Sunset

Many of the best sunsets occur when a storm is on its way. Such was the case Tuesday night. I watched rain clouds forming when I came home that night. I had to find a good vantage point from which to photograph the sunset. Finally, I stood on an Interstate overpass and aimed at a farmstead on the horizon.

The camera didn’t do justice to the sunset, so I began to enhance the photo in Photoshop. I used both cooling and warming filters, then dodged and burned the image until it became what you see now. Ansel Adams had to spend hours in the darkroom enhancing his images; I’m only following in his footsteps.

Halloween bunny

This rabbit posed patiently for me while I took several photos. When I downloaded this one, I burst out laughing.

Mr. Red-Eyed Rabbit is not one I’d want to meet on Halloween night! He appears to be possessed.

I could use Photoshop’s red-eye removal feature, but I like the “possessed-rabbit” picture.

Years ago, we covered a football game involving the Jackrabbits. At halftime’s end, ‘Rabbit fans formed a lane for their players’ return to the field. As the players ran through the lane, fans chanted, “Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!” The chant sounded more like “Rabids! Rabids! Rabids!”

Maybe this rabbit was the rabid rabbit they were chanting about.

That radiant glow

Until I used this photo in an illustration, I did not notice that the leaves glow. I swear that I did not do some special tricks in Photoshop to make that happen. I don’t know that much about Photoshop! And even if I did, I doubt I’d have the patience to draw glowing areas around each leaf.

The glow is just some natural lighting effect, God’s gift to this photographer.

Or maybe the sunflower is radioactive and I’ve received some as yet undiscovered supernatural powers from exposure to this thing?

Lights, camera, actions

I have recently learned to love Photoshop's Actions palette. Actions allows the user to automate repetitive tasks. I created an "Initial Processing" action. It runs all Photoshop's automatic adjustments (auto levels, auto colors, auto contrast) plus unsharp mask.



Here's the original picture using my own actions.

I have found that auto colors tends to make pictures bluer than I'd like. If I don't like new color, I go into the history palette and click on the step before auto colors. That removes auto colors.

Then I use the unsharp mask command again. It's under filter ---> sharpen. Unsharp mask has three sliders. I have set my amount slider at 50 percent, radius at 1.0 pixels and threshold at 0 level. I rarely change these.

I've also automated changing the photo's dots per inch from its original setting to 72 (web quality).

To make your own action, choose the actions palette under windows. Click on the circled arrow or three bars at the upper right of that palette for the menu. Choose either "New Set…" or "New Action…". "New Set" will make a folder for your actions, but a new folder is not necessary. After naming your new action, click "Record", then complete the commands you wish to automate. When finished, choose "Stop Recording".



I found some very fun actions, including the collage, at Visual Blast Media.



The Pioneer Woman is another source for great actions. Hers are more practical than the fun ones at Visual Blast Media. I used Quick Edge Burn on this one.