…Only you beneath the moon or under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It’s no matter, darling, where you are
I think of you day and night
ABF Forum is on a holiday break. But that doesn’t mean I am. So, while our American and Canadian friends are feasting and spending time with their loved ones, I am typing this post while I am still working. But it’s Friday afternoon, a new weekend is almost here, so I am allowed to cut corners.
I discovered a new feature in PicMonkey, nice transparent layers that you can add to the background of your images. Some features are free, for some you need to pay . I needed the one that was not free. 😛
If I remember correctly, I visited Paris in the fall of 2000. We had such a lousy weather, cloudy, hot, high humidity. So I ended up with collection of really poor images. We were shooting with analog Minolta and I remembered it was a good quality camera.
Two of the images I already worked with and posted on my blog. One was for the ABF Forum, Bassin d’Apollon in Versailles. It was at the beginning of my editing journey and from today’s perspective, it was a poor editing job. The other was Gargoyle on top of the Notre Dame, which I submitted for this week’s Monochrome Madness.
All of the images are scanned paper photographs, that is visible in the bottom right corner of the image above, you can see some lines there, paper texture.
My first idea was to replace the sky. I tried to do it in GIMP and I figured it out. But the problem was there were too many “white” parts in the tower grid and in the trees. I remembered something from the PicMonkey, so I opened the image there. Under the textures I located “Clouds” and used a regular blue one. It was a perfect fit. But, clouds cost money. And I am not interested in upgrading PicMonkey. So, the next best (free) thing was “Space” texture. It was not a perfect fit, but I liked it.
It took some additional work in adjusting exposure and color, using several different layers, but in the end I got what I wanted.
I hope you like my little experiment, maybe this will inspire some of you to try PicMonkey, it is really a cute little program,
Next week ABF is back in its usual form, participants submitting their individual after/before images.
But next year brings some changes. As some of you noticed, we had a fun little experiment few weeks ago, when all the participants edited one single image. We had so much fun, we decided to do that once a month. So, starting January 9th next year, first Friday of the month will be reserved for that special event – one image for all participants to play with.
If you want to join us, keep an eye for our posts in the weeks to come, we will supply you with all the info you need.
On Monday another challenge starts – December One Four Challenge. I think you noticed how much fun I had with November One Four Challenge, so expect some fun and crazy Christmas things to come.
Enjoy your weekend! ♥
Oolala! I love Paris!
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Loved the after before. Still trying my hands on PicMonkey.
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Hope you have fun, for a free program, it is really good. Thank you.
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I hope so. 🙂
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LOVE this after photo. The first is so basic (no offense), but that 2nd is really spectacular. Nice job!
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That’s the point of After/Before Forum, to try and improve hopeless images. Thank you so much! 😀
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I should have known that, having seen a few of these now… but I so like your writing, I sometimes (ok, admitting it here) skip the explanation of before/after. Other times I’m intrigued. Most often I’m blown away by what you’ve done with the after… this one was especially fantastic!
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Oh my, thank you so much for all the kind words. I am learning a lot, both with my writing and photography, really enjoying my blog experience.
Once again, congratulations on all the good things happening to you. When it rains, it pours. 😀
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I’m keeping my umbrella upside down! 😉
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