Oh February, I am so happy to see you go.  This was a looooong month for me and I am more than happy to move onto a hopefully warmer, more enjoyable month.

So many reasons why I am ready to get into March.

1. It snowed about a total of 5 feet in February. And I don’t enjoy snow.

2. Because of all the snow, I was marooned in my house for 9 days. 9 days, people!!! I did not leave or go outside of my house for more than a whole week. No interaction with the outside world, no other conversations with any friends..It was a long 9 days.

3. My daughter Chloe didn’t have school for 13 days in a row. I love my daughter greatly, I truly do. But she is so exactly like me, that nine days without a break was very draining. Being stuck at home, with Chloe out of school, and Colin and her not being able to play out in the snow because it was too deep to walk in…phew, I needed a break!

4. I had photo shoots scheduled, but guess what cancelled them?! SNOW! And my creative juices need to start flowing again! Winter/slow season is not fun!

5. Ok, most (…..or all……) of the reasons why February was so blah was the snow. But there was so much of it, and it lasted forever. It just didn’t stop. I still have piles and piles of snow in my yard.

Don’t believe it was as bad as I say? Well, take a look, here’s a few pictures of the horribleness that was the Blizzard of ‘10. I went out once, at night, took about 4 pictures,  got depressed, and quickly went back inside. At that point it was still supposed to snow for 12 more hours. I need to move someplace warm.

The snow drained me. I became so unmotivated last month. Things got pushed back, I got lazy, and they never came forward again. So my plan is to make it up in March. I’m just hoping it doesn’t snow like “they” say it’s going to… Wish me luck on my March goals!

-          Shoot twice in United. I didn’t get to do this February. Church was cancelled due to snow (shocker, right?), and I had to fill in on guitar in another service that takes place at the same time as United. Excuses, no excuses, it’s still a goal.

-          Clean the basement. Yikes! The basement has become the kid’s playroom/roller skating rink. And we don’t get down there to clean it that often.

-          A photo shoot. Of anything. Anything at all. I need to take pictures of something. I’m about to give away a free session, my creative need is that bad!

-          Hopefully get all the Crazy Booth supplies ordered and ready to try it out for Andrea’s bridal shower..Crossing my fingers on this one!

-          I’m starting slow, but changing the pictures on the website. At least the Front page, the Info/Pricing page, the About page, and the Contact page. I’ll start with those, and work on the galleries next month.

-          Exercise

-          Continue developing as a phone talker. I’ve talked more on the phone this year than most, but it needs to become more of a habit.

-          Catch up on Lost. This shouldn’t be hard : )

-          Vacuum (yes, I still have to write this, or it won’t get done)

-          Print more business cards. That’s a good problem to have, right?!

That’s all I have for now. Here’s to March, hoping it gets warm and green!

Due to the high level of positive feedback about my last Before and After, I am giving you another one! Yay! This time I’m going to go over a pretty basic Photoshop trick. There are tons of programs that do this, and tons of photographers that use it. I try to steer away from it too much, because it’s a tad too trendy for me. However,  it’s something you guys should know how to do.

So…ever wonder how to have a black and white picture, with one object in color? Like a BW face with blue eyes? Or a BW person with pink shoes? Or a BW tree with orange leaves? Get the picture?? Well I will show you how I do it using Photoshop. I can pretty much guarantee that there are easier, better, and faster ways of doing this. I still have to look stuff up sometimes, so it’d def a case of the blind leading the blind. I’ll throw in some Totally Rad Actions to make it legit

Here’s the ‘Before and After’ of the picture I’ll be using.

My TRA Recipe is:

Pro Retouch 60% and Eyebump 50%

Warm It Up Kris: 100%

Oh Snap: 75%

Select O Pop on eyes and lips: 60%

Boutwell Magic Glasses: 50%

Bitchin’ B&W: 100%

Rusty Cage: 100% with the Warm Up layer turned off and the Rusty Light layer at 50%

Select O Pop: 60% on hair and eyes again, 100% on flower

Boutwell Magic Glasses: 50%

After you have your picture the way you want it, group all the layers together except for the background layer, which would be your original picture. To group the layers together, select what layers you want grouped, go to the Layers Tab at the top of page, and click “Group Layers”. Easy, right? Even easier, would be to select the layers and hit Control G. Gotta love shortcuts!

After this, you should only have two layers in your layer palette.  Layer 0 and Group 1. Layer 0 is the original and Group 1 is all the layers and actions you just made, grouped into one folder. While Group 1 is selected, you’re going to have to create a layer mask for it. That’s the little button at the bottom of your layers palette that looks like a box with a circle in it. It’s the 5th in from the right, third in from the left. After you click that box, a white box next to your Group 1 folder appears. Yay! You did it! You made a layer mask!

Now go and get your paintbrush, make your opacity 100%, and make sure the black is showing in your colors palette. (When working with layer masks, just think of it this way, black paintbrush takes AWAY from the layer, and white ADD to it) Then, you just paint over what you want to NOT be black and white. For this picture, I just wanted the flower in her hair to be in color. So I painted over the entire flower, making sure to be extra careful to detail around her hair. You’ll probably want to zoom in and adjust your paint brush size to one that can get in each petal corner smoothly.

And then you should have done it! That’s all there is to it. So basically, get your picture the way you want it, group it, create a layer mask and paint over what you want to show in color with the Black paint brush.

BTW,  this picture is of Courtney, gorgeous! Wanna see more of her and her little sis? Click here!

A few glamour shots from my shoot with the staff at CFCOG awhile back. .  ; )

Enjoy! Happy Hump Day everybody!