#i am not a photoshop whizz

[shazzaofdoom]

I wanted to do a daily drabble challenge for Josumay, but I couldn’t find a pre-made list that I liked, so slapped this together for myself. I tried to make it compatible with the main prompts, so the two lists have some prompts that are similar, or will fit together well.

Anyway, if anyone else wants to join in with this, please do!

[lavenderprose]

kakikaeru said:

I mean bobsled, yes, but have you considered two singles athletes who team up for TWO PERSON LUGE?

So I’m looking at the pictures and I’m not sure what I was thinking about because neither bobsled or luge is what I was imagining in my head. THAT SAID

I fucking refuse to believe that anything that looks like this is not a fetish. On the scale of “How hard would it be to photoshop this to look like hardcore porn” with ten being the absolute hardest, this image rates a .5. It is surpassed only by images of people eating bananas and exploitable Nicolas Cage memes. I am so genuinely alarmed by everything about this image, right down to the fact that these men are wearing socks over their shoes. 

I’m sure that there is a perfectly reasonable and important explanation for this. I have very little understanding of sport, in general, and I accept that this is probably something far beyond my ken. But my brain is having a reaction to this that I can only imagine is incredibly similar to the one our ancestors had at the sight of poison frogs.  I don’t know what nation or entity those colors are meant to represent, but they look like they’re doing a closet cosplay of Andy Serkis doing the motion capture for Gollum. These two men, trained professional athletes who I’m sure are incredibly skilled at their selected sport, look like what I imagine would happen if one threw the Kama Sutra very hard and took a picture of it as it whizzed by.

[yntcd]

can any photoshop whizzes pls help me out? i’m making a gifset but for some reason when i reduce the gif’s size so it’ll be suitable for tumblr the quality reduces SO much and idk why! this never used to happen for me so i’m really confused as to how to fix it. if any of you know how to stop this from happening pls let me know bc i am very sad about it

[chaisimmer]

I have a question, if you’ll answer! Do you take pictures while playing, or stop to post them? I feel like stopping to pose takes way to much time. :( Also, what do you use to edit your photos? I wanna start documenting my legacy on here, but I don’t even know where to start! Anyway, I love your blog! Super cute! ^.^

Hey Nonny!  I’m so glad you love my blog.  ❤️To answer your first question, I do a bit of both.  I usually just let my sims do their thing and take photos as I go.  Sometimes, though, I have a story made up already in my head, so I have the sims act it out to get the photos.  I don’t use a pose player for anything, so any screenies are just in-game actions.  Blogging a legacy is definitely time consuming.  I have a separate legacy family that I’ve literally taken zero pictures for and am only playing to score points.  Needless to say, it’s whizzing by much faster than my Blooms.  As for photo editing, I use Photoshop and Topaz Clean.  You could also use GIMP if you don’t have Photoshop.  I’m still fairly new to it all and I’m teaching myself with tutorials and learning from other simblrs as I go.  It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but just keep with it and you’ll pick up new things in time.  My first few photos are completely unedited and I’ve seen other blogs who don’t edit theirs but have wonderful stories, so don’t get too hung up on the editing if it overwhelms you at first.If you decide to start posting your legacy, pretty please message me off anon so I know who you are and can follow along!  ❤️❤️❤️

[15hont1f]

Happy Places - Storyboard

For the collaboration project, I came up with a storyboard.

Initially, I was going to just have a very short video that keeps looping of the car moving and having street lights whizzing past (to create movement) and have some small parallax with the hills and clouds. It was supposedly a simple animation without much thought for development or reiteration. However, by doing this 6 framed storyboard, I was able to develop my idea and concept further. 

By doing a 6 framed storyboard, I was ‘forced’ out of my comfort zone to think of ways to extend the animation to make it more interesting and different enough that each frame had something new to offer. Thus, I decided to include two very different scenic view of the sky at various times. A tunnel will be placed in between the two different views as part of a transition and more or less keeping it realistic. 

This project also challenges me in animating more so on After Effects rather than TVPaint. I am planning to have most of the assets done on Photoshop and animated on After Effects. Furthermore, the lack of any characters or story also further challenges my drawing ability of environmental backgrounds which I tend to be weakest at. 

