On the inside

Photo done by: Kyrstin Stratton

December 19, 2013

For this photo I had a little help from my friend Anahi Gallardo, she took the photos as I was in front of the mirror. We took 4-5 photos to makes sure I had enough photos to make the picture look right. Once we where done taking photos we downloaded all the photos onto Photoshop. I took the picture of me in jeans and a flannel and I cropped it to cut out the mirror and then I pulled it over on top the photo I chose to use for the photo of me in the dress and boa. I lined up where the counter met the best between the two photos. Then I erased  things that didn't match up just right, and anything that covered the mirror. I blended in anything I could. Attention to detail is a big obstacle in photos like this one. Even that little feather from the boa next to my finger could be a bad thing, if I didn't leave it there on purpose. After I combined these two photos together I flattened them. Then I used the magnetic lasso to out line the edges of the mirror and copied it onto another layer. Making sure I had the layer flattened selected I desaturated the layer. Leaving the layer of the mirror still in color. Then I flattened the two layers again. After I did that, I went to the photo in the mirror and made my face and hair look like I have perfect skin. Erasing any blemish, then sharpened my eyes so they stand out more. (So they are less blurry)


To see some of my friend Anahi's work visit: http://agallardophoto2.blogspot.com/

To see anyone else in Anahi's and my Photography class look to the right side bar of my blog. --->

Highway of Lights

All Photos Taken By: Kyrstin Stratton

Taken Above Interstate 78 California

These are Long Exposure photos. They where taken with 4-10 second shutter speeds. That might not seem very long but in camera time it is. Any exposure longer than a second without a tripod can become blurry. Essentially the faster the Shutter Speed the better the photo if you are caring the camera in your hands. But tripods are definitely a great resource. Some of the most beautiful and fun photos to me tend to require a tripod and longer exposure. For the two photos of the what seem to be the highway I set up my tripod and camera on an over pass. I set the camera to Bulb for the shutter speed and a 20 for the Aperture. My ISO was on the lowest it would go which is 100. I waited for a lot of traffic to start heading towards me from both directions. Then I pressed down the trigger button for about 2- 10 seconds. Then the next day I went into Photoshop and adjusted the vibrancy, cropped it to how I thought looked best. I also adjusted the levels and contrasts of the photo.

Taken above Interstate 15 California

In the photo below I used the same settings on the camera. But instead of using a tripod I took this photo as an experiment while I was in the car on the way to the site where I took the photo above. I pulled out the camera and got as close to the windshield while my mom was driving. It is a bunch of cars but I was moving too. I loved the different look to the picture so I used it. I edited the vibrancy and then copied and flipped the photo. (Cut it out wish the Marquee tool the copied it as a different layer. Then flipped it [Edit > Transform > Flip]) I moved it to the place I liked it to be and flattened the image.

Taken on Interstate 15

Special thank to my Mom :) She's awesome! 

And no your duties for mother of the year aren't over.

Colorful Life

Photo made by: Kyrstin Stratton

This is Pop Art. It's a bunch of colorful fun photos put together to make one big masterpiece. I first had to take the nine photos. I really had to think about it. I kinda felt like The Brady Bunch of myself. Once again I had to get on Photoshop and use its magic. I did all the edits I would normally do to make my lighting look good. Then one by one I did the same thing over and over again. I had to copy the picture then make a blank layer. Then I deleted the original layer.After that was done I used the pen tool to outline myself, and made it a selection. I had to inverse it and delete the background. I then cropped the photo to a 2.5"x2.5" box. (That was/is important for the size of the box when you put all 9 photos together it makes a 7.5"  box later) Then I desaturated it. By going to Filter then Artistic then Cutout I got a really good artistic look to the photos. Then I made a new "canvas"( W:7.5, H:7.5, Resolution: 300, Mode: CMYK Color) Then I dragged all the finished photos to that Canvas and I made sure they where aligned. Then at the side bar (to the right) I put every photo into their own folder, naming the photos and the folder it goes in the same thing. (Example I named the top left photo "Hear" short for hear no evil, same for the folder it went into.) Then inside the folder I made another layer (again for each photo). When that was all done I could get to coloring. Then I clicked on the background of the photo I wanted to color, at the very bottom of the tool bar I picked the color I liked. I then use the "rectangle tool" that is found under the "Pen tool" and "Path Selection Tool". I then made a square around the photo I was coloring. Make sure it's the exact measures of the photo your coloring otherwise it will mess up the photos next to it.Then in the right hand "Layers" bar underneath the "layers" tap is a box that says "Normal" I opened it and selected "Screen". That will change the color of your subject. (In this case it was my face.) Then I clicked on the actual "photo" layer. I went back and chose a different color the same way I did before but this time I used the "Paint Bucket Tool". (Click and hold on the "Gradient Tool" then you will see the paint bucket). Then click inside the blank white background inside the box of the photo. I repeated this process till all the photos where colored. Then I was done. :)

