Photo Tip #2

There are hundreds of photography sites online...you can google and take classes and get free tutorials all over the place...I just tell you this because I want you to know that it's out there...and I am by no means an expert. 

I thought I'd just share tiny tips that I have used to just enhance my photos a bit here and there...

Here's a photoshop tip...if you have any Adobe photoshop Elements program, you can use this tip...the screens you'll see are from Photoshop Elements 7.0

Here's what I do to a number of my photos to make them pop a bit more...you'll often hear it referred to burned edges..

#1:  Open your picture in the program
#2:  go over to the layers palette and click on an adjustment layer.  It's the half black and white cirlce and scroll your mouse to the Brightness/contrast.  Once the sliders show up, you can slide your brightness and contrast to your liking...I normally just boost it a bit to make the colors pop, but not so much that you wash everyone out.

Adjustment layers are really neat because you can do things to photos without actually changing the image itself..you can also do an adjustment layer on the hue/saturation at this point if you wanted.  And, I may decide to after it's all said and done...maybe I want to make the pink sweatshirts POP...so I'd just choose my saturation slider and move it to the right until I get the color I like...

#3 Once you've gotten the brightness/contrast fixed to your liking...go ahead and choose another adjustment layer by clicking on that same circle, but choose levels this time. 

See that slider...get your arrow/mouse onto the middle triangle slider and move it to the right...keep going just a bit (not all the way to the right, but enough to darken the picture)

see how dark my picture got?

#4 Now, in your layers palette, you have 3 layers: the original picture, the brightness/contrast layer and now the levels layer....Take your arrow over to the gradient button in the tool bar.  Once you click on it, make sure that the gradient chosen is the middle light, with dark around all the edges of the square.  You'll see this at the top ofyour screen.  If all is chosen, take your new little gradient cursor and click it on the center of your picture and drag it to one corner...

What you'll notice in your layers palette now, is that the levels layer has this dark middle to it...what happened is that it "erased" some of the darkening...it basically lets the brightness shine through more and you get that dark edge look...

We're almost done...

#5 Finally..the gradient button does a great job, however, sometimes you need just a leeeeetle more brightness...sooo, first make sure that your top color chosen is black...it works opposite in this case:  black means erase, white means darken.. Then go and click on the brush...make sure you choose the soft brush and make it a fairly large size...then go and "color" on top of the faces....if you check your layers palette, you'll see that the levels layer will begin to get darker each time you "brush".  (FYI:  make sure that the levels layer is the one selected, otherwise you'll start "erasing" one of the other layers instead)

In the end you'll see just a subtle difference, but I like the depth it gives to photos...

Now you can just save your picture as a new name and TADA, you're finished!

I hope that all made sense...please let me know if you need any more clarification...it can be a little tricky starting out, but once you get just a few things under your belt, you start to experiment and it's just plain FUN!

It's FRIDAY

I'm sooo glad that it's Friday. 

My Italian Stallion cracks up over this remark from me...because really, do I actually grasp the concept of Friday as a SAHM?  He's not belittling me by any means, it's just that for me and Little Munchkin, Fridays are pretty much like any other day...it's not like my "job" changes when Saturday comes...My "job" is the same 24/7 :) 

However, it DOES mean that all my kiddos are home for the weekend and so is their daddy!  And therefore, we look forward to Friday!

The girls and I took in a performance last night.  The are soooo into Boxcar Children.  To be honest, I don't understand why b/c, and no offense to the author, the books are just plain boring.  There's really not much adventure, suspense, make believe, comedy...it's just a plain ole story...that repeats itself through the over 100 books in the series...yes, that many...Sweetpea has read through a number of them, but I stopped after 3 because I just couldn't take it anymore.  Give me Narnia or American Girl or goodness, even PRINCESSES...but, the redundancy of Boxcar...I'll pass. 

But, my girls LOVE them...they take turns being Jesse and Violet and make "Henry" be off getting a job...Peanut is usually Benny, which makes me smile, because she'd play any part just to be with her older sister and her friends. 

Anyhoo, we saw the Play of the Boxcar Children and the girls were enthralled.  It gave them plenty of "ideas" for more play-acting.  We all ate way too many gummy bears though...me included.  Peanut and I were both sporting tummy aches by the time we reached our back door.  It took her all of 10 minutes to get her pjs on, get in bed and fall asleep.  And I was right behind her...

Looking forward to the weekend...if just for the fact that I don't have to worry about 2 hour delays and shoveling snow!

Have a great day!

A Little Photo Tip

I don't really have anything all that stimulating to write about...life is just going about as normal...well, the girls are on antiobiotics to keep the scarlet fever, strep, pneumonia and ear infections at bay...but, other than that...NORMAL...

