Photoshop
I’m handy with Photoshop. It makes my photos slightly less mediocre. I try to use as many drop shadows and embosses as I can.
Here are 42 my favorite photos with a fair amount of Photoshop work. Click on a thumbnail to view the full size image on Flickr. The image will open in your current window. You may right click on a thumbnail and choose Open in New Window or New Tab if you wish.
![Happy Towel Day 145/365](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3334/4640802434_3ee57cd87d_s.jpg "2010 Day 145
Happy Towel Day! <a href=\"http://towelday.org/\" rel=\"nofollow\">towelday.org/</a>
I decided to try a trick I saw in a photo magazine--masking yourself so it looks like you are floating or something. The important part is having matching backgrounds.
step 1: Found a simple background. My boring closet doors were perfect.
step 2: take a picture of the background by itself. I had my camera on a tripod and used the timer to avoid camera shake. Using Live View helped with lighting/focus.
step 3: picture of myself. same way as step 2.
step 4: dump it all into Photoshop. The original background is the bottom layer, the photo of me is the top layer. Added a Mask to the layer with me and "painted" myself out of the picture.
With a Mask, anything you paint Black disappears (this is preferred to erasing because you can just paint something White to bring it back). TIP: drop the Hardness of your brush down a bit so the edges aren't so jagged/sharp.
and that's pretty much it.
Lighting didn't turn out exactly as I would have liked, but I'm happy with this over all.
You can see I cut out parts of the towel, which is fine--I was going for more of a flying carpet look anyway.
I also wrote a <a href=\"http://danieljhogan.com/home/2010/06/03/flickr-photoshop-fun-how-to-disappear/\" rel=\"nofollow\">blog</a> about this process, which contains some helpful screen captures.")
![Docking Bay 349 (13/365)](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2671/4272011247_8d9898ff74_s.jpg "<b>2010, Day 13</b>
It seemed appropriate that with this being "2010" and all that I do at least a few science fiction inspired pictures.
This is actually a "help" phone in a parking garage in downtown Lansing, Michigan (the red button says "push for help"). The color light it gave off and the construction reminded me of something out of <i>Aliens</i> or <i>Blade Runner</i>. I thought of sticking some kind of alien (or rather "Alien") lurking in the shadows, but meh.
Obviously, I tweaked the colors: I used the Curve tool in Photoshop to boost the blue and red levels--and I did what I could to hide the (thankfully empty) parking spaces behind the column.
I had to be creative to get rid of the church that you normally see through the window. A few passes with the magnetic lasso tool and I got rid of it, but I liked the blown out light look.
I doubled the layer, blurred it and used the Vivid Light layer blending feature to really bring out the color and to distort the image a bit.
The planet in the background is just a circle I created with the outer glow and inner shadow layer effects used.
I had fun with this one.")
![Sherylpalooza V shirt (2)](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3314/3608830095_d0d1f02840_s.jpg "Shirt design for my family's annual summer party--celebrating my mom (Sheryl) being a breast cancer survivor. It spawned from a "Christmas in July" party we had many years ago after she finished chemo.
Last year's name was Sherylpalooza IV: The Quest for Peace and Quiet. We have live bands and lots of booze (hence the Liver Strikes Back title this year).
Made by me, in Photoshop. spoof the Empire Strikes Back logo, if you couldn't tell :P")
You may also view these photos as a slideshow on Flickr. I have plenty of other photo sets on Flickr for your viewing pleasure.
The list below will take you to additional photography samples on my site. Enjoy.
Animal Photos :: Attraction Lost :: Black and White Photos :: Escape to Alcatraz :: Event Photos :: Food Photos :: Lansing Photos :: People Photos :: Still Life Photos :: Travel Photos
