Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Lights, Camera, Action!

Warning: Photo-intensive post.

These past few days DH and his cohorts have been busy filming short films for their class at the MDA Film Institute. MIL's house has been overran with camera crew, catering crew, gofers, gaffers, producers, actors like Meryl Soriano, Ina Feleo and Jao Mapa, and a few others I missed because I wouldn't go out with my hair uncombed lest I be caught on tape. I swear I will go to the parlor first if ever they get John Lloyd to play a role.

They usually work at nights for better lighting, so puyatan talaga sila. Even Diego got into the spirit of things. When DH was directing his short, he was the one who shouted "Quiet in the set" and "Action!" I think he picked up a few cuss words along the way, too. :-(

So with DH busy mastering his new craft, I had the laptop all to myself. Looking at the photos I have somewhat alleviated my disappointment about not getting that DSLR camera I've been wanting since two Christmases ago. My point and shoot Nikon, which I bought 4 years ago for $500 (the price of a DSLR now!), still works quite well. Sure, it only has 3 effective mega-pixels and the battery cover has to be held together by tape, but I've been able to get decent photos using it. The way things are going, I should be happy I have a working camera at all.

I usually just crop or clone out distracting objects from my photos, but this time I played with some Photoshop actions I purchased early last year. When I realized I wasn't getting a new DSLR anytime soon, I thought buying actions on line was a cheaper alternative. (Well, only if you use them.) I experimented quite a bit and was thrilled to discover that I can layer actions upon actions. I love the results. But please don't ask me what specific actions I used to achieve certain effects because I was way too trigger-happy and I didn't take notes of the clicks I did. In some cases I just blended like crazy and used available Photoshop presets.

Love that glow, Diego looks lit up from behind, and look, Ma, no lantern (which was made by Kahlo, by the way.)

Before

After

Sarah is ready for her closeup, zooming in tighter, some digital makeup and voila!

Before

After

I just love those eyes and wanted to play them up a bit.

Before

After

Just traded that grayish pallor for some sunshiney glow. Yup, she is one serious girl. Seriously.

Before

After

Love the expression on her face but the original photo was a bit too orange for my taste. A few adjustments with opacity here and there...

Before

Somewhere in the middle

After

DH is not a fan of the last version, but I'm thinking it would look great on textured paper. How about you, which version do you prefer?

This exercise made me realize 1) there are no bad pictures, specially, not with Photoshop; and 2) like what my DH often tells me when I whine about my poor yet trusty point and shoot), "It's not what you've got, it's how you use it." Sabay sayaw. Everybody now...

Don't expect to see these photos on layouts anytime soon though. I am still having way too much fun with Photoshop. It's made me forget (for awhile at least) how much I want that Nikon D90. Sob.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow, galeeeng! ako, wala, CS3 impaired, nada, ziltch :(

I like the one na mukhang sepia na malamig, the 2nd before the last pix.

hey, sama ako kapag si john lloyd na ha? SERIOUSLY.

Au Lim said...

kewlness! great edits on photoshop... i can see you're having fun and rightly so! and my how fast sarah and kahlo have grown since the last i saw them. at ang binata mo, nakuuuu, good luck mommy Lee...hehehe...nararamdaman kong nalalapit na ang bagong era ng headaches. di bale, i'm sure you'll survive it naman.

Helga Payawal-Vergara said...

Hi Lee! Just saw your comment. Hahahaha...Wag kang maingay baka marinig ni ate Liezl. hehehehe.

Mei Ann Guerrero said...

Hi Lee, I like the sepia look of the middle photo. Parang vintage ang dating. Your kids are gorgeous! Ingit ako. Cheers!

Nina said...

Hi, kapatid! Yup, editing photos gets addicting. Now ang tanong is how are you capable of capturing them in print? Hay. Still dreaming of a portable printer which I can't afford. Hehe.

As I told you before, Lee dear, hindi obvious na point and shoot ang camera mo. You got talent in shooting really gorgeous photos, kapatid. =)

Miss you!

*hugs*
Nina

P.S. I like the black and white one. Pero mas matingkad pa siguro ng konti ang black? =)

Candy said...

Galing naman talaga! Yup, no matter how hi=tech your gadget, kung di mo naman alam gamitin, e di bale wala rin! Great photo editing! Paturo! Ako rin, type ko iyung last B&W pero mas may contrast siguro or darker iyung black. Dramatic iyon kasi e.

Liezl said...

Great pics, great kids! Pasensya na ha medyo "behind" na talaga ako - may I ask anong version to? Yung simpleng sharpening lang laking bagay na sa akin, what more itong mga effects na to!

marking said...

Have been editing my photos too. Just discovered you can edit JPEG photos using Camera Raw in Photoshop. Galeng it can save photos that realy were super dark - as in almost black. Galiong. We should have a photo editing session sharing with each other what we know.

Airees said...

Lee, forget about getting a dslr (for now)! ok naman yung pics a. :) nice actually! hmmm...makes me want to try those ps actions that i purchased but never got to try it! hehehe