1. Friend me if you'd like to just watch my icons, layouts etc. I won't friend you back but you can keep tabs on my public entries which will all be graphics/livejournal related.
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Writers have writers blocks. I have processing blocks. Take this image I took recently… It’s a simple fall picture. I’ve been toying with Photoshop Curves and layered effects to create vintage-y and other “feels” for photos.

Here is the original picture:

Due to the harsh lighting from behind, I had to either step it down on the camera and lose some of the shallow depth or increase shutter speed and lose some of the luster. I chose option two, resulting in these dulled colors.

Of course then I go to “tweak” the picture in Photoshop. For me, the fun part of the whole photo process is the post-processing. I can play with the colors, curves, levels, contrast, and just have a little personal art party until I wind up with something I like.

Then I run into processing blocks. I come up with a version that’s almost perfect. Sort of. Something’s off. Since this is all subjective, I have no idea what exactly that “something” is.

Anyway, this is the result of several attempts to process this image. Just thought I’d share a little peek into my brain.

Version 1: 9:45 pm

The colors are warm now, and the picture gets back the luster I saw originally when photographing it… but it seems kinda one-tone right?… lets try again.

Version 2: 10:15pm

I’m getting a little frisky with the colors. The oranges are more intense… I’ve decided that I need a little color flair in this so I adjust the sky to be a seafoam color with more intense highlights. For some reason this reminds me of barbies.. so I don’t like it.

Version 3: 10:25pm

I throw all caution to the wind and make this a dark and contrast-y piece. Who cares about stupid fall colors right? This is art.

No wait, I care about the fall colors…back to the curves panel.

Version 4: 10:30pm

I finally settle on something that allows for a little color contrast but still allows the “fall” feeling through.  It’s not jarring to the eyes and it has more than one dominant color.

Okay I’m satisfied.

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This happens with every photo I process. I’m thinking of saving off my photo’s ‘alternate personas’ too. Who knows, maybe there’s someone out there who’d appreciate my half baked finishes.

I made more jewelry. I'll put them up on etsy later but If you want any let me know. It’s $5 plus $1.25 shipping. for individual earrings and $12 for the blown glass necklace and earring set plus $2 shipping. :) I can send more pictures if you’d like. They'll be $8 a pair on etsy and the necklace/earring set will be 16-18 when I decide. Gotta make up selling costs and crap lol.

Leave a comment if you’d like a pair. Thanks. :-)

I’ve noticed a lot of texture/text wallpapers floating about and I decided to try my hand at it. This is a grungy house-wallpaper type image with some bright text stating one of my favorite quotes by Gandhi.

The wallpaper is 2650 x 1600 px, to fit up to 30” monitors without losing clarity.

You may also rather use the standard 4:3 monitor sized image. Just click the minipic:






All image and stock credits can be found at my deviantart page.

Widescreen wallpapers from my recent trip to Jacksonville. Clicking leads to a 1920 x 1200 wallpaper. Please don’t use my images for anything other than for what they were intended;  your wallpaper. Please don’t repost. Feel free to point others to this entry. :)

15 - 2009 New Years Icons
Simple new years icons with images from popular new years traditions. Images via Corbis.

Please comment with suggestions or request an icon set topic!

Okay, I'm coming across a pretty big issue here with this new monitor...
I've been doing all my photo post-processing on my laptop monitor this whole time. Unfortunately the way the new monitor displays colors is very different from the way my laptop monitor displays colors....

See that? Rich colors on the left monitor while the colors are dull on the laptop monitor…… it’s actually bad enough to change how I edit my photos. For example, I edited two photos, one on the small screen, one on the large one…

Here’s how they look.

This is how the image turns out if I edit it on the laptop monitor to my preferences…

This is how the image looks if I edit it on the large standalone monitor:

Apart from the slight difference in cropping ( I did each picture from scratch separately). which one looks correct?The top one looks oversaturated on my lcd monitor while the bottom one looks drab as heck on my laptop monitor…

Please comment with which one looks better to YOU so I can calibrate the monitor accordingly.

Thanks!