What I Do In My Free Time- Photoshop!

This Blog Originated Here

This was one of my first "successful" Photo-Manipulations with Fire

Free time, when I have any, is generally spent on playing guitar, or writing, but my true passion is photo enhancing/manipulating/editing in Adobe Photoshop CS6!

Anyone who takes the time to get to know me will tell you, I have a vivid imagination and a lot of crazy ideas. I’m no pro, but I have learned a few tricks that I've shared that have helped me in the past, and a few of my friends.

Perhaps what draws me to Photoshop the most, is the never-ending possibilities. You can literally create anything if you have the right resources and creative spark!

I like very detailed, visually enticing artwork, so I try to make my work as fun to look at as possible!
I have seen a few great ideas that people had and I have done a personal spin off on them to come up with my own unique photos.

Not everything is “copy and paste” with no real talent, just a few filters, and Poof, I’m done - Not the way I Photoshop!

I get my hands dirty, and honestly, I fail a lot before I produce anything I like!

Using this effect helped me learn how to use Channels to grab shadows, use masking, and play with lighting

I often display either humor, or something I simply think is cool.
I love the fire effects I’ve tried, but perhaps I’ve over-done some of the effects. I do tend to over-do a lot, so part of my learning experience is to KISS(Keep It Simple, Stupid).
Again, I am no master, by any means, but I do love to create, and I do love to produce these strange, and hilarious, down-right weird photos! Some of my work I pour all my efforts into, and other pieces of work, I merely click a few tabs, press a few buttons, draw a few lines, and then click save as .jpg and then adjust lighting. Done. So yes, I run through some simple steps, but usually, it draws me in, and I feel compelled to keep editing til' I am happy with the result. Settling for less is not in my nature.

Photoshop has come a long was since the Version 7 platform I started out on!

Some awesome features I use regularly-

Content-Aware

This is an awesome feature, It stitches together portions of the photo to fill a “hole” or selected area-
Now,  selecting an area on the “background layer” and hitting delete will summon a menu that gives you this option, and allows you to choose to use this tool! This is great for deleting small discrepancies like people in the distance, or for moving objects and letting the program fill the hole it leaves behind. Works very well most times, but there are mixed results, since the outcome is random and based on the diversity of content in your photo. Over-all it is one of the best features of CS6.

Cropping Tool

Adobe Found a way to finally make sense of the crop tool! Now as you crop, you have a preview of the final outcome of the photo-so no more selecting a certain area, the hitting enter, then processing, then seeing that you don’t like it after its completed. Whether you are rotating a photo, or just trimming it down, or both, you get a real-time preview, and that speeds up the whole process!

HDR Tool

HDR images fuse multiple shots taken over a variety of bright to dark exposures into one photo. This means that the shadow detail can be “turned up” in an overexposed image that is far too bright, and that hidden brightness can be intensified in an image that is far too dark. The results can be staggering! This gives you quite a beautiful balance, and can be used to make a photo seem “other-worldly” in a sense, or “grungy” or even just plain “creepy”
For more on this, and other features, watch the video below-

Here are a few funny, random, crazy photos I've done over the last 18 months

This particular Photo(2 versions) really pushed me to try something strange, and fun to look at, and I've had every reaction "gross!" "weird.. what is that guy!" "dude... this is so frickin weird" "Omg what is that..!!"

I had a friend ask me to make her Tattoo more visible.. I got carried away..

This guy has too much fire on his foot, but despite that, I still like how it turned out

This was me jumping off of something, in a park I think, as you can see, I got carried away, again, into clearly, my own world Made this for a buddy of mine- Not the best, but definitely fun to try out my "paint splatter" brushes combined with a cloning stamp! And of course "fireball belch" from.. nowhere.

If you like this, or have any Ideas for a good image, let me know in the comment box, and I'll see where my free time takes me!