Touch-Up Tuesday: Musical Notes

This photo happens to be of one of my favorite piano pieces... The Cat and Mouse by Aaron Copland. I'm playing it for a competition this spring :D Here's a link to what it sounds like...

Anyway. Now to the PICTURES!
I kind of sped through my edit... so I didn't keep track of ALL the steps.

In general, though, I ran the RAW version through Adobe Camera RAW, brightened it up a lot, added contrast, and reduced the noise caused by my way-too-high ISO (which was in turn caused by my laziness to find more light =P).

Then I took it into Photoshop Elements, cropped it, and removed the "long" from above the fermata. (It looked weird almost sticking out of the photo.) I might have done some more brightness/contrast/etc adjustments here, I'm not sure.

Then I ran CoffeeShop's Give It Texture action using ShadowHouse's Lost texture, and played a lot with the layers and opacities and such.
(Side note: Yes I know I need to learn how to apply a texture on my own, without an action... I will try that sometime, no worries.)

I ran some action (or two or three) to give it the vintage-y look. I don't remember which one(s), sorry. :P

(Another side note: I'd also like to develop the ability to do a vintagy look on my own... Or just how to do what all the actions do myself. Again, something I will try sometime.)

*****

SOOC



EDITED



So there it is. Constructive criticism on both the photography and the edit is definitely WELCOMED.


(In case you don't know, my stance on constructive criticism is the following: How am I supposed to get any better at photography/editing if no one tells me whats wrong with my pictures? :P)

Photo 001-003

Haha. I'm not sure if I mentioned this... but my awesome yearbook teacher (who is also a way more than AMAZING photographer), Mrs. B, suggested that I do the 365 challenge... I had originally decided NOT to do this, due to time constraints, but I'll go ahead and try to. I'll probably end up with lots of mass posts... but oh well. :)

I'm still working on the logistics of this... whether to basically post twice a day, or just one huge combined post...
Probably two posts a day. One in the morning (already written from the day before) for the photo memes like I<3Faces and You Capture, and one at night (written that day, using a picture I took that day) for the 365 challenge. :)

You might see some duplicate pictures until I get into the swing of things. Sorry about that :)

I might or might not post with words. Depends on how my day went. ;)

Well enough jabbering. Now for some PICTURES!

*****

Photo 001 (you've probably seen this before. but oh well. :P)



Photo 002 (You've seen this one too! Ha. Not many surprises. YET.)



Photo 003 (YAY! A NEW ONE!)

Multitude Monday

And today begins... my first day of school.

No, not really. I'm kind of used to this... it being the 2nd semester of my junior year, and all. ;) But I promise I'll try my absolute BEST to keep posting!!!!! :)

*****
Gift 167... PI EARRINGS


key lime pie


late nights with friends


seeing close friends you haven't seen in a long time


drama dvds




strawberry kiwi koolaid


hard-as-a-rock powder lemonade


finding old pictures to edit


dancing


NEW MODERN CLASS


daunting prospects of school ahead


new necklaces


an amazing colorful camera strap


Reeses cups


Sweet Home Alabama


getting to bring in the NEW YEAR with an awesome day

Gifts 167-182

I♥Faces: Best Face Photo from 2010

I think I about died when I saw the theme for this week's I<3Faces.

I mean, HONESTLY. "Best Face Photo from 2010"?

I think I have at least 100 best face photos from this past year. How am I supposed to choose ONE!?

Needless to say, I think this was one of the hardest things I've done. 


After 30 minutes of deliberation, I still couldn't pick my favorite. So I just picked one of my favorites. :)


******

Sunday Creative: Flourish

Today's prompt is "flourish"! Here's the definition I went with:


Flourish
noun 2. an ornamental touch or decorative detail





*****


A couple days ago, my mom bought this amazing key lime pie... and the cutely sliced lime atop a dollop of whipped cream just begged to have its picture taken... :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

I had a fantabulous New Years Eve!!!


What did I do?


Well, I spent the day with Jenna and Adam, and watched almost all the drama dvds (haha), ate goldfish and drank Koolaid (but not lemonade... :P) and played slaps...





and then spent the night at Lauren's house! :) We watched Sweet Home Alabama and the Proposal... very good movies. Especially the first one!!! :) And ate M'Ms and Star Wars fruit snacks and popcorn and drank root beer and coke.... 


And of COURSE, we stayed up till the new year. Twas tons of fun :) I have no pictures of Lauren and I from last night, though. You probably wouldn't want to see them if I had one, anyway ;)


So overall, I think I had the best New Years Eve EVER. :)

SOOC Saturday: Kristi and her Converse

Well... much to my disappointment... I found that the blog that hosted SOOC Saturday isn't posting very regularly, and hasn't done an SOOC post in months. :( However, this shall not discourage me... I will do it on my own! :)


*****

Its got that orange tint to it... just screams "EDIT ME!!" but NO. I did edit this picture, actually, but I won't post it, cause that would defeat the point of Straight Out Of the Camera Saturday... ;)

She loves her new converse, if you can't tell :)