Manipulating digital photos...

I've spoken before about my love/hate relationship with digital photography.  It's no secret.

When I stopped doing traditional black & white darkroom work, I sat on the digital fence for a long, long

time,

not happy on it, not happy off of it.

It feels really good not to be working with those chemicals anymore.  I wouldn't want to bring them into the new environment where I live anyway. I no longer throw away mountains of film & slides (and mountains of money on same)...I simply push the *delete* button.  But the flip side to these things is that I no longer have the same relationship with picture making and well, "the thrill is gone, gone away for good."  Or so I thought.

I knew I needed to bring the FUN back into my camera toting life so I thought I'd post a little recap of a workshop that gave me just that.  It was all I had hoped for and more.

I can't remember where I first read about Susan Tuttle's online workshop, "Digital Photomanipulation."  I surf through a lot of blogs - I think someone mentioned having taken this course, and loved it, so I probably clicked on a link and off I went.  Am I glad I did!  Visual Poetry (I really liked the sound of that) is the name of Susan's website for this art workshop series and many examples of her FUN and beautiful work can be seen on her Flicker page here.  Oh my gosh, isn't this the most deliciously *manipulated* cupcake?

Photo courtesy of Susan Tuttle

All rights reserved

The month long workshop was divided into weekly assignments where we learned three new techniques each week.  We could work at our own pace, trying all three, or only one, whatever suited us.  We could jump ahead or lag behind, even work on one photo over & over until we made it sing.  Like this singing cupcake that makes me crave frosting.  I think Susan's photo is actually an Operetta to Baked Goods  :>]  

The technique was called 'Retro Technique 1'.  Here's my attempt:

Below is the "before" shot:

The software we used was Photoshop Elements 6.0 (or later versions, 7.0 or 8.0).  Some people worked in Photoshop, for which Susan supplied supplemental written instructions. I chose to work in Elements since Adobe provides a free 30-day trial of their latest version.  I liked it very much. Other "perks" to the workshop were Video Tutorials for each assignment (these were incredibly helpful - thanks, Susan!), a Forum where we could post whatever questions we had while working, Texture Goodys to play around with and our very own Flicker group for posting our results.  I was amazed at how much I learned by viewing the creative solutions of the other members.

Here I had fun with 'Faux Midnight' where I turned a frosty morning into midnight by moonlight...

...'Retro Technique 2' with some grittiness from a Texture Goody...

'Tinted Grayscale' was about removing all the color then adding back a tint...a favorite subject here...

Oh, and that photo at the top...that's a 'Landscape Atmosphere' technique...

here's the before comparison:

I have a really long way to go, there is so much to learn, so many endless possibilities of how to manipulate my images, get them to say what I want them to say. But I will definitely take another workshop from Susan...and maybe even another one after that!  And I've pre-ordered this:  

Yes, I am definitely having some FUN now and for that I am very grateful.

Hope everyone is having a happy Spring Break, till next time...