And I guess I could mention the fact that there is over a foot of snow surrounding our house and we have to shovel out a little pee spot for Macie out the front door, because the back door is just snowed right up the stairs and we'd basically loose her in a snow drift if we opened the back door...but, ya know...everything is just like NORMAL...

I suppose I could add that I think the girls have been OUT of school more than they have been IN school due to snow days in the past 2 weeks...but, really...just the typical NORMAL occurances here in the Italian household...

Well..now that that is out of the way, thought I'd share a few photo tips for anyone interested...and if not, that's okay you can peruse a couple of pictures an then link over to a more interesting blog of your choice and that's fine by me...
Man, talk about change the subject...sorry...no eloquent words coming to me at the moment...

So, let's talk aperature...

Huh?

APERATURE...we can say it together:  A   per   a   chur

It's a funky name for how much light you let into your lens in order to take a photograph.  There are numbers that represent how wide the opening is through which that light is let in. The numbers on a SLR camera range from 1.4 up to 22...and it can seem a little backward, but bear with me...

The smaller the number, the MORE light
The bigger the number, the LESS light

So, if you have your aperature dial set to something like 2.8...you are letting in a lot of light, the "hole" through which light comes into your lens is wider and allows more light to come through...in doing this, you are given more "peripheral vision" which translates to BLUR in a photo.

Another way to picture this is to cup your hands up to your eye like a telescope...make the opening really small...do you see that everything is in focus in the opening...now widen your hands...if you look straight ahead, you'll notice that the things in your peripheral vision are blurred...(did that just make sense?...I would so take a picture of myself doing this, but I'm in my pjs as I write this and it's not a pretty picture)  Basically when you have a tiny telescope, that's like having an aperature set at anywhere from 7 to 22...you're not letting in as much light, but everything in the view finder is in focus...if you widen it up (aperature of 1.8-4) you're going to get some blurry stuff.

Here's a better example: This picture had an aperature of 2...which means that Peanut's tooth was in focus, while everything else had lots of blur in the background.  The hole was really big, so whatever the center of my camera (in my view finder) focused on, well that was clear...everything else blurred.

Remember these crazy monkeys from a little while back?

This photo had an aperature of 2.8  It works the same way as the image before, in that, one thing is in focus and everything else on the peripheral is blurred.  This time, I focused on something in the back, while the monkey more towards the front is blurry.

I LOVE these kinds of pictures...that's probably why I keep my 50mm/1.8 lens on almost all the time...I like having a lot of control over the aperature so I can get those buttery blurs...

So how do you go about getting your camera ready?  Well, first of all...if you have never taken your camera off of AUTO...take a deep breath..you CAN do it! 

Find the dial on your camera that all those pictures and letters MASP on it and dial it over to A...this is Aperature Mode...It means that you ONLY have to worry about setting your aperature and then the camera will do the rest for you!  Once it's on A...find the other dial that controls the number (also known as the F-stop)...you'll know it's the right dial because when you roll it, numbers will change somewhere on your little screen from 22 all the way down to as low as your lens will allow...(sometimes that's only 4.5, but go as low as you can) 

Your camera will take care of the Shutter Speed (don't worry, I'll cover that another time) 

Now, focus your camera on something fairly close to you (and for fun sake, put some other stuff in the background, like marbles or books or laundry:)  Snap your picture.

Here's one that I took on Valentine's Day:

Hope you have fun...

Beauty Shop

My friend called me the other day.  She called to remind me to get my hair cut. 

Now, THAT is a good friend. 

"It's been 4 months there friend...it's time...schedule an appointment and I'll watch the kids!"

She hasn't seen me in about 4 months due to the SNOW that has packed us all in...but by golly, she knows I need the reminders when it comes to "health and beauty".  ((I"m the one who can't figure out how to pluck eyebrows and I just rub extra hard under my eyes to get any make up residue off)) TMI???  sorry...

Anyway, so yesterday was the day...normally, I get my hair cut...ohhhhhhh, once a year or so...but, b/c of my loyal friend, I am being "implored" to get it done in a more timely fashion.  Fashion being the word of the day.

I'm using the excuse that I'm growing out my hair...but really, I just don't do much with it and I figure I only ahve a few more years in which I can actually get away with wearing it long...at some point, I'm going to have to face facts and realize that I have to act my age, at least grow up a little bit more and get a "style". 

Little Munchkin went with me to my "hair tut" as she calls it.  She sat on my lap and grimaced as hair fell.  She's never had the scissors touch her 2.5 year old head.  She informed me afterwards, with tears, "I no want hair tut Mommy"...Not a problem sweetie...with a mommy like me...you won't get one until you ask anyway. 

