my favorite photo editing tools

I'm a huge fan of photoshop. When we first left Vancouver and I found myself with no jobs, no friends and a massive hill and knee high snowbanks to deal with in order to go anywhere my first reaction was to load photoshop and teach myself a few things. After about 3 years of playing I'm still in love, know a lot more than when I started, and thankfully have moved again to somewhere with less snow.

All that rambling introduction is to tell you about a few photo editing tips I've picked up recently that have really made a difference to the quality of my pictures. Styling wise I still need help. Somebody really needs to teach an ecourse on styling for quilt blogs!

The first is a really easy trick that can be done in photoshop and photoshop elements. Open your image, then make a copy layer of it. Change the blending mode of the second layer to screen, adjusting the opacity of the second layer until it feels right. Easy!

A bit more advanced, but still super easy (and way easier than doing everything yourself), is using actions. I've downloaded tons of free ones but have found that I only really use 2 very often. These are boutwell magic glasses from totally rad actions (available in their test drive pack) and 123 pop from Isabelle Lafrance Photography.  123 pop is available for photoshop and photoshop elements, boutwell only for photoshop.

rollover to see the effect of boutwell magic glasses

If you haven't used actions before they're pre-assembled bundles of photoshop edits that will give a specific effect to your photos.  Boutwell Magic Glasses does an amazing job of sharpening images, while still keeping those lovely out of focus bits, well, out of focus (it's not that magic!).  123 pop lightens and brightens and really makes colours stand out.  I love using these 2 together!

Let me know if you download any of these or if you have any favorite photoshop tricks of your own!

happy weekend,
c

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