Post-processing and getting kicked off the bird's nest...

I love taking pretty pictures, but what I like the most is taking those pretty pictures and making them even more prettier through a little thing called post-processing. Editing, in other words. Getting the right exposure, lighting, and ISO down are critical when shooting but after all that's set and done the creativity juices begin to flow when I open up my images in Photoshop. My older sister Arleth is a wedding photographer and she was the one that began getting me interested in photography. She  taught me the basics (exposure, iso, light reflectors, composition etc.) on how to shoot raw with an SLR camera in about one hour with a photoshoot she had me do of her, and after that she pretty much threw me off the birds nest and said "it's all you after this." She gave me a quick run-through in a day on how to import my images in Lightroom and Photoshop and like a little bird barely learning how to spread its wings in the photography little universe I had to pick up where we left off and I realized I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I'm still growing and this little birdie has alot of growing to do.

One of the things I had to teach myself how to used was Photoshop. Looking at some of the first photoshoots I did, I realized, well, I pretty much sucked.  First of all my exposure was off, my pictures we're too dark and and my photoshop skills weren't so great. Ok, they were wack. I was barely learning how to fly cuz' my sister threw me off the nest remember!! I'm kind of thankful she did though. That was I had to learn through trial and error. So far, I'd say my Photoshop skills have improved and now I feel a lot more comfortable in the types of actions I preferably like to use in my images. In this little bloggity post I wanna' show how I use post-process my images and how I use Photoshop to style my images and make them look more, well, pretty.

The actions I use in Lightroom are very minimal. I make sure that when I take a picture, my exposure and my ISO are right on the dot. That way it decreases the work I need to do on Lightroom. I ususally brighten or lighten my images just a tad bit and increase my black to 6. After Lightoom is done, I save my image and open them up with Photoshop.


In the picture below, the left image is the raw image and the right image is the final, edited version. In this particular image I brightened it up a bit, warmed it up with the "warm it up kris" action (15%), "get faded autumn" (10%), "pool party" (%15), "Lux soft" (20%) and I sharpened the image with "boutwell magic glass" (15%)

    ISO400 50mm f/2.5 1/100 sec

         (raw image) ISO400 50mm f/2.5 1/125sec

(Final version) In Lightroom: Black vignet. In photoshop, "Detroit black and white" (70%) "Lux soft" (8%) sharpened it with "Boutwell Magic glass" (15%)

(Raw image on the left and final image on right) Brightened it up a bit, "get faded autumn" (10%), "pro-retouch" (20%), "lux soft" (15%), "Flare up golden" (8%), shrpened it with "Boutwell glass magic" (15%).
ISO200 50mm f/2.8 1/125sec

Staying sane...

It's crazy how life can get a little, well, crazy. I've been super busy lately. School has captured me in its web of endless homework and studying, I have a theory my students at work are out to get me, and my car has been running on E for the past two days because I'm too cheap to put gas. Yeah, like I said, crazy. Recently my stress load has gotten' a little more stressful because in just a few weeks I have to take a little exam called the English CSET. I call it the devil. It's a qualification for becoming an English teacher and I'm just taking the first out of three sections. For the next couple of weeks my life revolves around allegorical dictations, anthropomorphism (say what?), the rythmic rise and fall of oral language and other words I didn't even know were part of the English language. So pray I keep sanity in tact.

But in other good news, this past Sunday my sister and borther in law announced they're having their first baby!!! Which in turn will make me the coolest aunt, like ever. Can't wait to see that little face in April. <3

Happy Thursday!

Why I love Fall...

It's that time of year. The time that makes you wannna' snuggle up with a fuzzy blanket, wear toe socks and rock a cute scarf. I looooove fall.  Like a fat kid loves cake and I really love cake, all you readers know that. Today, I looked inside my closet and I saw my mustard yellow knitted sweater I bought a few days ago tucked inside like it was yearning to see world outside the doors of my closet. I exagerate internet, just go with the flow. Southern California weather is funky, and every Californian knows that. Mr. sun  seems to hang out the entire year, so when he decides to let some clouds in, that's when all mustard yellow sweaters break loose and the booty shorts are gone. Yes, I said booty, and no I don't wear them. So what's my point? Booty shorts are hootchie. I'm kidding. I don't have one. I just really like fall because I get to wear cute sweaters and scarves and I just wanted to post it on the world wide web. BAM! Those are the perks of having your own blog. You can write about toe socks and and mustard. With that said, I'm gonna' go buy myself a hot pumkin spice latte and play in a bundle full of fall leaves.

 

Happy fall ya'll! :)

Portraits: Viviana & Evon

They make each other laugh the minute one of them looks at the other. Vivian and Evon are sisters and this past Saturday I spent my afternoon soaking up the Cali sunset and getting my shoes dirty with these two ladies and it was nothing but long laughs and STOP making that wierd face remarks the entire time. Seriously, I love these girls, and it's not because they compliment my outfit everytime they see me even when I look toe up from the flo up and my hair looks like it's never seen a comb. They're some of the sweetest girls I know. We met at church and having them in front of my camera being all rawr n' stuff was awesome.

Viviana and Evon, you ladies rocked the camera and made my job a whole lot' easier. Thanks for being such fabulous models! Love ya!

And for starters, here's Viviana. Work that hair girl, work-it!

