Tutorial Tuesday - Free Photoshop Actions

I'm diligently not using my built-in camera flash but sometimes in my attempt to be completely in manual and still try to capture images in low light indoors, either it comes out too yellowish, dark, grainy and slighty blurry (or a nasty combination of all four!).


Before


After

I've found that by just doing a few preprogrammed Photoshop Actions, you can transform the image into something that looks like it was totally intended to be that way all along (instead of looking like you are trying to fix a mistake...which you are, but that's okay, nobody has to know!).

I'm just going to note today about how changing photos over to a simple Black & White can really make a huge difference in the feel of your image. I think that just by removing the color and transferring images over to black and white can really put the focus on what you want and slight blurriness and grain tends to fade away.


Before

I tend to hit "Slight Lighten" once or twice and then use "Black and White". Often times I also add on "Define & Sharpen".


After

Try a bunch of actions out and see what works for your particular image. Before you save the image, you can always hit F12 to erase every action and start over.

I "flatten" the image in between each action as I'm going along and layer actions on top of each other to capture just the right look.


Our Wedding Day

This original image was taken inside at our wedding. My brother took it in automatic but the lighting was low and it was an action shot...two strikes! By lightening and changing over to black and white, it really creates a lovely vintage mood. And it's one of my most cherished photos from the wedding because I love how Danny is looking directly at the camera with that bemused look on his face and I'm blissfully skipping down the aisle!

Same thing, lightened once or twice then changed to black & white and voila, a nice transformation.


Before


After

I found these actions through Pioneer Woman's site and then found MCP Actions, which also has some for free and many more gorgeous looking ones for purchase. Want to add a little sparkle to the eyes? You can do that with a few mouse clicks! Want to punch up the color, add a vintage wash, sepia-tones or even just lighten or darken an image? Read up a bit on Actions and how they can transform ordinary images into something really professional looking. Once you start researching Actions, you'll see how much "after the shot" work goes into those professional photos you see online!

Tutorial Tuesday - Flower Power

I love fresh flowers! Honestly, I'm not sure there are many who would disagree, right? I'd love to have a bouquet in each room, rotated every week if I could. Because of their price, I very rarely buy flowers but this time I sort of had an excuse.

My son's class was putting together a bouquet for Teacher Appreciation Day and each child needed to bring in a few flowers. Unfortunately we had a problem: #1 - We live in an apartment and don't have anything growing in the complex around us that was "pickable". #2 - It's winter and there isn't really anything to choose from in Grandma's yard either!

So we headed off to the grocery store, where they sell three small bunches at a discounted price. He picked one bunch for his teacher and I took the other two bunches home to finally fill up the lonely, empty milk glass vases on my buffet.



I brought them home and spread everything out on the table.



I removed all leaves that would be inside the vase, touching the water.



I dissolved the packet of preservative that came with the bouquet into a pitcher of water. I have an extra packet that I will save until next week. At that time I'll drain all the vases and refill with fresh water to give the flowers more staying power.



I counted the vases, counted the flowers, and figured out which stems were going into which vase.



Once I'd decided which flower was going into which vase, I set the vase close to the edge of the table and lined up the stem with the side of the vase. I was able to raise or lower the stem next to the vase to approximate how long I should cut the stem. I always err on the longer side because you can always cut off more but you can't add more if you cut off too much!






Cut the stem on an angle with sharp scissors and set the stem inside the vase.





Cut more off if needed. The flower shouldn't hover too far over the top edge of the vase, especially if you are using a small vase. If you are just using one flower per vase, a small amount of space between vase and flower looks desirable (rather than having the bud sitting directly on the vase itself).



The larger vases got the lilies. You can remove the dark stamens inside the lilies if you are placing the vase on a cloth that might stain if the powder drops on it.











This is an easy arrangement, pretty much just one flower per vase. But they are so bright and full, I didn't require anything much more fancy. This arrangement has been going strong for over a week now and cost just around $8, a lot cheaper than purchasing from a florist!

Need flower arranging tips?

Visit the following sites -

Martha Stewart

Perfect Entertaining

Better Homes & Gardens

Tuesday Tutorial - Cloth Napkins

We do 95% of our eating with food cooked or prepared at home. Though I love a good restaurant meal (heck, even fast food burgers or taco shop dining is a treat for me!), my husband prefers to eat meals that we have carefully made with ingredients at home. And I have to agree that a well-cooked meal is much more enjoyable for leftovers at lunch the next day than those tiny frozen "dinners".

We serve everything on dishes instead of paper plates and use cloth napkins instead of paper towels. It's different than living with my parents. I mean, I might have used a paper plate in the past to make a sandwich for lunch but a steak dinner on paper plates...nope, that doesn't work for me.

