TEXTURE TUESDAY

Hi everyone,

How are you all doing today?  I'm doing really well. I'm still dealing with some congestion etc that I've had since the Tuesday before last. It started out as a really bad, hoarse, scratchy throat and now I'm just congested. It's getting better, but it still sounds icky gross when I cough sometimes.

However, having said all of that, it's a fantastic day. My dad and I were running some errands today and decided to take the ocean drive back home. We almost always drive through Pacific Grove...and lo and behold there is a "Little Car Show" going on.  So I had to stop and take some photos. I'll share some more of that another time.

Today I'm participating in Texture Tuesday over at the lovley Kim Klassen's blog. Click here to pay her a visit. She's a really nice lady with some of the neatest textures anywhere. I use them with Photoshop and Picmonkey. 

This week it's centered around "looking down".  Whenever I am at the ocean (which is any chance I can get) I like to go to the rocky shore and look down at the ocean. It gives me time to rest, breathe, think and be grateful for all the good things that are happening in my life. It makes me happy.

Here is the original photo that my father took of me this morning. It was a rather ocean foggy day this morning. The fog hadn't lifted yet, so it was still very gray:

Then this is what I did with the photo. I used three different, but equally lovely textures from Kim Klassen.  Here is the photo and then I'll tell you what I did with it:

I started out with the "Dream It" texture for this week...and I followed a similar recipe to what Kim Klassen used for her photo.

I added the "Dream It" texture in soft light at 80% opacity and gaussian blur at 100%. Now the gaussion blur, I'm not sure what "percentage" I should have used. I consider it a success that I even found that feature on my Photoshop CS3 :) :) 

Next I added "waterstained frame" at 80% opacity. Oh, I think this was in "screen", but I can't remember for sure...

Then I switched to Picmonkey...hush...don't tell anyone...and I added a third layer of "Reverie" in Overlay at 76% fade...

So that's what I did to get this look. I love the much softer look. It still reflects the gray tones on a foggy ocean day. You really can't see much of anything. In spite of all that, it's absolutely gorgeous and I love the icy blue/black of the water when I look down at it.

Thanks for stopping by to visit me today. I love it when you all leave me comments.

That is the news from the ocean shores of California today. Love and hugs to your day, Heather :) :) :)

HEATHER'S TEXTURE TUESDAY

Hi everyone,
It's been a really exciting week for me.  I'm not ready to talk about what it is...yet. However, it is pretty big for me :) :)


I'm participating in Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday this week. Today it's an "anything goes" edition. So I decided to show you all my very FIRST texture that I used. It was Kim Klassen's "Autumn Burst" back in September 2011. I hadn't learned how to resize the layer image yet, so I just cropped everything instead. This photo was of a lilac bush in my neighbor's yard. Lilacs are so beautiful and delicate:

Tomorrow, our country will be celebrating it's birthday on July 4th :) :) There will be a parade downtown and I'm looking forward to checking that out.

In the meantime, I leave you with a photo of Colton Hall in the city of Monterey, California. Colton Hall is where the first constitution for the State of California was signed back in the 1850s. It also served as a school at the turn of the 20th century. It's being decorated for our July 4th celebrations tomorrow:

That is the news from the ocean shores of California today. Extra love and hugs to your day today, Heather :)

HEATHER'S PHOTO TEXTURE TUESDAY

Hi everyone,

I'm participating in Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday link-up again today. If you'd like to visit her blog, click her. She takes beautiful photos and has some of the most amazing photo textures, too.

Here is the original photo that I took last Sunday:

There is a really sweet story to this photo.  An older couple in our church got married at the beginning of June.  They are both in their 80s.  They were both married to their respective spouses for well over 50 years. They both became widows.  They met at a weekly dinner/Bible study at my church.  They eventually found love again in each other. It was really sweet to see.  We surprised them with a post-wedding reception after church.  The wife was totally surprised. The husband knew about it all along. He can keep a good secret.

It was such a sweet, precious time. Everyone was clapping and cheering for this couple. I think the best love stories are the ones that are written by God - the Author of Ultimate Love.

Okay, so what did I do with that flower photo? See below:

Voila, here it is.  I used TWO of Kim Klassen's beautiful photo textures. I used Photoshop to edit and texturize my photograph today.  First I used two layers of "Reverie" texture. The first layer in soft light at 60% opacity. The second layer in hard light at 30% opacity.

Then I added a THIRD layer of "waterstained frame" at "I totally forget" opacity...just dark enough to see the waterstained frame around the edges of the photograph.

All the textures were free downloads from Kim Klassen's website. Thank you, Kim :) :) :)

That is the news from the ocean shores of California today. Extra special love and hugs to your day today, Heather

HEATHER'S PHOTO TEXTURE TUESDAY

UPDATE:  I think I figured out the "problem" with the fonts.  So hopefully from now on, I should be able to write in the "pretty" font ;) :)

Okay, so I'm just now noticing that Blogger is no longer giving me the fonts that I want. So I have to stick with this plain font....boo !!!! Anyone know how to fix that?

In any case, I am participating in Kim Klassen's "Texture Tuesday" link-up today.  I LOVE to take photographs. I'm also just discovering all the cool things I can do in Photoshop as well, including adding layers of texture to change the look of my photos.

Here is what I have to show you today.

This is a photo that a friend actually took of me last Wednesday. This is the original. It was a very cloudy day last Wednesday:

I figured out how to not only add textures in Photoshop, but how to resize the texture so that it fits over my photo like sand in an hourglass.  So after doing all that,I ended up with this photo:

I used Kim Klassen's texture called "waterstained frame" I really like it and it gave me a real retro vintage cool look to my photo. It felt like I found the "holy grail" of vintage photo coolness.

Since it's Tuesday and I love you all, here's another photo. This one I took way back in October 2011...and I applied the same "waterstained frame" texture. This is what I came up with:

OH, this is totally random, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE...and did I say LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the vintage 3D Kodachrome photoreels...the ones specifically from the 1950s and earlier that you insert into a ViewMaster. The colors are brilliant and they all have a vintage cool look to them.

That is the news from the ocean shores of California today. Love and hugs to your day today, Heather :) :)  :)