I Love Green, Honest!

I had my second lesson with Tia on Photoshop Elements 6. I don’t have the patience to read technical manuals so I love that I can support Tia in her budding business and have someone I know well and relate to teach me what I want to know.
–
This weeks lesson: The stuff I forgot that I remember her telling me. That sentence was clear as mud eh?
–
Well part of what I wanted to remember how to do was to remove color from some parts and keep it in others. I know, this is probably elementary to most folks but not for me.
–

So here is my viburnum, it smells even better with out all that distracting green. I recognize the fact that I am lucky to live in a place that has an abundance of water and is therefore nearly a perpetual solid wall of green year round. But sometimes it can be distracting to my brain. Perhaps a little too much of its calming effect.
–

I love green, really I do, but sometimes I just need a break. I don’t want to see all black and white; I still want to see the brilliant non-green colors. It may be just in my head but I think the tulips color really pops without all the green.

–

This was done by the same method at the top picture but different from the second and the last two pictures. Those are done by selecting an area, creating layers based on the cut and then removing the saturation of color from the background. Because this picture has many little spots of bright color and the entire surroundings were basically green, yellow, cyan and blue, I removed the saturation of those individual colors.

–

Bet and I were discussing how you can see a little color still in the foliage in this picture and I said that is how I picture oh say, the forties when color began to come into the world.
–

Once again, in my opinion this tulip really stands out and all I did was remove the color from the background. My favorite of the flower pictures I did up is my lead out photo, my viburnum. The highlighted pink is so sweet and tender. I might have to print it out and hang it.
–

Dirt grilling some burgers, talk about flame broiled! In the original picture the flame was there and yes, it was noticeable. But when I removed the color from all but the flame it becomes the focal point, not something the picture take-er hopes you notice as much as those in attendance to the actual bacon grilling part of the event did with mouths a gape.

–

I always knew my Dirt was hot.

–

So I resisted the temptation to mess with all my photos in this manner and show you a gazillion more. And in fact I did quite a bit more that I haven’t put up here. Can you tell what I did today? But I learned my lesson about not learning my lesson. Do whatever it was that Tia told me while she is still here and then practice the heck out of it right after she leaves.

–

But all that means that I have a day’s worth of weeds, slugs, seeding and gravel moving to add to the weeding, slug killing, seeding and gravel moving I was already going to have to do tomorrow. In fact I hear some of my primroses knocking on the window right now, begging me to come out and save their lives from the slugs and buddacup (that is mafia talk for buttercup, because, quite frankly, they are a mafia).

–

Tomorrow I will take some more photos for the whole purpose of messing with color. I promise not to inundate you with all of them but I may have to force a few more on you. Yes, like a kid in a candy store or a guy with a new tool, I can’t help myself.

–

Thank you for your patience Dear Reader, it is much appreciated. I’ve been workin’ like a crazy person. Not to mention the tragedies and near tragedies keep piling up. On a good note though I can’t wait to show you all we are doing and tell you about some of the ideas I have. Not to mention I have lots of writy stuff rattling in the ol’ noggin that really needs to get out.

–

But that would mean that I need to spend a large chunk of time in front of the keyboard with something other than pictures. Lots of stuff, lots of stuff about life and the Giver of Life, that is stuck in between where my roses should go and if the replacement peony should go next to them.

–

I hope you are having a super delicious day, evening, night and that you are walking and talkin’ with God right there with you. He is the only thing that will get you through the good times and the not so good times; He is the glue.