So, besides the hair cutting adventure...I thought, why not...let's just do the whole shabang...

And with that...out comes the nail polish and every accessory known to man..or woman...or little girl?? 

Anyway, we had ourselves a little spa day...it looked like this:

and this...

and ended up with this:

I think they look soooo cute...and remember, I'm the one who can't figure out eye shadow to save her life!

So, that was our day...and I don't have pictures of the hair cut, because frankly...it was a trim...who really wants to see a trim?  When I got back my girls looked at me really hard and said, "Um, Mom, did they CUT it? You don't look any different." 

Still waiting for it to stop snowing...perhaps today we'll delve into the world of makeup...oh lord help me...or rather, help my girls...their mother is nuts!

I've come to a conclusion

In the past, I have enjoyed the fresh, winter air...the crispness and chill when one first steps out into a blustery day. 

I have loved creating snowmen with my girls...rolling huge balls of snow to form gigantic snow people that they can dress and decorate.

I anticipated the arrival of good packing snow with which to make igoos and caves for my children.  I didn't mind the back breaking work of shoveling huge mounds...the wet knees after crouching for hours to dig with my hands.

I looked forward to the sparkling white as the sun hit the snow...glistening in the mornings...

I would smile as I thought of a good "workout" to shovel our driveway as a surprise for my Italian Stallion after a hard day at work...

I was thrilled to take my kiddos sledding down big snow capped hills...

but...NO MORE...

I have had it...Italian Stallion has argued this point with me all winter...he "tolerates" snow...he doesn't like it and I always "poo-pooed" him..."Party Pooper," I said. "Snow is fun...we can make snow angels...it's great."

But, I'm done trying to defend the snow, because, frankly...I've had enough already...

After white knuckling my way home as the snow continued to dump and I had my precious cargo in tow...only to realize, UGH, I need to shovel...

I shoveled the entire driveway...to get to the end...to see that 2 more inches had fallen and I had to start all over again.

I don't mean to complain...well, alright, I do...but, I've really just seen enough snow for now...we've had our fill...

Dear Snow, 

 Can't you just save this "precipitation" until about mid July or August and come as rain...at that point my green beans and tomatoes would LOVE that...we'd WELCOME you...You are just a nuisance right now...We liked you the first couple of times, but don't you think this is just overkill?  Snow days are great off of school, don't get me wrong...but at some point, those days will have to be made up in the summer...personally, I'd rather have my kiddos home when they can play outside rather than when we're stuck inside cuz YOU WON'T STOP BLOWING!!!

Sincerely,
Snow Balled in the Midwest

The day AFTER Valentine's Day

I've always loved Valentines Day...I think because it's never just been Valentine's Day, but also my little brother's Birthday...and so, on the years and years and years and years (you get the point) that I didn't have a special "Valentine" persay, the focus was always switched to celebrating Don's life instead of me  not getting sweet chocolates or a romantic card. 

Having the girlies has made Valentine's Day even that much more fun!  Our weekend was kicked off by the Classroom Parties...and here are some awesome pictures that will be cherished for years to come by my angels...so that they can remember these wonderful times with their teacher and school friends...

*cricket chirp*

What?  no pictures? 

NOPE...my girlies' ridiculous mother FORGOT her camera on the way to the school...only to remember it upon arriving and then remembering that the school had just sent out an email begging asking the parents to carpool, walk, skydive to the school, because parking is going to be extrememly limited due to the pile up of all the snow from this week...anyone remember that we had 3 snowdays this week???

And so, I just parked my car IN A PARKING SPACE mind you, and got into the school, because I HAD gotten there early PTL...I'm positive that just my presence in the classroom was enough for my dear, sweet girls...

*chirp, chirp*

Yeah, okay...anyway...I did manage to snap a picture of the cute Valentine mice that I made for Peanut's classroom before I left the house...I got brownie points from her for sure!!

I thought they were cute:)

Anyhoo...so the weekend started out great!  I was able to get lots done while Sweetpea was at a party on Saturday afternoon...got the earplugs, the pjs, some shorts, a couple tee shirts, a winter coat...

a winter coat?  for your vacation?  NOOOO, they were on sale and I just can't pass up a 60% off clearance at Lands End...good grief...you do that and you must have sipped some crazy juice!

Hope you enjoyed the LOVE yesterday...more V-day pics to come...
Enjoy President's Day now!

Happy Valentine's Day

I had a GREAT idea at 11pm...which is when my "great" ideas usually happen, seeing that I'm more of a night owl than my hubby...

He heard some bumping around and came downstairs only to find his wife on her stomach taking pictures of the refridgerator letters...He's such a patient man!

And so...I made my way around the house to find things that said L.O.V.E.

Hope you enjoy your day!!!