i heart faces: collages

The challenge at i heart faces this week is to create a photo collage. I had a lot of different ideas for this project, but settled on these older photos because they are some of my favorites. I actually took them with my film camera (just added a bit more contrast with PS). Lillie was acting silly and I remember feeling frustrated because she wasn't cooperating with my agenda- but in the end it made for some great candid shots.

I was excited to use my new Compositor to make this collage- once I figured out how to install it on my computer (well, I guess my husband did it for me), it was very easy to use. I will use this new tool a lot!

Check out other entries this week (and tips for creating collages) at: http://iheartfaces.blogspot.com/

Black and White Conversion

Here is my first attempt at converting a color photo to black and white. I think the photo is not very crisp to begin with, but this is what I did using the Channel Mixer function in my CS4 program.

I like the contrast between her light dress and the dark floor- but now I need to figure out how to lighten her skin tones to give her face a bit more brightness.

Photoshop!

Hey-

I made my first collage with Photoshop!

I have finally downloaded the program to my computer, read a few online tutorials and am signed up for a community ed class. I think I have a lot to learn!

Some goals for the next few months:

Take more photos using manual mode

Create fun collages (I am kind of tempted to get that compositor tool I read about on i heart faces)

Learn how to edit my black and white photos so they don't look so gray.

I hear it's a pretty steep learning curve!