7. Turning an Image Black and White

I followed this tutorial about turning my image black and white.

"Back in the day, when one would print their own black and white prints, you had a choice of a zillion different papers. They basically boiled down to cooltone and warmtone papers. This combined with different developers gave one an array of tones to choose from for any given picture. Sadly, nowadays it’s getting harder to find specific papers and certain developers are no longer being manufactured. In the digital era, most people who might not have gone through the trouble of trying different tones of paper (or even B&W printing for that matter) will be satisfied with converting a color image to a straight B&W palette by simply desaturating the color. Today we’re going to take it a step further. Achieving different tones for specific images will help you create different moods according to the overall look you’re going for."  -Photoshop Road Map

            

6. Retro Comic Book Effect

I had the most fun tonight working on this project.  The tutorial is well written and has great visual aids to help you as you move along the steps. 

Here is the original:

Here is the retro comic book version:

5. Easy Image Sharpening

This result is less dramatic but handy when your photograph needs easy sharpening.  I used this tutorial and worked with an image I took a few years ago, pre-SLR camera at one of the Cenotes (sacred well) in Mexico.  

To get an idea of what the entire scene looks like click here.  I found the video on You Tube, and it's a great way to explore the Cenote with a string of moving images.

4. Separating Complex Objects from Background

Tonight I didn't use a tutorial.  I worked with the magical wand to select the unwanted background, erased it and then found a new one I liked.  This is the image before the edit.  

My son, the ham, awaiting an amusement park ride a few years ago.

Here is the altered background, which I will be adding to in the next few days.  Tonight, I learned a lot about resizing and transforming while holding the shift button, as not to lose the aspect of the image.  I'm digging it!!!

3. How to Turn a New Photo into an Old Photo

Using this tutorial, I transformed a photograph of my friend, Susan, holding her own farm fresh eggs.  

Here is the original:

Here is the altered photo:

2. Recreating a Bar Code

For this tutorial, the instructor applied a bar code to a lemon.  Since I'm trying to use only my images, I went with an old SG 365 self portrait and used my forehead.  The most challenging part of this exercise for me was warping the bar code so it didn't lay flat across my head. 

It's not perfect, the ends are a bit pixelated, but I learned about transforming and warping.  Try it out! What would you like to see a bar code on? Feel free to post comments on how this could be improved and/or your personal bar code experiments.

1: Creating Colorful Lines of Different Shapes

For this experiment, I used this tutorial.  In retrospect, it probably wasn't the easiest first project, and I needed to get some help from my husband, Davis.  Hopefully with time, I will find the steps and shortcuts more intuitive, since it's not seeming very simple now.

This is the image I started with, which is one of my old SG 365 pics:

Here is the Photoshopped version: