other than here.  And. I. Like. it!

I have a thing for bird on a wire shots.  I am usually driving when I see the perfect ones and can't usually capture them.

This time I happened to be walking; not the best bird on a wire image, but I like the final.

I first added a candy color effect with the Rhonna Designs Magic App, which gave it the hot pink look, but I wasn't crazy about the sky.

So, I brought into the Pic Monkey website (app coming soon so I have heard) and added the sky background.

There are several skies to choose from and a few ways to make the final look with the "Blend Mode"

For the final Instagram image, I simply cropped it to get rid of any clutter.

This was a photo I took at one of our local OpSail events. Lots and lots of tall ships.

This photo kinda, well, sucked.

Look at all those people.  Toooooo much clutter for me.

We watched the movie "Pan" and it hit me right away that I had to try to make a Peter Pan edit.....to look like they were floating away in the sky.

I used RDMagic App for all my original edits & contrasts.

Then I used AlienSky App for the stars, twinkle.  

I added the tiny dancer from Rhonna Designs (I accidentally posted the one without the dancer to IG, so this is what it was supposed to look like)

This next edit came from an inspiration somewhere I saw on Instagram of a sunflower field with an awesome backlit sky.

So, I took this image of mine........the sunflower field we accidentally came across on a road trip. 

Believe me, it was a lovely accidental surprise.

....and used this sky as the backdrop.

(This image is from another Instagram friend who gave me permission to use this photo)

I used the Juxtaposer app to blend these two images.

It requires a lot of patience, as you have to do a lot of erasing of one image to get rid of the background and make them blend nicely.

This was the final image after the blending.

Anyway, that's it for now.  I am sure I will have another segment of this in the future. :)

Using Rhonna Designs Magic

I have been using the Rhonna Designs App for over a year now, playing around with photos and having fun.
But now Rhonna has a Rhonna Designs Magic App.  Let me tell you….it does create magic.

 With this photo, I started out using the Rhonna Designs app using one of her backgrounds, the black chalkboard.  I added in several elements and the wording "Believe" & Sprinkle Your Magic"
I then toggled back into the Rhonna Designs Magic app and added the coloring changes, the wording texture at the bottom and the scribbly edges & then **Magic** of blending in my photo onto of all that.  Doesn't it look like the sun is dripping?  That wasn't Rhonna magic, that was probably my hand moving when I took the photo.  Ha!
Let me mention that I toggled between the apps…..that means they work together.  I don't have to save photo and then open it up in another app and then save again.
With that said, if you want to reuse a design I would suggest saving it before adding more details.  I do wish I had saved the black chalkboard with the designs I had started with.  Lesson learned:)

Here are the apps--the original Rhonna Designs app on the left and the Magic on the right.

I thought it would be fun to show some of my original photos and then the edits I did using Rhonna Designs Magic edits.

But….shhhh….don't tell anyone.  This is kind of like giving away some of my secrets.

This is a photo I took at a little stop on the side of the road.  The girls and I fell in love with the flowers on the lilly pads.  I didn't have my good camera with me, so this is what I got.

I brought it into the Rhonna app, angled it differently, added the colors, filters, text and some texture.

Voila!!!

……and I like to make a monthly photo marker, so I added in the "september" text

I even went a step further with this one and brought it into the Retouch app to get rid of that little pesky leaf on the right hand side.  When I "squared" the photo in IG, it was in my way.  Begone leaf!!

As you can see in the original photo, the natural bokeh was there.  I am not good at adding fake bokeh into photos, but I love it when others do.

But it helped that it was already there and just worked beautifully when I added "Rhonna's magic"

There is an eraser tool that after I add Rhonna's magical colors which tones down the whole photo, I then go back and erase that over certain parts.  

Like in the photo above, I still wanted the flower part to pop out.

It's not as bright as the original, but it still shows some pink.

I love my sunflowers, but this one had too much green for me, so I sprinkled some magic on it and made the sunflower pop.

This was probably one of my first macro shots with my new olloclip.

I saved it for a long time, not really knowing what to do with it.

Then one day…the right photo prompt came, added rdmagic to it, and it made such a difference.

This may be one that the original looked prettier, but it was still fun to play around with.

This flower shot is one of my favorites.

We were at my in-laws house, so I had lots to look around and photograph.  

I decided this flower needed a sky background.  So I laid down on the ground, aiming my camera up at the sky, when my father-in-law happened to walk by.  He says "I am not even going to ask."

That quote makes it even more a fav.

Thanks for looking, ya'll!!

xoxo Tracey