gawdy photo editing tips

Although the reason for my trip to Indy was a sad one, I'm always glad for a chance to see my family there.  Since I've been home, I've been playing with some of the photos from the visit.  Picmonkey has some great tools to use.  For this one, I used Bokah to blow out the back ground to white by making the sparkles as large as they'll go, erased it from the figures, then added more bokah stars here and there, and a starry background from the selection of textures. 

I also turned it black and white, then erased that from the skin tones. To warm up the skin tones, I colored them with sepia, then faded it. 

Over that, I added Orton.

Here it is undoctored.

(I loved my new dress! Pima cotton, comfy as wearing jammies. And only $20 from the Tonganoxie thrift store that carries brand new clothes from the Peruvian Connection.) 

In this one, we were standing in front of a gray wall, that had distracting piece of trim head level, and it looked choppy.   So I bokah-ed it away.  I'm sure that people who know how to use Photo Shop are much better at this and can cut images out in a more professional manner.  But this is so easy and quick, I'm sticking with the (mostly) free online editing!

After that, I added Orton for glow, and more sparkles from Bokah.  And a lens flare at the bottom.

These girls were standing in a big family group shot, so I used bokah and wrinkle remover to blur out the other people after cropping, and then made it all glowy with orton.

 Wrinkle remover is found under the lipstick icon, for facial touch ups, but I use it to get rid of backgrounds I don't like.   It probably took about 4 times to blur out the wall enough to add the colorful bokah sparkles.  Shelli didn't need any wrinkles erased from her pretty face!  I really think that when you use that feature on faces, it looks plastic and fake.

This is the original, untouched up.

This closeup is from the same photo I showed first.  Instead of stars, I used the cloud texture.  And then softened the picture, and tinted it with sepia (faded).

This photo is a bokah explosion.  Hearts, pink and white done in lots of sizes, some stars, and lots of sparkles.  Then, Orton for over all glow.

If you thought I went a little over the top on the other ones, get a load of this one. I don't even know what I did to it, lots of  sparkles, tints, glows, and some drawing.The gawdier and brighter the better!

Lately, I've not felt like I've really had much time to do artwork, or to photograph and list things for my shop.  But I've been able to satisfy some creative yearnings by playing with these pictures. Each only takes a few minutes and is a no muss, no fuss way to play.

Plus, I kind of get to spend a little more time with my family when they are far away.

PS- thanks so much for your concern about Ryan. He is doing rehab now and getting stronger.  He has a date to be released to work and called the warehouse that had hired him before all this happened. No word back from them yet, but our fingers are crossed that they still have a job for him.