Look What I Can Do!

I have Adobe Photoshop Elements on our computer, which is photo editing software. But, I've never really used it before....mainly because it's a little confusing, and I never have time to read the instructions, or sit down and just play with it. But MckMama, who writes one of the blogs I read, My Charming Kids, is actually a photographer and some of her posts have been all about how to do different things to your photographs using Elements. The instructions she gave seemed pretty simple, and I thought they sounded like stuff I would be able to do. Plus, I wouldn't have to actually read the instruction manual.


So tonight, instead of cleaning the bathroom like I'm supposed to be doing, I am sitting down and fooling around with some of my pictures. Mostly what I've been experimenting with are blurry backgrounds and color enhancing. I've been working on a few, but this one has turned out the "best" so far (I say "best" because I need a lot more practice before my pictures turn out the way I really want them to....but the ones I'm playing with have turned out better than they started).

This was taken of Elizabeth the winter she was in preschool....so, probably early 2007. It was during their sledding expedition (to the hill on the side of the preschool parking lot). This is the picture that came right out of my camera:

I opened the picture in Elements and did some background blur, and some color enhancing (changing the saturation). I can't tell you really what color saturation means, but it makes me sound very knowledgeable by telling you I changed it, doesn't it? Anyway, this is what I came up with:

I like the "new" one because the background blur makes it easier to focus on her, and the color enhancing makes her cheeks and coat a more vivid pink.

That's it for photography today!

I'll post later about Elizabeth's music concert and Donuts for Dad....both exciting school events that happened today.

But first, I have to go clean the bathroom.