HDR

Photo Taken by: Kyrstin Stratton

I took this photo outside of my photography class room. I set up the tripod and took a picture  with the perfect balance. Then, I took 2 photos under exposed and 2 over exposed. All not in the same ex-poser.When I was done and happy with the photos I took I plugged in the camera into the computer and downloaded the photos. I opened Photoshop and got to work. At the top left hand corner I clicked on "file went down to automate then over to "Merge to HDR" I clicked on the photos I wanted to use, made sure the box saying "Attempt to Automatically Align Source Images" is checked. then pressed "OK". Made the photos a 32 bit image and adjusted white point. Then I had to change the bit 16 or 8. I then could adjust settings in the photo to how I most enjoyed it. After that I saved it and POW it was done :)

Above The Hidden Valley Looking out

Taken on the Palomar Mt. Fire Tower on 9/12/13
Taken by:  Kyrstin Stratton

I took this on the US Forest Service Fire Boucher (Booker) lookout tower on Palomar Mt. It was closed to public but luckily my dad works for the Forest service and the gentleman working that day let us up. This is a photo of "the hidden valley" or  towns consisting of Valley Center, and Escondido. You can see all the way out to the ocean. This type of photo is a Panoramic shot. I took 27 photos starting from left to right. All of them overlapped each other at least 1 quarter or more. Once I did this the next day I edited it in Photoshop. In Photoshop I went into file and clicked on browse in bridge. Picked out the photos I needed to complete this shot. and Photo-merged them. (go to tools, go down to Photoshop, click photo-merge) Clicked on reposition only. When the photo is done loading I flattened it, then a cropped out the parts I didn't want. I edited the brightness then that's it I was done.

Desert Sunrise Double Exposer

Taken 9/3/13

Photo by:Kyrstin Stratton

For this photo I took a picture of myself and a photo of a sunrise in Ocotillo Wells. First I needed to make sure the two photos fit into each other. Once that was done I copied the picture of myself and pasted it onto the photo of the desert sunrise. Then I cut myself out using the magic wand tool, and erased everything that's in my background (of the top and bottom photos). Then I changed the portrait settings from "normal" to "overlay". It then looked like it does above.  And that is it. If you have a little extra time you can even "dodge" some parts of the photos to make it look even clearer, but you don't have to.

Anahi x6

Taken 8/26/13 and edited 8/28-30

Photo by: Kyrstin Stratton

This photo really shows us the crazy and fun times we have in class, all while learning new things about photography. This picture took many tries to get just right. I took 6 different pictures of Anahi and put them all together in Photoshop. To do so I picked the pictures that I wanted and put them in a stack in Photoshop. Then I picked my background picture (which is the photo I place the 5 other Anahi's on top of that particular photo). After that I went to another picture and used the magnetic lasso and cut her out from all the photos I took. Such as where she is laying on the ground I used the magnetic lasso and circled her in it (so to speak) and copied her body onto another layer. I did the same thing with the rest of the bodies and placed the copied image layers right above my background photo. Then is the colors didn’t really match up perfectly I used the eraser to get in as close as I can to her body. After I finished all the editing I needed to do I flattened the image and it all became one photo.