Check out our most recent Tip of the Week for a really fun Neon effect.
Thanks Tye!!!
Here’s my personal Neon Graffiti for the night. It was fun to play around with the settings and see how things interact. Photoshop is such a fun program!
The new Tip of the Week is up. Please look it over and reply. Tye wants to customize her Tips for you and this is your chance to make that happen. I know how much you all love the Tips. Please reply so she can make them even more awesome!!!
On a similar note, I found out that if you are currently running Photoshop Elements you can upgrade to their new full blown Photoshop CS4 for the incredible price of only $299. That’s a SCREAMING deal!!! If you are interested in this just click here.
I know many of you have mentioned interest in upgrading. If you can budget that price in you will not be disappointed by how awesome CS4 is!
Tye has brought us another Tip for this week. It’s a really fun one. She talks about Line Art and how you can incorporate it into your post-processing and scrapbook pages. It can be a really fun way to add another level of personal touch or just make your photo look like the most awesome thing to hit the Internet. Either way, it’s a great thing to learn.
Enjoy! I did.
First off… Thanks for all your comments and love with the guest post. I had a lot of fun writing it and it was really fun to read your comments and support. You are all a great group of people!
So onto the meat of this post! Our Tip of the Week is back!!! I know you have been excitedly waiting patiently. Your patience has paid off today! So check out this page and remember to Keep It Simple Silly!
If you are new to MomShots don’t forget to stop by the parent Tip of the Week page and brush up on past topics. Tye’s written a lot of fantastic advice for Photoshop Elements, CS and design in general. She is a fantastic resource for us all!!!
In case you were wondering, this picture is pretty much only here because I like it and I like the majority of my posts to have at least one photo in them. That doesn’t always happen but today it did!!! Red Cowboy Hat Ulysses for you viewing. I was playing with Pioneer Woman’s actions. I used three of her actions. That’s still keeping it simple isn’t it??? :)
Enjoy the newest Tip and keep those cameras ready!
*Edit*
Thanks to Melinda for showing me to the I heart faces site. I’ve entered this shot into their current contest.
Remember this post? We all loved it.
Kelty did that awesome shot with her dogs and everyone wanted more details on how to do it. This week’sTip of the Week has those details and much, much more. It is a fun filled Tip that I am sure you are going to LOVE.
Check it out and be sure to leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.
Wasn’t that a cool post by Anne?!? I had so much fun reading it and thinking about the ones that aren’t going to make it into the final running of my Christmas cards and photos. Please share your Christmas or Holiday ideas with us. Leave a comment and let us know what ideas you are pursueing, leave a link, whatever you feel comfortable with but please share.
I, personally, am in much need of inspiration lately. I have been going a million miles a minute for the past few weeks and not getting enough sleep. Consequently my creative wells are feeling a bit low. I enjoyed looking at the links Anne shared so much. I hope to see what you are doing this year as well.
This leads me into our AWESOME Tip of the Week - I is for Inspiration. I was so thrilled to read Tye’s latest creation that I could hardly contain myself. What a great Tip!!!! Like I said above, I have been feeling a bit brain dead lately and so these ideas and thoughts about Inspiration are like a breath of fresh air. I really am looking forward to checking out the links that Tye provided and coming up with some new ideas too!
And finally, because Momshots is all about photographing our children, I have to share with you just how sweet my 4 year old is. He is learning to read and write and this morning he wrote this special birthday note to me:
If you can’t read it, it says, “I love (heart) mom” He’s such a sweetie!
Before I go, I just want to beg you to share your Christmas ideas with us. Spread the inspiration around and we can all benefit.
Happy Halloween Eve. That is to say Happy Eve of All Hallows Eve…
Tomorrow is Halloween and Ben and I haven’t even started making Garland’s Wall-e costume. We’ve got some work cut out for us tonight, that’s for sure! I plan on finishing this post, cleaning up my kitchen quickly and then start sewing his arms.
That’s my To-Do list for the next few hours. Intermingled with taking care of and nursing sick children back to health. I caught a head cold and was out of commission yesterday. Today my kids are fighting it. We will prevail!!! Mind over matter or in this case, mind over sick bodies.