Evon, you're gorgeous girl.  

After a quick outfit change we headed back for some more pics, and Viviana, all I gotta say is fierce!

Fierceness all over the place!

And I'll end with my favorite.

M.I.A, my birthday and future contest!

I've been a little M.I.A lately, but that's what happens when a sistah gets a job and has tests to study for and blah blah blah. That's how it's been for the past couple weeks, but no worries my awesome posers (that's my new name for all you Pose Photography lovers. Cheesy, I know), I will be showcasing new shoots soon and I am super excited to post them on the blog. This Saturday I will be hanging out with some gorgeous little ladies for a senior shoot and something tells me it's gonna' be fabulous.  Also, I am in the process of organizing a contest in the next few months. A lucky girl will have the opportunity to be a model for day. You heard right. Model for a day!! The winner will receieve a FREE $50.00 gift card to Forever 21 stores for the purchase of an outfit that will be worn to a FREE photo shoot with yours truly with FREE 40 high resolution images on disc, and awesome FREE hair and makeup will also be given. I love free stuff. Then again, who doesn't? So stay posted for contest dates and more information. Holla!!!

Oh, and because posts are much more better with pictures, I celebrated my birthday this week and really, I couldn't have asked for a more amazing group of friends and awesome family to celebrate it with. On the Sunday before my birthday, I spent my afternoon at Buffalo Wild Wings with my young adult family from church sipping on mango lemonade and drowning our asian zing buffalo wings in ranch dressing, and ofcourse laughing at who knows what. And the other little details that came later this week made me realize I'm a blessed girl and I hope the years to come continue to be full of warm fuzzies, lots of hugs and amazing people around me. Here's a picture of a birthday cake a good friend of mine made me. She is clearly aware of my love affair with chocolate.

And because I love food, here's another picture of how the morning of my birthday looked. Some of my lady friends came over and cooked an awesome breakfast packed with an illegal amount of pancakes, crumb donuts, and Tapatio sauce.

 

Super woman...

Last Friday I receieved an e-mail from my school that said they had dropped me from the courses I had previously registered for. Apparantly my account stated I still owed money from last semester, a couple of hundreds to be exact, and being the calm and collected individual I have always been I simply took a deep breath and smiled. LIES internet!! I freaked out like no other and with the semester starting on Tuesday I wasn't sure if the issue would get resolved on time for me register again and start school. I called student accounts in frantic mode and banged my head on the desk a few times when I had to wait to be the next caller in line. So I waited patiently. LIES again!! I hung up and called again like ten more times until someone answered. And when someone did answer my instant reaction was to morph into Bonquisha and hope the person on the other line could somehow see my index finger moving in the air through the phone. But after a few seconds I calmed down as the very sweet lady on the other line promised she would get to the bottom of the issue. After about thirty minutes on the phone she apologized for the confusion and said their system had made a mistake. I could register for my courses, however, due to their honest mistake I had to fill out, again, a form that indicated I was a grad student instead of an undergrad. I could either fax it to them or bring it in person. I don't have a fax machine so I had to print it out, but it turns out the printer had ran out of ink. So I sat down, took a deep breath and kept my cool. Umm, yeah, LIES!!!!! I ran out the door with twenty dollars in my hand, hair looking like it was desperate for a comb, black nike work out shorts, flip flops and a torn up t-shirt and drove to Staples with my gas light on. I bought the ink in my ghetto attire, went back home and printed out the darn thing and drove to CBU. With my gas light on. I waited an hour at the financial aid office before I handed in my paper work and drove back home with just enough time to get ready for work. With my gas light on. Oh yeah, my little green honda hates me.

Yeah, I know what your thinking. I'm super woman, or I'm just crazy. Thinking back, I could have just called someone to print  out the form for me but remember, I'm not calm and collected. Anyways, I started school today so that means goodbye social life. Between work and school I'll be really busy this semester so pray I can keep my cool and to remember to comb my hair. And put gas in my car.  Labor day was great but now it's back to the real world. Hooray!....LIES!!!!

Happy Tuesday! :)

Little pink piggy banks

We spent ou morning eating blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes at a local Denny's, and browsing through racks of used clothes. One of my best friends was visiting from Texas and yesterday we spent the entire morning and afternoon talking smack, dancing in my car, trying on used up jeans and spending four dollars all together watching Katy Perry's: Part of Me movie at the two dollar movie theatre. My friend, Mariel, she's a budget diva. This girl can have a great time under $20.00 so when she told me she was coming to California  I told her one of the things we needed to do together was visit Goodwill.  She almost died when I told her I had never been there. You see, she doesn't believe in spending more than ten dollars on a shirt and this girl always looks cute. I told her she needed to teach me her bargain shopping ways and when we visited the shoe section I asked her "What if I get fungus!!??" out loud. I was being serious. She just thought I was exagerating. Whatever. I only get to see her about once a year when she comes and visits so the time we get to spend time together is great.

The other day she gave me a little piggy bank she bought back in Tay-xus (you like my southern accent huh?) so I could save up some money to go visit  her. So far there's ten dollars in it because Mariel put them in there to give me a head start. That can get me a pack of gum, a magazine for the flight and like twenty shirts from Goodwill. Just sayin'.

Happy Friday! :)