Moonlighting

It has been over a year and a month since this picture was taken of our grand daughter who was dressed just like the Queen, and in our wedding. Hard to believe she was ever that small, as she is so big now that she looks like a two year old. Right now I am a year behind on all art projects since the 'Bink' spends so much time with me during the week. Constantly working on various things that arise, I now would just like to check off some major old assignments as finished. Getting the photos of our wedding arranged to send out to the videographer for our long overdue wedding video would be a great relief. So during this heat wave I stay in the air conditioned office and attempt to whittle away at this huge project each night.

Wish I could share some of the finished images that have extra fantastic backgrounds from a 'certain movie' that also inspired our wedding theme!  Unfortunately I would be in trouble if I did post them. Instead I have posted the one photo of me where all I really needed to add was hair extensions and lighting.  Geez I have been trying all my life to grow hair that long!  Working on the real photos from that day and making everyone look great takes time. The Queen loves Photoshop! Great for removing the shine on glowing brides faces! Always follow the professional retouch rule of no more than ten percent change on people. Keeps everyone looking real!

I was excited to try using textures on photos.  I have seen some really great work out there on the internet and was inspired to learn and create something of my own. Since I am working on our wedding project I chose one of those photos to play with texture effects. I do have permission from my photographer to use my wedding photos in any way I wish.  That caveat was agreed up front when I hired 'Rob Smith Photography' because...I know how I am!  In this dream world of life, I couldn't take pictures of my own wedding and be in the now of my wedding day too.  So I choose effervescent photographer Rob Smith (seen above), because he is fun, takes great photos and lets me play with our purchase in photoshop!  Wedding days are a blur as it is, so thank goodness for photos and video to spark the memory.  I just wish I could photoshop that impending video too!

Textures helped me to create two different looks from one wedding photo.  The original photo certainly looks good as shot out of the camera but we are going to pump up the volume! For this project I used free textures from the very talented and generous Jerry at 'Shadowhouse Creations' who posts something free almost everyday. Jerry is a master at using textures to create impressive and compelling photographic images. Definitely worth checking out for all manner of great photoshop info, inspiration and of course freebies! 

I read one of Jerry's tutorials and then played around with blend modes and some brushes on my photos.  Look at the depth and difference in the look of these images.  Pretty cool.  In the second version check out how I changed the scene to night time.  You can click on the images to view them larger. Yes, we did have a full moon for our wedding! I just changed the location of the moon for this image.  I guess I can control the dream world!  Awesome!  Did I mention I just love photoshop, generous souls like Jerry, and my incredible wonderful loving husband! Life is good in the Shire!