Why Photoshop (Elements) is One of My Best Friends :)

I've been meaning to do this post for a while now. I am so enamored of Photoshop, and I want to help all you curious ladies to understand why I can be so passionate about an inanimate object, lol! So I figure the best way to demonstrate is to show you some classic "before" and "after" shots. For those of you already familiar with the wonders of Photoshop, feel free to exit my blog now :) I won't be offended.

By the way, I'm totally an amateur at the most basic level, and I have no training whatsoever. You may not even like what I did to the photos. And that's perfectly okay! Photography is so subjective anyway. I just wanted to share this piece of my life with you. Photoshop has to be my friend because I just have a regular "point and shoot" camera, and the pictures just lack that extra spark that makes them stand out. I'm sure when I get my Digital Rebel xti sometime around Christmas I'll still find plenty of excuses to use it!

So here we go:

This first shot is of my nephew playing T-Ball. I really captured the pose very well, but it's just lacking "oomph."

This is after I played with blending modes, cropped it and blurred the background to better focus on him (and his intense expression!). Now it makes a statement.

This is Ashley goofing off after we got our last haircut. Such a cute expression, but again, it just doesn't pop.

This is her after I played with blending modes, increased the contrast, and made the background white. You like?!

This is just a mistake. I uploaded the wrong picture and don't know how to delete it. So excuse this photo :)

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