Michelle Ward's Street Team Crusade for February

Crusade #37 - XXX's & OOO's - Since February is Valentine's month, our challenge was to do a spread with the letters X and O.  I learned something interesting -- it seems rather obvious, but XXX's and OOO's are not part of everyone's culture.  I finally succombed to spray paints.  I tried not to go wild and purchase in every color.  I only have so much room to store, but it was tempting!!!! 

Crusade #37

One more spread for the "crusade"

I'm so lucky to be so loved!!!  

Last Class

And finally...
Using the gradient tool to create a landscape atmosphere.  I personally think it made the image too dark, so I will probably go back and lighten the photo.  I loved using my two fave colors -- purple and green on this.

Thank you, Susan, for a delightful class!!!

Significant Object...
This was a fun exercise - removing and replacing color 

and again.....

Painting Light On

If you don't like the fact that a portion of your photo is too dark, you can always "paint" some light on that part.  That's what I did here using some blending modes and the dodge tool.   

And on it goes -- the fun of creating with Photoshop.  Two examples of my 3rd week in Visual Poetry.   Technique is called "light painting technique" and it's basically bumping up the highlights in the photo.  

And for my next act........

Photo was taken in Florida at the Chihuly Exhibit

WOOHOOO!!!

I finally was successful in extracting the butterfly complete with antennae and combined it with my roses.  Just click on the photo to see those little puppies!  My husband asked why it was so important to get the antennae when probably nobody would even see them.  I said it was important if only for me to know that I could do it.  So never give up.   I used techniques from both DJ's and Susan's classes.

"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in."   Bill Bradley

Tinted Grayscale in Susan Tuttle's class....
from this........

to this.........

and then  for the "flooded with light" project, from this........

to this........

Actually this was not the best photo for this.  I just did not have an appropriate photo.  In the photo that would lend itself to this technique, the tree would almost look translucent with light shining through it.

Dramatic Still Life Exercise
from this......

to this...........

Susan Tuttle's Photoshop Class

We were going for the faded or retro looking photo.

More from Susan Tuttle's Class

Here we're learning to use different blurs and filters.