Author Archives: Jenna

Playing with Photoshop

Enterprise, Alabama

Photoshop is a recent acquisition of mine. And due to certain family members being enrolled in certain graduate schools, I get to have it for CHEAP. And that was the only way I was going to have it, man.

I am terribly excited about learning how to navigate it. And terribly frightened that I will get sucked into the obsessive vortex that can be image editing (do you like it–“image editing” as opposed to my old activity of “messing around with pictures on the computer”?).

I’d like to state for the record that my goal is still to take great pictures SOOC (straight out of camera) so that I don’t feel compelled to mess with them. It’s all about having options and not obligations.

As I learn, I plan on posting some step-by-steps . . . but right now I feel like a small child lost in the woods. And if this small child just knows what roots to dig and eat, what berries won’t poison her to death, how to create a blanket out of leaves, and how to befriend the local fauna, she could have a blast playing in this woodland realm with no adults to tell her what to do! Have I lost you? Layman’s terms: Photoshop is going to give me amazing freedoms to edit, beautify, and get all artistic up in the crizza, but first I need to learn about the roots and berries and leaves. And I need to befriend the local fauna.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures that I have played with. There is so much potential to be unpacked, and I am not only on the tip of the iceberg, but I’m only touching the tip of the iceberg with the smallest part of my tiniest finger, straining my arm from the deck of a huge boat that’s about to take me far, far away from the iceberg. My mission is clear: jump off the boat, embrace the whole iceberg, and avidly kick my legs to avoid hypothermia.

Thank you for allowing me to get lost in metaphors. It gives my brain a workout.

All these pictures were taken with my Nikon D5000 (love that thang) on our March sisters reunion in Enterprise, Alabama. Maybe one day I will understand what I did to these pictures, but all I remember is–layers? Layer masks? Something with a filter?

Photoshopping my lovely sister Erica

 

Photoshopping my lovely and pregnant sister Heidi

Photo courtesy of Erica; Photoshopping courtesy of me =)

Ditto on previous photos–thanks Erica.

 

A halo of light

The picture above was fun to play with, and I used a cool eye-enhancing technique which involves sharpening the blue part of her eye and whitening the white part … and something with dodging and burning maybe? (Note to self: must enhance long-term memory via a diet of nuts and berries.)

Heidi and Mike! Photo courtesy of Erica.

Eye-whitening/enhancing tutorial coming up! In the very distant future. Unless the nuts and berries work.

Terry Pratchett: why I’m addicted, and why you will be too

Terry Pratchett is like candy. But candy that gives you a sugar rush in your intellectual funny bone. I could find his books at the library instead of hauling them around every time we move—but I love just grabbing them off my shelf when I’m in need of some snorts, cackles, and chortles. I need at least two dozen snorts, half a dozen cackles, and three solid chortles per day. And Terry helps me exceed my quota—every time.

My stash

My reading of Terry Pratchett goes in spurts—I’ll read about 4 or 5 of his novels in a row, and then I hit some kind of hilarity-induced state of mental madness and I need a break for about 6 months. And then the whole messy cycle starts again.

He writes about a made-up world called “Discworld”, which (as anyone will tell you) is a flat world that rides on the back of four elephants who in turn stand on a giganto-turtle who swims through space.

It is much like our world. And that’s the gist of the funniness. Terry Pratchett loves drawing out the absurd and comical aspects of our life here on earth by showing us its image in the distorted mirror of his fictional world. As an example, Terry Pratchett will chronicle the advent of a new technology—such as banking, or newspapers/printing, or the Postal service—and show us an alternate history of how it came into being, highlighting how strange and fascinating these systems we’ve developed really are—if you stop and think. And he will make you stop and think. Wait—does that make his books sound boring? Because they’re not! I liken the experience to going to those Fun-Fun-Mirror things at a fair that make your nose strangely bulbous and your legs really bendy and your head oddly egg-shaped—and you’re like “Whoa, the human body is hilariously freakish! [cackle cackle] [snort]” Terry Pratchett is witty and sarcastic, and I probably laugh more with his books than any others.

Within his Discworld novels, there are different character groups: the witches (Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Wyrd Sisters, Equal Rites), Death (Mort, Hogfather, Thief of Time), the Watch (Men at Arms, The Truth, Guards! Guards!), Rincewind the wizard (The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic)…I could go on and on. This man is nothing if not prolific. And hilarious. Or did I already say he was hilarious? (I did, but if I repeat it enough I will subliminally brainwash you) “Pyramids” could be a good random one to start with … or maybe you should dive into the witches with “Wyrd Sisters”, which I am reading right now along with “Mort”. Either way, give him a little time, get used to his style, and then go into a dark sound-proof closet where you can laugh your head off without someone asking you “what’s so funny?” every five seconds. Not that anyone I know does that. My husband for the record is very good about letting me read and laugh uninterruptedly. I’m just sayin’.

Any Pratchett lovers out there? Any recommendations that will give a first-time reader some good ole laughing whiplash?