Fix It Friday: Southern Belle

Here's to another Fix it Friday! I thought this picture was pretty cool. I like the 'old-style' feel to it, so I tried to flush out a bit of the color, but still keeping it sharp. Here's my entry and the steps I took to get to it. Happy Friday!

I use Photoshop CS3 (I'm actually debating on purchasing CS4, but haven't noticed any drastic changes in the program....but let me know if you have).
1. Rotated imave 15 degrees CCW.
2. Cropped image.
3. Added Sepia Photo Filter
4. Increased the Brightness to +39
5. Applied a basic S-Curve
6. Adjusted the RGB Levels
7. Played around with the Brightness/Contrast again....changed contrast to -24 and -6 to brightness.
8. Finally, I merged all the visible layers and played around with filters. I added a slight grain, dust and scratches, and then sharpened it a bit.

Thank you iHeartFaces for this fun weekly activity!

Fix It Friday: Little Miss

I haven't done a "fix-it friday" in a while! These are really fun, well to me at least. Every Friday, the wonderful people at iHeartFaces posts a picture to edit. You can get as creative as you like. I use Photoshop CS3. I'm all about clothes and when I saw this little girl's dress, I knew I wanted to make it pop. Here's my submission.

TGIF!

Thank goodness it's (almost) Friday! I'm so looking forward to the weekend (it's just been one of those weeks). Not only do I have a half day of work tomorrow, but I also have a 75 minute facial scheduled (ahhhh.....). Did I mention it's a free facial? A while back, my former manager gave me a gift card to this local day spa, and in typical Ryree nature, I lost it and just recently found it! Ooh yeah...I'm going to enjoy this one. I'll let you all know how it goes. *crossing fingers*

There really isn't a point to this blog entry (just one of those random ones...*shrugs*), but I was going through some of the pictures I took last weekend, and couldn't help but laugh when I saw this. He, by the way, is my nephew. I was testing out action shots and he was more than willing to help me out. From the look on his face to the awkward way he's jumping, this pic just makes me L-O-L!

Finally...it has happened to me...

Finally, I bought my first digital SLR camera! If you know me, you know I love pictures. I carry my handy-dandy Casio Exilim digital camera with me everywhere. There are things happening around us all the time, and I want to be prepared to capture it!

I know a few photographers and I am always so envious and inspired by their work. I've taken a couple photography classes back in high school, you know, the black bags and dark room type class. I really enjoyed it, but at the time, my focus was on graduating, and then college. Fast-forward to now, I find myself being the go-to person in my family for pictures and my desire for photography has resurfaced. Of course, right now it's just for fun. I need to get the hang of it again and get to know my camera. So don't mind me if you see me snapping away...I'm just trying to find my flow.

Here are some random pictures I took this weekend. I'm sure my family (especially my nieces and nephew) are tired of me taking pictures already, but they'll thank me 20 years from now when they get to look back at all these memories.

I can always count on Jenny to be my muse.

Tates loves her some chocolate.

Janelle is so fresh and so clean...clean...

Just Let Me Lay Here in the Sun....Until My Dream is Done....

Don't wake me up, Don't wake me up if I'm dreamin' California Dreams, Just let me lay here in the sun Until my dream is done.....

I know you all remember that show! I went to Santa Cruz a couple weeks back and while I was sitting on a bench watching my nieces on one of the Beach Boardwalk rides, I looked over to the houses on the cliff side and saw a seagull fly by and the California Dreams song popped into my head! Haha...am I corny or what?!

It was a fun-filled day full of arcade games, deep fried twinkies, ribs, and rides. In the midst of all that fun, me and Tates sneaked (random fact of the day: did you know that "snuck" is was not even a word? Due to common usage, the dictionary now lists the rather vulgar "snuck" as an option, but sneaked is the original past tense form.) off to the beach. Later we found out that was her first time touching the ocean! Here's are some pictures I took of her.

And for those of you that don't know what California Dreams is...here's their theme song. Enjoy!