Assignment #2

Picture 1. My daughter on the beach at our cabin at Candle Lake.
I used the clone tool to take the child out of the background. I then adjusted the hue, lightness and saturation levels. As well, I cropped the picture to exclude the white sign post on the left. Lastly I used the clone tool again to get rid of the sign post shadow, zoomed in, and I had to drastically increase the size of the brush for this part. 

Picture 2. My daughter and son at Whiteswan Lake.
I started out adjusting the hue, saturation and lightness levels. I then created a duplicate layer, and desaturated it to a grayscale layer. I then added a layer mask, then chose a brush and tried as best as I could to bring back the color to my kids. I found this took a LONG time to do, I had to zoom in and change brush size many times through this edit. 

Picture 3. My daughter and dog checking out my backhoe stuck in the swamp.
I started out cropping the picture down a little. I then went into color balance and brought out a little more color. I adjusted the hue, lightness and saturation levels trying to improve on the original. I then made a duplicate layer. I started using the paths tool to trace, but switched to the scissors tool and found that easier. I found this one tough to do with all the leaves and jagged edges to get the cut out. I created a new layer, inverted my selection, and then blurred out the background. Lastly I went into the levels setting and set the levels of the background. 

Picture 4. Kids and I out on the lake in front of our house with the snowmobiles.
For this picture I added some text, and made it look neat. Then I traced and cut an image from a different picture, scaled it to a usable size, pasted it into this one, and turned the opacity down. I did the same with the second row of text, to try and send out the feeling that summer is fading away. I used multiple text layers, and duplicate layers in this one. 

Picture 5. My son sitting on a bench.
I started out by cropping then adjusting the hue, lightness, and saturation levels. I also adjusted the color balance levels, and tried to get the brightness and contrast levels better. I then adjusted the color levels. My goal for this picture was just to try and play with the settings to get the picture a little nicer. 

Picture 6. Our boat sitting on the beach in front of our house.
I started out cropping, then I made a custom brush out of the fishing boat I used in an earlier picture. I used the airbrush tool, and tried to make it look like the fishing boat sped in ultra-fast in beside our boat. 

Picture 7. My son’s tricycle in front of the wood box I made in the wood shop.
I started off cropping, then went into unsharp mask, and played around a little to get a crazy look. I then went into the distort settings and played with the warp effect on the background.  This picture my son seemed to really dig, so I went and exported it as a jpeg, and printed it for him. (In which he played with it for 5 minute then tore it up!)

Picture 8. My model A coupe in storage.
I started off with playing with color balance, and hue, saturation and lightness.  I tried to make it all artistic and funky looking. I then created a layer mask and brushed with simple dynamics the car, so the car looked normal with the funky background. 

Picture 9. My old d7e doing some dozing.
I started off by using the paths tool and going around the dozer. I then cut it form the original picture and pasted it to a new file, then scaled it up in size. I then made another new file, and made a background. To make the background I used distort and mosaic settings and played around with the settings until I got it how I liked it. I then used the air brush and turned the size way up, flow and rate down, and used different colors to try and create a yellowish background with a light coat of black to try and give it a black smoke type accent. I then added simple text just for kicks. (Anyone remember the skiroule snowmobile motto, "You've just been skirouled!"?) 

Picture 10. My old Peterbilt 379.
I started off this picture with the cage transform tool. I enlarged the size of the stacks a little bit, then I Flipped the whole picture to face the truck the other way. I then used the clone tool to fix up the stacks, and to erase the writing that was now backwards, and to green up the grass in front.  I then made a brush out of the dozer that I used in the previous picture, and airbrushed it on to the door. Lastly I adjusted the brightness and contrast levels slightly.

For all of my pictures I created a duplicate layer, and used multiple layers while editing. I may have forgotten a step or process here and there as once I got into the zone, I didn't always have what I was doing on the brain. 

I am going to score myself as excellent for the following reasons: I feel I did an excellent job at improving the picture’s aesthetics. I went through the list as I was working, and tried to reasonably use and mention the use of, as many tools as possible. I balanced the work I did with a little creativity, as well as quality in enhancement. I also feel I added everything I did to each picture when I wrote about it.