Real dishes for each and every bite at home make the food more real & less "snacky" to me. And cloth napkins elevate dining at home to a special level. I have so much fabric (really, you have NO idea how much fabric!) and some of the prints are just perfect for home decor. I thought I'd start off with making some cloth napkins and then perhaps place mats and a table runner at some point.

I have these two of my favorites...

Sandi Henderson on the left and Paula Prass on the right

Heather Bailey has a perfect (free) tutorial for making cloth napkins on her website, HERE.

I put a set of four together in this green and yellow color combo on a weekend afternoon and we used them for dinner that night. Most of the time is spent pinning the hems. The sewing goes together simply, just straight edges.

I learned how to do a few interesting cloth napkin folds by carefully unfolding and studying restaurant napkins. Here is an online tutorial from Martha Stewart..

If fancy folding isn't your thing though, you can just use simple napkin rings to slide the napkins through.



Polish off the look with these pretty ribbon napkin rings in this tutorial, also from Martha Stewart.

But if the sewing machine is still foreign to you, I do have these pretty pink and yellow dotted napkins available for purchase in my Etsy shop, along with sweet braided ribbon rings that I accented with heart charms.

Tutorial Tuesday - Angel Chicken

Yesterday evening while at the grocery (picking up something I'd forgotten for this recipe) I started feeling a bit icky. My stomach was aching and cramped and I felt sort of faint. Just had The Boy with me and Danny was at school till late, so I just headed home and rested. Fortunately The Boy is pretty self-sufficient (when he wants to be) and he was able to take a shower, get ready for bed by himself and was in bed by 7:30pm...he's always very sweet when he knows I'm not feeling well. Maybe I need to "not feel well" more often?

After eating a little, I was feeling better enough to get up off the sofa and prep today's Crock Pot meal. It's always wonderful to know that I only have to do minimal work to get dinner done, especially when I wasn't feeling 100%. I prepared the mix in the crock and I stuck it in the fridge overnight.

I worked from home today so I was able to double check (triple check?) that the cord for the slow cooker was plugged in! As you will recall my Rookie Mistake, I've actually since done this one more time since then, ugh!



I received this recipe from a friend, who received it from a mutual friend after having it at her house for dinner a few weeks ago. It received rave reviews from them and sounded really yummy, with minimal work.

Though this recipe calls for Angel Hair pasta (hence the name "Angel" chicken), I had leftover whole-wheat spaghetti from dinner a few days ago. Also, I only had 4 breasts instead of 6. But this just meant that there would be more sauce (which means...yum!)

Here is the recipe link for Angel Chicken

Well Danny and The Boy LOVED it! The recipe calls for cream cheese with chives in it but I just used plain. I sprinkled on the chives just before serving. I served it with a veggie mix of broccoli, squash and carrots. It was just fine with the whole wheat spaghetti and there was a great amount of sauce to cover the noodles. The chicken was tender and sooooo good! Danny never asked what was in the ingredients, just piled the food on his plate, ate and said it was delicious (whew!). The Boy asked if he could have some leftovers for his school lunch tomorrow. That's what I'll be having for lunch myself!


Don't forget to add your comment to this thread to be included in my Valentine's Day book giveaway.

Tutorial Tuesday - Taking Photos in Manual

Hoping to start a new post feature each Tuesday that features tutorials. Hope to get my own tutorials that range from cooking to crafts photographed and posted soon, but for now we'll use some wonderful links from the World Wide Web! Ahhh, the power of the Internet...



This weekend I took the leap and slid my Canon Rebel XTI from Automatic to Manual.



It was a big leap for me...I've had this camera for many years and each time I've tried to shoot in Manual I've gotten frustrated and moved back to Automatic.



Shooting in Manual can really open up a new realm in photography. I know that if I'd been trying to shoot these photos in Automatic (a very bright day at the zoo), my pictures just wouldn't have had the same effect. They either would have been too dark when I was shooting in the shade or they would have been overly light in the bright sun.



All the photos in this thread are SOOC (straight out of camera), which means I did no cropping, no editing, nothing fancy in Photoshop. I adjusted the ISO and F-Stop, which you can read details about in the following helpful links:

The Pioneer Woman

The Rusted Chain

These are just two of probably thousands of Internet sites that have photography tips, these just happen to really break it down into something that is more easy to understand. Do a search online, pull out your camera's manual and just practice around the house. Write down tips of what works for you onto index cards and put them with your camera so you'll know just how to adjust your camera for whatever setting you find yourself in.



Now I just need to get better with focusing. My eyes are pretty crummy and I think I'm not holding the camera still enough when I depress the shutter. More practice, the crisp photos will continue to come all in good time!


Fuzzy wuzzy...


Much more crisp, hurray!