[barpurplewrites]

To the full.

A little post finale piece, coz I had all the Grandpa Stiltskin feels.

It was at that first dinner in Granny’s that the realisation of what had happened really hit him. Gideon squirmed in his arms and let out a disgruntled cry.

“Rumple, darling you’re holding Gideon to tight. Are you alright?”

He eased his grip on his son and rocked him until he settled again. Looking into his wife’s bright eyes he understood what he was feeling, looking along the table he smiled slowly before leaning into Belle and whispering; “I’m happy, sweetheart.”

Belle’s fingers caressed the short hairs at the nape of his neck as she rested her forehead against his.

“I know so am I.”

Belle was able to embrace the concept easily; the love of family and friends, for Rumple it was harder, He kept looking over his shoulder waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for everything to be ripped away from him. He recognized it for the beginning of the dangerous cycle it was and booked himself in with Archie. The cricket helped him manage his anxiety, but it was Henry who came up with a helpful suggestion. The lad had fallen into the habit of helping in the shop, and one day he found the fake police file Fiona had created to explain Belle’s disappearance.

“This is some pisspoor photoshoping.”

Rumple cocked an eyebrow at him, “You want to be careful cussing like that, lad.”

Henry looked slightly abashed, “Sorry Grandpa, but honestly I could do a better job with scissors, glue and a photocopier. What are these from anyway?”

“My mother’s attempt to convince me that Belle had abandoned us. It didn’t work, I know pisspoor magic when I see it, and I had faith in Belle.”

Henry dropped the photos back into the file folder; “You should go out and see the world, get some real holiday snaps of Belle and Uncle Gid.”

Rumple drummed his fingers on the counter, it was possible to leave town now without any crazy side effects. The idea was tempting, but he shook his head.

“We’ve just found our family, leaving now…”

“Is the perfect time for you and Belle to have a honeymoon, well family holiday. It’s not like we won’t be able to stay in touch, now we’ve upgraded the cell phones we can Skype and email.”

Rumple carefully drew in a shaky breath; he could feel the anxiety rising in his chest. His ever perceptive grandson reached for his shoulder and gave him a firm squeeze grounding him in the moment and helping him push the fears away.

“Grandpa, it’s okay to want to do new things. This is your life, you can life it.”

Henry was right, they could travel, just as Belle had always dreamed of, and they would have their family at home when they returned. Rumple smiled; “Henry, my boy, would you help me plan a holiday?”

Henry punched the air; “Yes! You got somewhere in mind?”

“Aye, somewhere warm, with a beach.”

Henry was already nodding, his thumbs whizzing over the screen of his cell at a speed that made Rumple’s head spin.

“You’re going to need to go shopping as well, you can’t go to the beach in your suits.”

[missbookay]

With the news that google+ is shutting down in less than 3 months, I find myself in a bit of a quandary for I share the rubbish I waffle on here, on there, and I get loads of people who pop along for a read (I know, I often wonder why too - my last post got almost 14000 reads; who are you people?). Now it’s going I have no idea where to share to any more.

I have my facebook (personal one) but let’s face it, the people on there are my close friends and family who already know all there is to know and wouldn’t bother to read this crap to begin with. I do have the public one (you’ll find a link for it and all the other places I vacate on top of the main page, which can be found by Clicking Here ) but does anyone really click through on the links from facebook? How about Twitter and Tumblr, I have those too, however, I am unsure if they actually make a difference. I guess some of them must do. In fact I hear talk that Tumblr really is the blog to be using these days, so that then sets me another dilemma. Do I move away from google completely? Do I try to find another blog hosting program? I looked into Wordpress but it’s expensive and nowhere near as user friendly as google, or do I stick with what I know for now, and hope another platform for sharing my crap will be released?

