August- September Assignment Calendar Photos

[F, Calla & Luca]

Back by popular demand we are doing calendar photos this month. This should give us plenty of time to get photos, critique them,  and in general try to help each other in this tough competition : ) I am copying some of Adina's past guidelines so you will have an idea of what's acceptable, assuming they will remain the same. I will also track down some of the back and forth we had about what's she looking for as far as content when I get a chance. Please only post photos that meet the minimal guidelines. We should all try to be honest in our comments. Sometimes I think we try to be nice , always a good thing, but avoid helpful criticism , which can also be a good thing. In this instance helpful criticism is to be encouraged I think.

Update: Adina's Guidelines

Update: 2011 Calendar Submission announcement

Update:  This assignment is going to continue for the month of September

For those of you asking about cameras and editing, this was taken with my Nikon D90, and I did barely any editing. See, no snow on Calla's nose

The original:

My submission, later cropped a bit more for the 2011 labradoodle calendar cover:

 

Update: Here are some more discussions that may give you more ideas of what Adina prefers. You have to wade through them.

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***** If you crop, and you should only do this judiciously, the photos need a MINIMUM of 1800 x 2300 pixels when Adina submits them. It's better to leave a margin for error, Adina can fiddle with the size if she loves your picture and needs to crop a little.

[F, Calla & Luca]

More software, shoot me now!

[Diane Margetts]

Very nice! And since you're asking, it looks like the Doodle in front (Calla or Luca?) was added? I don't know which PS you are using . . .but,  it's always tough to add an object into a photo--the real pro on this is Linda. She gave me some instruction once using masks. I have tried using refine edge in CS5 and it's still a lot of work to make it look perfectly natural . . . You also have to keep an eye on your light source. The Doodle in back is "lit" the one in front is not. And that sometimes occurs naturally--it's just something to watch . . . Now please go back to my first comment--very nice! If I weren't "looking" for problems, I would not have seen any . . . 

[F, Calla & Luca]

Somebody being lit and somebody not is often a natural thing in my yard with the trees filtering light etc. But the real Luca, front doodle, in this photo was too sunlit. I "content awared" him out and added Luca from elsewhere. Dagnabbit it is hard!! But I am trying to learn and that's what it's all about.

[Linda and "Toby"]

I'm so happy to see you jumping in and playing more with editing! Woo-hoo! At this distance it looks awesome. It's only when you get close that you see the areas that don't overlap as well as they could. But, you're sooooo close!!! 

Here's a trick.... once you get it to this point, flatten your layers, "copy" it, then go back to where you started and paste it. (Be careful if you resized your image along the way. If so, you'll have to just go back to that point). I don't recall if PS Elements has Layer Masks. If not, then simply "erase" the trouble spots on the top layer. Be sure your eraser/brush has "soft" edges, not "hard." And reduce the "opacity" of the eraser, so you do it gradually. (You might want to make a duplicate of the top layer and a duplicate of the bottom layer. Then if you mess up, you can delete those and try again!) 

[F, Calla & Luca]

That is great advice if I understood it : ) Flatten my layers, do I use a mallet? I did resize Luca, I think. Who knows by now? PSE9 has layers masks, really,  and pterodactyls, JK. But I keep discovering things I never dreamed of. I truly don't know more than half of the tools and have almost as many do overs as in knitting, which I never did master. We are planning a group project on editing, we will no doubt fumble along. Maybe I can make pictures only to be shown in cameos, i.e. very small : )

[Linda and "Toby"]

Hrm.... CS5 is a bit different from Elements. Let's see... it might be simply "merge layers." Try this... click on the top layer and then hold down Command+E. That should be the shortcut to merge them together. (Pterodactyls, eh? hahaha!)

[F, Calla & Luca]

Tomorrow when I recover from my trials of tonight I may try again. But thanks for the tip.

[Ozzy Bob and Leanna]

I'm very impressed!  Wish I knew 1/4 of what you did! 

[F, Calla & Luca]

Make sure you join us in the learn PSE project we plan for next month. We'll all learn from each other.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

What if you made the wrong choice of photo editing programs? I have Paint Shop Pro. :(((((

[F, Calla & Luca]

If there are other people you could do the same thing. But PSE 10 is out or coming out, you can't keep up with these companies. You can probably get PSE 9 for a song.

[Tina, Clover, Plus 5 More]

Linda, under the layers tab there is "merge down", "merge visible" and "flatten image" options.  Hope this helps.