kimi kreations

Jerry at Shadowhouse Creations (AKA, Ghostbones) has been posting the most wonderful weed images using his free textures. He has also posted an in-depth tut on how he made his "Thistle" image. Certainly a must read!! Well, it is that time of year again. The yearly dandelion hunt. I drove around a few days ago and there were none to be found close to home. Kristen was kind enough to bring me home two she found today at school. We tried taking shots while she was blowing. Between her blowing too hard and my shutter speed not being fast enough... most were bombs. But here is one before we started. I was using my 200mm zoomed all the way out to get the most blur out of my background and the smallest aperture number the lens had to offer for the smallest depth of field. And I searched for the perfect green background so the white would have contrast. I also focused on the weed and held down my focus lock button so the focus wouldn't change while I shot on continuous. Always g...

I know... you are thinking I must have been abducted by aliens. I promise to start doing a better job of keeping up my blog. Please forgive me? I wanted to share the kids Save the Date card I designed. It has hit everyone in the family and Kristen said it was fine for me to share. =) I started with a blank document in a 5x7 format. Combined some of my textures from Jerry and created the background. Browsed the web for inspiration and came up with this. The Polaroid frame is the one that is for sale in my frame set at "The Shop" . The tape is mine also. I came up with most of the design on my own. I knew we had a dark brown card so when we went out to take engagement photos, I processed the image to go with the theme of the card. I fell in love with the picture the minute I saw it. It is the oozing love image. So here you go... FRONT BACK I know that sending out Save the Dates is a rather new concept. Some of the older folks really don't have a clue as to what they are. (...

Yes, it is that time of year again. Time really does go by too fast. So to celebrate I have posted a birthday freebie at "The Shop" . And because I have to have an image to go with every post, Down here in Louisiana, I give you spring... On my walk yesterday. My neighbors Japanese Magnolia blooming. I ran the Orton Effect and added a tan colored texture, changing the blend mode to soft light. pretty huh? =) Happy Weekend! ~kimi~

Jerry at Shadowhouse Creations posted a very cool image today. It was made possible by Wordle. I made one for Kristen and Dustin. I thought we could somehow use it on their thank you cards. All you do is type all of the words you want to use, I typed them in Word. Then you copy and paste into the word area on Wordle and hit go. You can use the randomize button and keep getting different patterns. Scrappers should love this! Click on the image to get a bigger view. It is such fun. Go and try it out! Wordle can be found here Happy Thursday. ~kimi~

Let's talk about using a photo filter. You will find this feature in Elements and in Photoshop under your black and white adjustment layer icon in your layers palette. The first thing the human eye goes for in an image is the brightest spot. Normally we want this to be a face or an eye to make our images really stand out. In one of the photos I posted a while back, it had the kids holding a sign that said "Marry Me". I used a small aperture so the kids would be blurry and focused on the sign. This worked ok. But every time I looked at it, my eyes still went to their faces before the sign. So I went in and played with a couple of photo filters. I added sepia, orange and yellow, adjusting the opacity until I liked the effect. Because photo filters fall under an adjustment layer. All I had to do was mask the color off of the sign so it stayed white. I am much happier with the image. Take a look at the new version and go back a few post to look at the original. Do you see it?...

Hi Everyone... I have new recording software that I am trying to learn, so I offer you a video tip. Thanks to Joanie for letting me know this applies to PSE7 also. Look for a big announcement coming soon! =) Have a great weekend. ~kimi~

Went out today in the cold and did some engagement shots for my daughter Kristen and her fiance Dustin. Did I mention... It was Cold!!!!! They are such a fun couple to be around. You can feel the love oozing out of them. Do you think love really oozes? I swear, it oozes! =) They are both 24 and it is so wonderful to think of the life they have ahead of them. (and of course the grandchildren I will one day be graced with) Here are two of my favorites from the day. Marry Me Love! Let's talk a little about what I did in the processing. On the top one I changed to a black and white using a gradient map. I duplicated the image, went into the filter menu under Distort and added a diffused glow. Reduced the opacity of the glow layer until it was only around 20% opacity. Added in 2 of Nicole Van's textures for effect. On the bottom image, which I love, love, love!! It has the oozing love. =) I changed the image to a black and white using the gradient map again. Added a copy of my colo...