Just a quick glimpse of what’s going on @ Photoshop World.
This was a live photo shoot at the Wescott Booth.

Glad I brought my camera!

Reinforces my need to get lights and set up a studio…this was so much fun. Addicting!

Photo by Regina Pagles

Kristi’s beautiful bracelets & necklaces!

Photo by Regina Pagles

Two photo HDR processed & tonemapped with Photomatix. Further enhancements made with PS CS4.

After:

Before:

Photos by Regina Pagles

On our way into St. George this evening…

Oh…I may be falling behind a little in my postings

Photo by Regina Pagles

Poor beetle.
Found dead at the bike shop.

Photo by Regina Pagles

Wow…I got this today:

“Congratulations!”

“You have been selected as a finalist in Lonely Planet’s 100 Millionth Guidebooks mosaic photography competition (http://www.lonelyplanet.com/win).

One of your images was judged as one of the top 200 images from a pool of over 130,000 images!

As a finalist your image will now be entered into a second round of judging and you have a chance of winning round the world air tickets to an approximate value of AU$10,000. Your image will be judged by a panel including Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the co-founders of Lonely Planet.

As one of the 200 finalists you have won a handset from Nokia (either an N97 or N97 Mini) up to the value of AU$800. In order to accept your prize, you will need to fill in your name and address plus sign the attached deed of release and return it via regular post to Lonely Planet.”

Very exciting!

Here is the link to the Finalists @ Lonely Planet.
At the time, no finalists’ photos were posted, just names.

This is the photo I entered, which by the way, I lost the original file

Photo by Regina Pagles

I stopped at the Farmers Market in La Verkin and saw this Bel Air in the parking lot. Ironically, someone else was getting out of their car to take photos of it also.

Photo by Regina Pagles

Fred, Jeremy & Pablo going for a ride.

Dalton Wash Road – Southwest, Utah.

Photo by Regina Pagles

This one was supposed to be posted yesterday

Oh well…

Photo by Regina Pagles

She’s a real sport!

Photo by Regina Pagles

If you like beautiful storm cloud formations + phenomenal photography, check out the website of Ryan McGinnis. The ‘Fine Art Prints For Sale’ gallery is just awesome. Wow!

Photo by Ryan McGinnis

He’s on Flickr, too…
Take a look at his ‘Storm Chasing’ set.

Washington County Fair, Utah – 8/11/10

After:

Before:

Before w/notes:

Photos by Regina Pagles

Here’s a list of some post processing I did:

• Masked the building, so I could make adjustments to the background without affecting the building and vice versa
• Applied Calvin Hollywood’s ‘Calvinize’ technique to the building only to bring out the details
• Blurred the background using OnOne’s Focal Point Plug-In for Photoshop
• Removed imperfections on the ground  and on the top right using the Healing Brush
• Darkened the handle on the building’s right side with a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer, selected w/the  Quick Select tool
• Dodged & burned the sign with a separate fill layer of 50% gray set to Overlay blend mode to deepen the shadows and bring out the highlights
• Used Auto FX Mystical Lighting Plug-In to add some haze & fog to the foreground, which is hardly noticeable now after all the other processing
• The building looked a bit too ‘crisp’ after adding the haze & fog, so I Used OnOne’s Photo Tools Plug-In to add a slight ‘glow’ to the highlights, to blend the building into the background a bit more
• Used a Color Balance adjustment layer in PS to add a cross processed look that I am very fond of
• Lightened the black vehicle in the background with Nik Software’s Vivesa Plug-In
• Applied several separate ‘Lighting Effects’ filters to smart layers, some to the background and some to just the building
• Used an Aurora Borealis shaped brush (from DeviantArt) on a separate layer, blend mode set to Overlay, on the glass windows to brighten things up a bit
• Added a vignette on a separate layer set to Soft Light blend mode, then used a gradient on a mask to lessen the vignetting on the bottom and right sides
• Flattened the image and then rotated and cropped at an angle
• Saved as a PSD file
• Reduced the image size to 800 px wide then duplicated the Background layer, converted it to grayscale and applied a High Pass sharpening filter to it and set the blend mode to Soft Light
• Saved the smaller version as a jpeg at 180k for the web

I am sure that there are some steps I have forgotten to include.  I’d say I tweaked this photo for about 5 hours, so alot can happen in that time. Most of that time goes into moving sliders around to see the effects, and then scrapping them.

For me, it more about mastering Photoshop, then the end photo result. If I can at least learn something new, no matter how small, that’s significant in my quest to improve my skills.

Hope I may have helped someone.

Sam & Amanda’s little boy

Photo by Regina Pagles

Springdale, Utah – August 19, 2010

Photo by Regina Pagles

Carisa’s feet…

Photo by Regina Pagles

Another sunset up on Dalton Wash, 8/17/10.

Photo by Regina Pagles

Photo by Regina Pagles

Another sunset in Sol Town…

Photo by Regina Pagles

More Luke…

After:

Before:

Photos by Regina Pagles

It’s finally done!
Many thanks to my brother Fred. Without his help this would never have turned out like it did!

After:
My brother Fred helped lay the flagstone patio in April, ‘06. We made many trips with the Subaru to the Virgin rock quarry. The Adirondack chairs are made from synthetic wood (Trex) and are supposed to last forever. I LOVE them. They were custom made by a really nice man from Cedar City.

Before:
November 13, 2002. Not even any fencing.

Here are some more…

I built the trellis’s myself in May ‘10. Newly planted ( May ‘10) purple grapes to fill in the trellis and enclose the pergola.

The Cotoneaster (small shrub to the left in photo) was the most recent addition, planted June ‘10. The 2nd Cotoneaster (not pictured) may not survive the summer heat

My brother also helped install the pergola that we picked up from Costco. Originally white, we spray painted it brown.

I planted the summer blooming Wisteria on the columns of the pergola in the fall of ‘08.

The Wisteria is finally thriving after a lot of struggle. This one on the left was hit hardest by the ‘09 spring frost we had and suffered the whole season. I am ecstatic that it survived and is now flourishing. This one is the only one of the four that has not flowered.

I ordered 6 yds. of ‘Peaches & Cream’ stone gravel from Sunset Rock in Hurricane. Me & my husband Fred wheelbarrowed it from the parking lot into the backyard. The Shademaster Locust tree which is finally starting to grow more upright and not look so droopy, was planted in the Spring of ‘09. Turns out I may have been overwatering it, according to my best friend, Susan. She’s the expert.

The Kiva shaped rock work was the finishing touch. I may still add some more…down the road. The Virgin quarry only has bits & pieces to choose from now. Far cry from when my brother & I got the rock for the patio in ‘06.

I had some extra large pieces of rock leftover from the patio, which made a great walkway (right). In the back corner (middle of photo) is the Raywood Ash tree I planted at the same time as the Locust. Boston Ivy and Virginia Creeper cling finally to the rear fence, and will hopefully cover the fence door.

I look forward to the day when the Wisteria covers the entire pergola, maybe in another year or two.

It’s getting there…
Below this trellis are three more Boston Ivy plants (not pictured). I angled the trellis away from the house, as I would prefer the ivy not attach itself to the stucco. These plants were just planted in the Spring of ‘10, and they are growing like crazy. I imagine I will have to stay on top of the growth to prevent them from taking over!

Here’s some ‘During’:

Photos by Regina Pagles