About photography Number 2

Post by **Kiya** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 7:52 pm

Dead petal it is then

The pic below I was creating drama with a Soft-Spotlight, I focused on the main flower by darkening the area around the rest of pic...artificial ones I have to say, will try it again when I get the real thing

Post by **Horus** » Thu Mar 04, 2010 10:03 pm

And I have to say you have done a lovely job of it , very artistic

Although I can see a white line running along the top edge ....................

Nah! ................ only kidding

Post by **LovelyLadyLux** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 3:56 am

YES! The PSP x2 (Paint Shop Pro x2) arrived in the mail! Will get it installed and then the questions will flow! I'm finding now as I'm driving around in the car I'm envisioning everything as a 'picture' now but I still think flowers are going to remain a favourite subject. I love what you have done Kiya. Nice composition and balance of colours. I think you have a natural eye.

Post by **Horus** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:31 am

YES! The PSP x2 (Paint Shop Pro x2) arrived in the mail! Will get it installed and then the questions will flow!

Hope you go on OK with the install

just one word of warning, I had a fairly old pen type tablet (Wacom) installed along side of my mouse as another pointing/drawing aid. It worked fine on my desktop with other applications, but ................ after lots of trouble shooting, I found that in PSP X2 it was conflicting with my standard mouse and causing some of the 'tool' options to freeze.

Post by **Kiya** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 1:55 pm

Messing around today moving objects from backgrounds to another

Post by **LovelyLadyLux** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 3:34 pm

Way cool Kiya! Can't wait to get there!

Horus - the install went ok. It is on my laptop. I'm not too bright at this techie "talk" but optimally it says this program would run better at 2gb but will go with 1gb and I have 1 so am hoping it will be ok and not drag down my machine and hang up. If so I guess I can increase the MB on this laptop. (Toshiba with Vista) I do not have a "palette" yet that is the next on my list. Any advice on which is best? (with regard to price, functionality etc. etc. etc.????)

I don't use a mouse. My laptop has a touch pad - that little 2" x 2" square. AND best of all it is foggy now but the sun is coming out behind which me "Photo Ops"!!!!!

:):):):):)

Post by **Grandad** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:00 pm

Still having fun then Kiya

and I DO like your comp entry

The red F1 above is a reminder to those of us who get a fix on the smell of high octane fuel

that the season starts again next weekend....it's going to be a great season this year

Back to the pictures, I am more inclined towards taking pictures of landscapes and anything mechanical, old or new.

Here is a little collage of a few vintage car headlights at Brighton Rally.

PS: LLL, I have only 1.5gb on my desktop and PSP seems to work fine......I do need to upgrade though and there might be improvements in speed that I am not aware of.

Post by **Horus** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 4:42 pm

Well first off you guys, I really like your pictures and the imagination being shown, it is surprising what you can achieve artistically just having a mess about with a few pictures. You really can liven up a few run of the mill images and use up a lot of your spare time as well,

but what the heck, it is winter and not a lot else to do other than watch TV.

By the way Grandad, they only say 512 MB is needed, but recommend 768 MB if using Vista and a processor speed of 1 GHz with 2 GHz recommended. My own desktop exceeds those requirements, but I find it does hog a lot of resources when running, no problems as such to report though.

LLL, regarding the 'tablet' thing (you say palette), if I were you I would seriously consider going out and buying a USB standard mouse. They are very cheap and you will get one for less than £10 that will be perfectly suitable for your needs. I say this because I don't think that you will be able to work very well just using the laptop pad, well at least I know I couldn't. They just don't have the sensitivity for doing this sort of artwork where you are using repeated moving and clicking to perform various tasks when editing your pictures, I think you will find it very laborious using a touchpad.
As to the 'tablet' well if it would still work with the program I may be tempted to use it on occasions, but to be absolutely honest, the ability to use a 'freehand' pen to work around objects and to select them, has in my opinion been overtaken by the programs themselves making these tasks easier to do than was previously the case when using a mouse.

Post by **Horus** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 7:38 pm

Here is another example that you may like to have a try at

In this one I created from scratch a picture frame of my own design. Using just a plain oval shape, I gave it some width, then distorted it to the shape I wanted. I then applied various effects to it from bevelling the edge, to giving it a colour fill that I changed until it had a copper coloured look about it. I then played about with different textures until I got something resembling a metalic enamel, then saved it as a 'frame'. I then opened a new picture layer and added the saved 'frame' onto the new layer. The flowers are from another photo of mine that I 'copied' then pasted into the frame as a 'new layer' I then reduced it to fit just inside the frame. Once I was happy with the positioning, I removed all of the flower picture that was overlapping the outer frame.