First World Problems, and all that :)

One thing I do know I will most definitely be doing, is sitting in my garden, waiting for those little feathered creatures to pay me a visit. Photographing birds has become a bit of a new hobby for me; one I actually find myself sticking too. For 7 hours (yes, that’s 7 hours) on New Years Eve, I sat in my back garden. The temperature was hovering around 4 above zero (there was a slight chill) but I was determined. The object of my attentions were the blue tits which keep whizzing above my head whilst I sit in the garden. I ’d taken a couple of photo’s of them on Boxing Day, however, lack of sleep and a hangover, found me staring at some very blurred images, so I set out with a determination to get some in focus. I’m proud to tell you all…. I failed… hahaha.

About 3 hours into it, 6 of the beautiful little blue things flew into a fir tree we have. I had the camera settings at what they needed to be; I had my longer lens on, and the focal point was perfection in itself. I lined it up to a bird sitting right on the edge of a branch; it was almost perfect. Just as my finger was about to hit the shutter button, so my neighbours crashed through their back door sending every single little feathered friend whizzing off in all different directions. I cannot tell you how pissed off I was, however, that’s the joys of neighbours. By the time they came back it was beginning to get dark and every shot I took needed the use of photoshop to sort it out, and those of you who know me, know I refuse to mess about with my images. I went indoors that evening extremely chilled though, and in more-than-one-way (I couldn’t actually feel my big toes anymore by the time I went in).

New Years Day saw me with a list of jobs the length of my arm which needed completing, so I left the camera on it’s tripod, still sitting within easy reach though; just-in-case.  I pottered about doing things in the garden, whilst my Mum was banging and crashing about in the garage (reason in itself for me not to have the camera set up :) ). Feeling the chill, I headed indoors to make us both a coffee. Just as I got to the garage area of our garden, something on the small fence between us and our neighbour caught my eye. I cannot tell you how excited I was to realise there was a Dunnock sitting there, minding it’s own business. I wasn’t excited just because these usually shy birds was happy to be so exposed, I was also excited as it was the very first time I had ever seen one. I managed to catch Mum’s attention without scaring it off so she could have a nose, at which point she said “Why don’t you go and get your camera?”. I laughed, telling her “it will never still be there if I do” however, I had nothing to lose by trying, so I walked as slowly as I could down the garden; I didn’t want to scare off our resident pigeon who was chowing down on some seed I’d put out earlier - he’ll let you walk right up to him and not fly away, but he doesn’t like loud noises and I knew if he took off, so would the Dunnock. I had to unclip my camera from the tripod, switch it on, set it up and get back up the garden (2 levels and 40 feet away) without him flying off. To find him still sitting there when I arrived was the very best start to 2019 for me). He even let me take a couple of photo’s before a dog barked in a neighbours and he skitted off.

I’m fully aware there are far better photographs, and shots of these lovely little creatures (before some of you - you know who you are - go and point out it’s flaws) but to me, this is one of best photographs I’ve taken, and I am more-than-a-little chuffed with it. The only downside is that I now want to win the lottery even more so I can spend more time armed with my camera, looking for feathered creatures. Damn those numbers never matching the ones I choose :) This little bird though, he helped to start this year for me in a truly wonderful way; it can only get better from here-on-in. I hope it’s started as wonderfully for each-and-everyone-of-you reading this, and continues to be throughout the year.

[holy-moly-vampire-knight]

Ignore the anon zeki trying to be a yume and don't ever let someone tell you to change the way you edit!! Its absolutely fantastic to see people like you share edits with the community and I cannot wait to see your future work. If you are ever curious about anything editing related whether that is how to clean an image or create gifs - send me a message. Although I am in no way a whizz at Photoshop, I'd be more than happy to share some tips I have picked up along the way as an editor :)

Thank you so much for the encouragement. I don't have Photoshop though. I have just been using Gimp and Paint. Though not so much on Paint lately. I can't afford Photoshop. And that is so neat that you are an editor.

