Tag: Photograph

Sunkissed Orchids

On By patriciamanhireIn Photography11 Comments

Hello there

I know that I normally write about my cardmaking and scrapbooking but today I want to show you what a difference editing your photos make.  I normally am a purist about photography and do minimal editing such as cropping for photos but today I went a little further and I am sold on editing to get a good photo now.  What do you think of the results?

Sunkissed Orchids

I used to use Memory Manager from Creative Memories, but I bought a new computer and I am now no longer able to use it for editing as the programme is no longer being supported since the demise of CM Australasia.  So I have discovered Picmonkey which is free for basic editing and just $33 per year for the Royale feature.  I have found it great to use to do collages for a website that  I am setting up for Gift Hutt.

For those of you that don’t know, I also have a shop in Lower Hutt called Gift Hutt and sell lots of arts and crafts on behalf of people.  You can check out what I have  in the shop here.  Today when I got to Gift Hutt the sun was shining through the window, onto some polymer clay orchids that I had sitting in the front of the shop and that was creating a lovely reflection.  I took a few photos with my Samsung Note tablet – here is the original image:

2014-10-04 12.12.29

As you can see there is quite a lot of background distraction.  I then cropped the photo to focus on the flowers and then using the clone function removed the white mark on the right.  Finally I used the shadow function to remove the background noise from the wall at the back of the photo.  It didn’t take long but I am happy with the result.  Here is the finished photo again:

Sunkissed Orchids

As you can see the editing has made a huge difference.  I know a lot of people are probably already doing this but it is a revelation to me and I am so pleased with the results that I will be doing more of this to improve the quality of my photos.  I will be exploring the other functions to see what results I come up with – so watch this space…

Happy Crafting

Patricia

Black and White Photo Challenge :Texture

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, Digital Art, Photography9 Comments

Welcome

I have been inspired to join this Black and White Photo Challenge by my friend, Amanda from Unique So Chic.  She has been doing the most amazing things with her photos and photoshop so I thought it was time for me to give it a go.

So here are my efforts:

Raindrops on geraniumsFor this image I chose a photo of rain drops on geraniums and changed it to black and white.  I then used my Memory Manager’s Filters/Stylise function to create a negative embossed effect.

I did the same for the next photo of a daisy and the embossing was a lot stronger on the single flower.  The little raindrops have come up a lot stronger in this image and actually I feel that this has come out a lot better.

DaisyFor my last effort I have used the Filter/Surface and Frosted Glass function.

Daisy in the WetThis has made the daisy look quite fuzzy, but the raindrops still stand out.

I can see this is going to be challenging which will be good for me to stretch my imagination and do something completely different with my photography.

I hope you enjoy my efforts.

Have a good day and Happy Snapping.

Patricia

http://sonelcorner.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/black-and-white-photo-challenge-texture/

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RIP Creative Memories Australia and New Zealand.

On By patriciamanhireIn Crafts, Creative Memories2 Comments

Hello there.

Today the doors shut on Creative Memories Australia and New Zealand.  This is a very sad day as they have been a very good company to work with and I will miss the fabulous tools, albums and decorative elements.  I have also met some lovely people in the process of  building my business and it has kept me going through all the health challenges over the last 18 months.  However, I guess it is a sign of the times and we just have to keep positive and move on.

However, all is not lost as there is to be a major announcement either at the end of today or tomorrow so I will keep you posted.

I am still working on the Art and Craft Collective and will keep you posted on the progress.   I can’t wait to open the shop and have my cards and photos for sale in it along with some amazing crafts from some incredible people here in the Hutt Valley.  But there is a lot of logistics to cover first and it is a crash course in small business administration which is very useful indeed.

As you can see I have changed the header on my page and have now renamed it my Creative Corner.  I will now post all the different crafty creations that I get up to over the next few months/years…

Happy Crafting

Patricia

 

 

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Defiant in the winter sunshine

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, Photography1 Comment

Another photo of the day. The late afternoon sun had a golden glow to it and I grabbed my camera and rushed outside to take photos of the last few remaining flowers in the garden. I can now understand why they call it the Golden Hour.
We are now in the middle of winter so everything is looking a little bleak at the moment. So we make the most of the sunshine and the flowers that we have.
Patricia

 

More scrapbook layouts

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, Cardmaking, Children, Crafts, Creative Memories, Pets, Photography, ScrapbookingLeave a comment

Hello there

It is sooo good getting my computer back!  But there is still a lot to do with tidying up all my photos and trying to remember all my passwords to go back onto various websites.  I think I will be busy over the next few weeks.  I am so pleased that I had backed up onto an external hard drive, although I did lose a couple of digital kits but it is no big deal fortunately.