Tye created a great new Tip of the Week for you. She talks about using Grids and Guides in Photoshop. I use these all the time and can testify to their massive usefulness. I already said that I use them all the time but I feel like just writing that sentence again to reinforce how often I use them: I use them all the time. It’s true!
So if you are unfamiliar with Grids and Guides, study this tutorial and you will use them all the time too. It’s quite possible that your life could be changed by reading this post… :)
Tye also threw in a tutorial for creating a cute little Halloween ghost. She included a file that I was trying to make available for you to download but I can’t figure out how to do that. Not today anyway. Maybe when Ben comes home from work he will know how but until then, I’m stumped! Email me and I will send it to you. It’s cute and gives you an idea of what you can do. Momshots at yahoo.com
I have so much I want to tell you today. But I think the cold medicine in interfering with my thought processes. I’ll sign out with a reminder to play with your camera and take lots of dressed up kiddies Momshots! I hope you will share them with us on our Flickr Group Photostream.
I got an email the other day from Momshots reader Aubrey. She said
I tried out the duotone one & loved how it worked on a pic of my son. The original pic was a little too bright; the red of his shirt really stole the focus away from his face. I tried black & white, but it wasn’t giving the image the soft angelic look I felt it needed. So I tried the duotone with a blue cast and I love it!
Here are the photos Audrey sent. I’m sure you will agree with me in saying that her son is just totally adorable.
You can see what she means by the red in the color photo being a bit much. Your eye is drawn away from his cute little mug and onto his shirt. The black and white is lacking something but the blue duotone definitely gives it that look she was going for.
I’m so glad you emailed me Aubrey! Thanks for showing us all a fantastic practical application and example. I love, love, love that you tried all three versions and sent copies to me. It is so helpful for not just me, but I am sure, many other Momshots readers. Thanks!
Did you try a Duotone photo? How did it turn out?
Shelle tried her hand at the spot color. Don’t you think she did a great job? I love the spark that the spot color gives her photo. She’s such a great photographer. I’m definitely a fan!
Our new Tip of the Week is up! Yay! Tye wrote us a great tutorial for turning our Momshots into Duotone images.
“What is Duotone?” you may be asking. Did I read your mind? I thought so… I was asking myself that same question until I read the Tip of the Week.
Tye explains that, “Duotone images are images with two colors (this refers to ink) that increases the printing range of a grayscale image. A duotone image will have a slight tint of color creating an amazing ALMOST black and white image.”
Sounds pretty cool, huh? It is.
OK, I have a request for you. Please read the tutorial and then try your hand at processing one of your Momshots into a Duotone image. Then email me (momshots at yahoo dot com) or use our comment section to either send a copy of your Duotone image or link to your image online.
Wouldn’t it be cool to have your image as an example on Momshots’ Tip of the Week? You can make that a reality if you would like. Just send it to me and I’ll put it online. Your cute kids would make a MUCH better example of Duotone images than my stupid wild sunflower picture! Don’t you agree?
Now open up your editing software and get cracking! :) I will check my inbox regularly for your emails.
If your kids are anything like mine, they are always going full speed. There is no chance that I can gather them together, pose them in a sweet angelic way and then be able to snap some beautiful photos that show how cute and adorable they are. Not gonna happen until they are maybe 20…
Does that sound familiar? Well if it does, you may think this Momshots Tip is pure genius. I do!
Contain them. Put them in a box. Put them in a basket. Put them in something that makes it difficult for them to run away. They enjoy the novelty of being inside a container and you get to snap some shots while they are immobilized.
I took a series of photos with my three boys in this wooden planter bucket. We use it as a laundry basket and so the boys thought it was really fun to climb in and play around it.
Try this tip yourself and let me know what you think. I would love to see some of your results.
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The next item of business is the new Tip of the Week. We are focusing on the letter B this week. For B we are discussing Backgrounds. Check it out and the next time you start snapping your Momshots, think about what is behind your subject. Are your darling kids going to end up with a tree or telephone pole growing out of their head? In some situations that would be really funny. However if that is not your intended purpose you might be disappointed.
I love your feedback. Don’t forget to leave a comment. Do you have any funny shots where shovels are growing out of your kids’ ears? Do you have any great ideas of containers you can stick your kids in to get some good shots? Let me know. I love to hear it.