Post by **LovelyLadyLux** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 7:42 pm

Good to know Horus. I was NOT able to use "The Gimp" with the touchpad at all. Just not big enough, not precise enough on making points etc. My biggest problem with the Gimp however was going back and forth to the instruction manual. Didn't want to print all of it and I'm not that great at reading and absorbing LOTS off the computer. Me old eyes just aint' what they used to be.......

I do have a mouse already but cause I sit in my chair with the laptop I've found the touchpad works easier......well - more to come the phone doth ringeth and I need to go pick up my car now from having a new muffler installed!..........NOW an afternoon of possibly Photo Ops!!

Post by **Kiya** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 9:17 pm

Grandad I like your collage of the vintage car lights & Horus your flower pic is lovely.
I bought some flowers yest & try as I might I just cant get the lighting right, maybe a couple was ok which I'll work on, I think the problem may be the low energy bulbs?
After finishing the F1 pic earlier today my son & I went to try out his new Sat/Nav a great gadget combined to play cd's,dvd's,radio,play station, we set it to take us to Huntly Castle (pics below) it took us the longest way possible with every little country road , eventually we got there to find the gates to castle locked, not to be off bad back or not I climbed the wrought iron gates determined to get some pics.
Sat/Nav set to shortest route home, arrived in near half the time.
I personally like the pic with view through the castle window & btw I've no idea what the writing on the castle mean?? anyone??

Post by **LivinginLuxor** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 9:28 pm

Have to agree - you have found a frame for your picture naturally! I often use windows or doors as a frame and the effect can be quite interesting, as it tends to lead you into the picture.... of course you need something interesting within your 'frame'.

Post by **Horus** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:58 pm

the joys of owning a Satnav, like the rest of us your son will soon learn that they can throw you a wobbly on occasions, especially when you first use them

The pictures are great Kiya, especially the one you framed in the window, smashing composition. Regards the flowers, I always think they are best taken in natural light, try them on your window cill with the light comming through them, but take your pictures from the side and above if you get my drift.

Not sure what writing you are talking about at the castle, where abouts is it?

Post by **Kiya** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 12:19 am

The writing is on the 3rd pic to the right along the top not on the tower, maybe you will not be able to see it, I resized the pics to 800 x 600 but was still to big so had to resize even smaller,probably if you zoomed in now it would be all blurry.

Post by **Horus** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 12:29 am

Ah! I see it now, but can't read it

probably Latin anyway

Post by **LovelyLadyLux** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 3:58 am

Great collage Grandad - love the subject! Good to know your PSP is operating on that much RAM. I've just started reading and playing with it a bit. Will take me a bit to really get into it but what I was playing around with this afternoon for a while passed the time really quickly and did achieve a few really interesting effect

Your photos are wonderful Kiya! I can't see the writing though. Love the framing of the window.....terrific! AND Horus your framed flowers are superb! Isn't it amazing what all can be done with technology! Am totally enthralled.

Post by **LivinginLuxor** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 7:30 am

Kiya - just resizing a picture to 800x600 will not guarantee that it will be below the 256K limit in the albums here - you should also use the "Save for the Web" (Photoshop) or "Export" functions. These will reduce the file size considerably.
As an experiment, I took a picture at random from one of my albums - it was 5.26mb originally on disk, resized it to 800x600 and saved it - result filesize 456k - way over the limit. I exported the same picture - result filesize 100k, and I couldn't see any loss of quality on screen.

Post by **DJKeefy** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 8:19 am

For people wanting to upload to the forum resize your photo so the biggest dimension is no more than 800px

Save as .jpg

You should have an option if you click save as then you can alter the compression, set it to anything between 20 - 30 this will reduce the filesize so it will be under the 256k limit on the forum.

Post by **Ashtree0** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 2:11 pm

I really like your photos Kiya - the bottom photo leads the eye into the picture which is exactly what it should do. The way you've framed your photo's demonstrates the difference between taking a snap and really putting thought into the composition - well done!

Post by **Kiya** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:30 pm

Here I made frames actually from the photos of flowers then moved the flowers into the frames & resized them .
Horus these flowers were taken from my window cill using macro, as you said they would be better from outside in natural light