A Scenic World

I got a new haircut a couple of days ago, and I’ve really wanted to do a 365 photo with it, but due to my pathological need to stand in the rain, it really wasn’t happening until today. I figured that just kind of spinning in place with the camera pointed toward me was the way to go - 300 shots later, I’m not convinced that was the best method, but I couldn’t come up with anything else.

This was the best picture. It definitely needed some help though. So first I opened it in Photoshop.

 

 

 

 

The next step is to run an action I found when looking for a Holga simulator called “Old Toy Camera.” It’s made by flickr’s own Dave Ward and you can get it from his photostream here.

 

I added my own action that modifies Dave’s, which takes away the “Greyscale” and “Grain” layers (I was shooting at ISO 800, so I didn’t really need any more grain) and changes a few of the layers. Specifically, it changes the blending mode of the “Lighten Center” layer to “Hue,” tweaks the “Hue/Saturation” and “Levels” layers, and adds a “Color Fill” layer on top. The “Color Fill” layer’s blending mode is set to “Color.” (I would add a link to this action if I could figure out where to find it on my computer).

I didn’t like the color I’d originally used in my action for the “Color Fill” layer, so I changed it to something a lot softer by double-clicking on the original green color in the layer. Even though I changed it to a teal color, it doesn’t really make the entire picture teal because of the blending mode used. For these changes, it’s vital to be able to see the photo while you’re adjusting it.

I wanted the picture to be a lot more dramatic and lyrical, so I decided to add a “Color Balance” layer on top of everything else. You just have to go to “Layers,” “New Adjustment Layer,” and “OK.” First I chose “Highlights,” and used to sliders to add a lot more yellow and a bit more red. The for the “Midtones,” I moved the sliders slightly to yellow, toward magenta, and then very far over toward red. I left the shadows alone.

This left me with what I wanted. I right-clicked in the layers menu and chose “Flatten Image” to give me just one layer with the look that I had been going for. And all of this gave me this: