This one almost looks the previous one, right? But I created this in Photoshop going off of Fabio’s tutorial. I didn’t follow it directly; instead of using the pen tool, I just straight up used the brush tool with specified settings. Actually, I’m not fond of how it came out since it doesn’t look that realistic to me. I probably should’ve added a very soft glow to it.

I’m really not a drinker, so I don’t know much about these things at all.

Now, onto something more constructive! It’s been awhile since I’ve done a tutorial, so I’ve decided to take on The Maiden and Hummingbird Photo Manipulation Photoshop Tutorial.

I added my own touches to it, of course, which included excluding the hummingbird. I didn’t like the hummingbird anyway. Doing this, I learned more about the liquify filter options and played around with one of my favorite Photoshop adjustments, curves.

Finally! It doesn’t seem so difficult, now…

The tilt-shift effect is typically achieved using a special (and very expensive) tilt-shift lens. In this case, however, you can learn how to create the effect through good ol’ Photoshop. It’s a very quick effect to make, and thus, the tutorial is short but thorough. What this does is make what was photographed look like a miniature model. I haven’t had the chance to take a good elevated-viewpoint photo to try this on, but I was too impatient so I used the best photo I could find in my existing repertoire.

Okay, okay–I know this is a stretch and thus a horrible example to show off this effect, but ah well! Don’t ever look at my examples, anyway. Usually, the actual examples from the tutorials are far better since I just make do with what I have.

This really is superbly easy. I completed this in what seemed like only a minute! Even Photoshop newbies would be able to follow the instructions since pictures are included to show how one would go about applying a specific process. In fact, I think I’ve already got this memorized, except that I’m still not quite sure how some of the layers options work, but maybe I’ll look it up to learn tomorrow.

After yesterday’s sprinkle, today’s Texas heat combined with the humidity made it especially unbearable to shoot outside, but I wanted to see if I could create the HDR look with photos of the backyard. Mine isn’t spectacular but it must have been because I shot a poor photo in the bright sunshine. Also, I couldn’t find my tripod, and my shaky hand definitely shows in the sky.

Show me you can do better than this. Please.

I used my own photo for this tutorial–something I just snapped up from earlier today specifically for this. This tutorial requires Photoshop, as most of the ones I’ll be doing will. If you don’t have Photoshop but want to try this, download the 30-day free trial. Anja does a pretty good job of explaining the steps; As long as you have very basic knowledge of navigating Photoshop, you shouldn’t have too much of a problem following along.

I’d love for y’all to share your results. :)