As I said yesterday I have been working on James’ album and he is now up to 9 months old and soon I will be doing his first birthday.  I am still trying to make my resources stretch and have kept up with lots of photos per page and linking the album with accents such as the border maker twinkle chain and picket fence cartridges as well as the same colours throughout.  It is not taking long to get through these photos and I should have his first year album completed very soon which will be good.

Here are a few of the layouts:Best Friends layout James and the cat Family layout Family layout Family time layout Life is Good layout

 

The materials I have used here are:

Creative Memories Card Stock – Cloud

Creative Memories Card Stock – Green Metallic

Creative Memories Card Stock – Brown Cardstock

Creative Memories Border Maker – Twinkle Chain and Picket Fence cartridges

Creative Memories Rugged stickers

Creative Memories Rugged Paper Ribbon

Creative Memories Rugged Photo Mats

Creative Memories Rugged Tags

Creative Memories Rugged Title stickers

Creative Memories  Enchanted Epoxy stickers

Creative Memories Decorative Pack – sorry I have forgotten the name of this.

Creative Memories Rotary Trimmer

Creative Memories Personal Trimmer

Phew what a list, especially as it did not take very long to do and did not seem to use a lot of materials.

I have also been making a lot of cards so please take the time to check out my crafty creations.

Have a good day everyone and stay calm and keep scrapping.

Patricia

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Rainy daisy

On By patriciamanhireIn Art, Creative Memories, Digital Art, Photography2 Comments

My photo of the day for the people in Oklahoma who are facing yet more tornadoes. I think the people in Oklahoma are incredibly brave to deal with these forces of nature. I am not sure if I could do it.  We get southerly storms here but they are nothing compared to the twisters.
My computer is now up and running again after being without for a week. I have had to get windows re installed and I am now faced with the mammoth task of transferring my photos back into Memory Manager. Fortunately I was able to activate the both my Memory Manager and StoryBook Creator before the cut off time midnight last night. I will now look at using Picasa to store my photos as well so if this problem happens again I won’t lose my photos and it will be a good back up for Memory Manager. There is now no Digital Centre from Creative Memories and I suppose that at some stage I may have to look at Photoshop or Lightbox in the future as well.  However, people can still get their photobooks and other digital products printed until midnight 3rd June.  There is to be a meeting on Tuesday in Australia so it will be interesting to see what the outcome will be for Creative Memories Australia and New Zealand.  This is such as shame as the products (especially the albums and pages) are really good quality and I have done a lot of pages for my children’s albums.  It has been so easy to use coordinated products that last a long time.
While I have had no computer for the last week I have been busy with doing cards and scrapbooking and when I get the photos sorted out then I will upload them on here. So watch this space…
I hope you all have a good weekend.
Patricia

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Stretching resources – a 12 photo scrapbook layout

On By patriciamanhireIn Babies, Children, Crafts, Creative Memories, Photography, Scrapbooking5 Comments

Hi there

Thank you to all for all the support that I have received over the last few days since we received our sad news.  I am unable to add much more at this stage except to say that we have some incredibly good deals going at the moment.  These are up on my website at this point in time, so if you would like anything please feel free to contact me.  I don’t know how long these deals will keep so you will need to get in quick.   I would like to think that there will  be some positive resolution to our current difficulties and that we will still be able to access the wonderful Creative Memories Products in the future.  I have also been very heartened with all the support from the other consultants and the way we are all helping each other to get products to all our customers.

Following on my post the other day here is a layout that I did last year on my daughter’s photo album.  This page has 12 photos in it and I have trimmed off all the excess that I didn’t need and the end result is quite pleasing.  Plus I was able to use a lot of photos, which saved on pages and resources, and I got through a lot of photos in one hit!  There is no embellishments on this page, except for me writing down the names of all the people that attended my daughter’s Christening so many years ago.  This highlights the fact that we do not need to add all the embellishments to create an effective page.  Memory keeping is about writing down our memories so our children and grandchildren can look back and understand what was going on.  The embellishments are the decorative element and really should be secondary to what the photos are about.  Less is more!  And when times get tough we just have to get back to the basics to help our supplies stretch further.

12 Photo page layout

So keep on scrapping your stash

Patricia

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