Photoshop tutorial requests!

I made a little tutorial (the same as in my previous post, only for GIMP and in Finnish) today using a screen recording software, and I was thinking I could make more. It was quite simple, quick to do and fun. 

So I would like to know if any of you, my dear readers and visitors, have a Photoshop (or GIMP) technique, effect or whatever that you would like me to do a video tutorial on! 

It can be a photo edit of mine that you like and would like to know how I did it, or it can be a photo or a banner/header perhaps on the internet that you saw and wondered how they did what they did, or anything. I absolutely  do not know everything about Photoshop, there is still loads (an understatement) to learn, but I can try. And if I get multiple suggestions (I really hope I do!), I'll choose some that I will do and leave those I know nothing about alone. 

So go ahead and hit me with a comment! :) 

Tutorial for GIMP 2.6 and Photoshop CS4

 I was asked to make a tutorial for the effect I did in this photo:

Now I don't have the exact original photo anymore, but I have similar ones. I'll try to demonstrate this with them.

I processed the photo in GIMP 2.6. This can be applied into Photoshop as well.

1. Open your photo in GIMP/PS.

2. Then go to the curves tool (GIMP: colors > curves / PS CS4: either curves adjustment layer or Image > Adjustments > Curves) and if your photo is as dark as mine then lighten it up a bit by pulling the main curve up.

3. Then adjust the curves. Experimenting is the way to go here. Every picture is different so the same adjustments don't necessarily apply. Here's what I did:

As you can see, I made very subtle adjustments here, but you can go more lomo if you like.

Experiment experiment experiment and stop when you're happy. :)

4. Then I added the texture. I've downloaded it from Flickr from the user called WHEREISHERE.

Without this texture, the effect wouldn't even exist. You can use any texture you like as long as it's a light color. I usually like to use a texture with scratched surface. It creates this fun scratched and faded look.

I flipped it 90 degrees and added it as a new layer on top the photo.

In GIMP you do this by adding a new layer, opening the texture and copy/pasting it on to the new layer. Then scale it to the right size so it overlays the whole photo.

In PS CS4 you open the texture, use the black arrow tool and drag it onto the photo (this only works if you have all the pictures in floating windows) and let it go. It will create a new layer for itself. Then make sure you have the texture layer activated and go to Edit > Transform > Scale and scale it to right size.

5. Then you'll have to adjust the opacity of the texture layer. I first put the layer mode into "Hard light" and then adjusted the opacity into what I thought looked good.

As you can now see, the texture does most of the faded look that I was going for.

6. Then I just added the handwriting with a brush. Just Google "handwriting+brush+GIMP(or photoshop)" and you'll find cool handwriting brushes.

And there you go! All Star effect is all done. :)

Hope this was helpful. Let me know if there's something you don't get. I'll be happy to help!

It's needless to say, I need you inside my heart to stay.

Wanna play?

I played around with this one a little in GIMP. It was sort of a left-over from my this week's fiftytwo-shoot and I didn't think it was that bad. I didn't wanna upload it on Flickr though...I mean, how much compliments can a girl take? ;D
Nah..seriously speaking...These smiley-face meaningless self-portraits just make me a bit uncomfortable. No message there...just me trying to look decent so that I won't break anyone's eyeglasses.

I have a job interview on monday...I'm kinda nervous. I really want that summerjob, 'cos I don't want to go where I was last summer (the cemetary). I hope I won't freeze completely. My mind tends to do that when I'm nervous.

Let's keep talking anything to stop clockwatching.

Falling slowly, sing your melody, I'll sing along.

Newfie FEVER!

I went to the Tampere international dog show on Sunday and snapped a few photos there.
After a little quality-time with GIMP, this is what I got:

I'm tired of living in this rain of grey, with you stealing my umbrella ella eh eh eh.

"I’m catching my second wind again"

Tonight I got some supportive comments on Flickr and tried to make something happen and something did happen. I figured out a pretty nice way to combine my fiftytwo-struggle and my James Dean -struggle. I've tried to come up with a non-boring way to capture this super-cool banner I have and this is what I finally came up with.

More

I went back to that gazebo today and took some more shots. The same concept, I know, but bare with me. :)







And I did some vintage tweeking on one of the yesterday's photos.

Concentrating on the positives in the middle of the negatives.

So many bad things have happened to me and my family lately that it would be extremely easy to get depressed, but instead I decided to concentrate on the positive things. For example, my new car. :)

Taking these photos made me nauseous and gave me a headache but at least they came out pretty good.

Ms. Napkinhead

If I was to take on the 365-challenge in Flickr (which I'm not, but if I did), it would probably become "How to hide your face in 365 ways"-challenge...

Here's how I would express my feelings today.

My imaginary friend thinks you have some serious problems.

I've been PPing my photos for over an hour now and this is what I got today:

Actually I used 6 different post processing programs when editing these; Windows Live Photo Gallery, Microsoft Office Picture Manager, FrameFun, FotoFlexer, Picasa 3 & Gimp. Kind of a drag but still had fun 'cos I had a clear visions of the things I wanted to do.

Collages are so much fun to do and I might go a bit over-board with them now and especially in the future, but I can't help myself. :D

Victory!!

I found this Gimp-tutorial and managed to make this

and this


I'm quite proud of myself right now. I thought I was totally useless when it came to this kind of stuff...But I'm not!