Tag Archives: Heidi

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.

The Bun

Heidi is pregnant. My little sister! She and her husband were the cutest babies on record, so it stands to reason that their offspring will pretty much cause everyone in sight to pass out from cuteness overload. Observe the cuteness, and fear for my future as the aunt of this baby–please look closely at the upper righthand picture of baby Mike (have some smelling salts handy):

Baby Mike

Baby Heidi

 

Heidi is in the middle ... Erica to the left, and me to the right

We all had names in the womb. I was always angry about mine:

Jenna=Spud

Erica=Muffin

Heidi=Biscuit (also the name of our 3rd cat)

It’s so convenient to name the little creatures. That way you’re not referring to “it” all the time, especially if you don’t know its gender or don’t want to know. Heidi and Mike have chosen wisely: they call it “the bun”. HOW ADORABLE IS THAT? Picture this:

“Good morning honey! How did you and the bun sleep?”

Or “Is the little bun taking a nap after that kickboxing tournament?”

Anyway, this has prompted discussions between my husband and me. What will we call our future baby-in-the-womb? The very first thing that popped into my brain was “the alien”. Or to be more cute “the little alien”. Because … isn’t that what it looks like? Anyone? Anyone? Yes, I know pregnancy is going to be beautiful and magical, in fact one day I want to experience it myself, but I can’t shake the idea of an extraterrestrial floating in some kind of organic space ship that’s in my belly. With weird feeding tubes all about. And I have to ask myself—do I want to be a space ship? With weird feeding tubes?

I’ll update you on all my conflicting emotions once I have one in the oven.

One day, when my future child is playing with Heidi’s child, just think of the discussions those two little cousins can have :

(Situation 1=alien is a boy)

Heidi’s little one: “Hey guess what, before I was born I was called ‘the bun’!”

My little one: “Oh yeah? Well I was ‘the alien’! Isn’t that awesome! My alien smashes your bun!”

Heidi’s little one: “Cool!”

(Situation 2=alien is a girl)

Heidi’s little one: “Hey guess what, before I was born I was called ‘the bun’! What were you called?”

My little one: [starts weeping uncontrollably] [beats chest] [tears out hair] “I was called . . . I was called the ALIEN!!! I think I’m going to go run away and join a band of anarchist pirate thieves [where a tragic love story and an untimely death will occur] because my parents don’t love me!! I’m a freak and I’m sorry for everything!”

Wow. I didn’t realize that my future little girl would be so scarred and that her pre-birth name would lead to her ultimate demise. I’d better come up with a cuter name. Pronto.

What did you name your pre-birth child? Was it “sweet pea” or “little dahlin”? For those of you who—like myself—have not yet reproduced, what do you plan on naming it? “Pea in the pod”? “Homunculus” or “hotcake”? Maybe I’ll name mine “pancake”—or even better “pamcake” as in “a wagon fulla pamcakes”.

On a side note, did you know that the baby in the womb has little fingernails at 4-5 weeks? These are the thoughts that make me swing between “ew, gross, my body becomes a sci-fi vessel for another being!” and “can I please have 5 babies immediately and name them Cutie, Patootie, Puddin’, Lovecakes, and Fred?”