[sid-red]

Corbyn’s Hat

by Nick Wright I am not highly skilled at using the image manipulation software tool Photoshop. In the primitive 1960s – when I trained as a film and TV designer – colour TV had not been invented and Daleks could not yet climb stairs. Thus I am certainly not as competent as the whizz kids who work in the BBC Newsnight graphics team. It took me some time and experiments with several techniques to…

[freyawalkerunit73]

Evaluation

Our first initial idea was a single cinemagraph about anxiety. This was going to include a girl holding a blue balloon in an open field and the balloon would pop. This would connote how fragile her emotions are and that she could ‘burst’ so easily. Another idea we had was a commercial cinemagraph for shampoo. We were going to have a girl sat at a dressing table looking in the mirror with the shampoo beside her on the desk. Her hair is what was going to move in the cinemagraph to show the luxurious effect of the shampoo on the models hair. Our final idea was about the effect phones have on us and the people around us; we explored problems such as insomnia, anxiety and isolation from the real world. At first we were only going to do the one cinemagraph but then we decided that it would be clearer and more effective as a triptych. 

Next we had to think about how we would show these issues as a cinemagraph. For isolation we agreed on having a model sat on their phone in a busy environment and have people whizzing about around them to connote the passing of time. To show insomnia, we also wanted to show the passing of time but in a different way. We wanted the model so be sat in bed on their phone and then a clock would be going round to show that they are up all night long on the phone. We had some trouble figuring out how to get the clock to move continuously, we tried turning it by hand when filming but it didn’t go as smoothly as we wanted. Then we decided to take a picture of the clock at each hour and then make that in to a stop motion video using photoshop. Finally, for anxiety, we first were going to have the model sat on their phone biting their nails. However during the test shot, we found it hard to see the nail biting and knew it would be hard to edit into the cinemagraph. So then we thought about what things people do when they have anxiety or are stressed, this is when smoking came to our minds. People tend to smoke when they are feeling stressed which maybe from anxiety. We also thought that it is another addiction just like using social media. So for our anxiety cinemagraph, we filmed a cigarette being lit and the flame would flicker. We also included the phone in the frame so you know it was related. 

I think we worked well as a team in the fact that we produced good ideas together and tackled issues we faced well, such as technical issues during filming. We made sure we know when and where we were doing things and had a group chat so it was easy to discuss with each other when not at college. The only thing i’d say was a weakness, was that somethings were left a bit too late to be improved, such as the editing on the insomnia cinemagraph. I think we would of benefited from having a more structure plan of what we were doing and how we were going to do it.  

We reject the first idea with the girl and the blue balloon popping because during peer feedback everyone agreed that it wasn’t a strong idea. We also didn’t go with the commercial idea because we didn’t feel interested in it and wanted to do something more meaningful and interesting to us. 

We were trying to communicate with our cinemagraphs that social media isn’t the real world and using technology all the time can have a very negative effect on you. The reason why we chose this was because we all have noticed these problems in people around us and even whilst on technology we see ads and articles about these issues. The fact that these cinemagraphs will be seen online will hopefully make people think twice and switch their phone off.  

 Animations have came a long way since the creation of the internet. It first began in 1990, this is when the www was invented. The internet was a basic, simple place, with only text and limited fonts and colours (only 16 colours could be used on the internet at this early stage). In about 5 years, images started to make an appearance on websites like BBC news. It was only in 1998 when gifs made an appearance and the internet went a bit animation crazy. Because it was such a new and exciting thing, wed designers used a lot of gifs on their web pages to attract an audience. Nowadays, they are used in a more sophisticated way. They are important in the advertising world because they say more than just a still image does. For example, an animation can show a product actually in use or can be used in a way to enhance the look of it.    

I have learnt during this project how to create a cinemagraph using photoshop. I am very happy i now have this new skill as it may become useful in the future. Cinemagraphs can be used for commercial and fine art purposes which can make the useful in many occasions. They are great for advertising and it also bring something a little different that clients will like. This project has made me think more than just about creating a photo, I had to think about which element of the image should move and why.   

I am happy with the overall outcome of our cinemagraphs. I feel like they show what we wanted to communicate and i think that they look good. I feel like the editing process when pretty well but the insomnia one was a bit more tricky and was left a little last minute. So, if i was to do this again, i’d make sure there was enough time to edit the insomnia cinemagraph better as you can see some jumps and change in lighting.

[wycombewanderer]

Husna's on the Photoshop whoop whoop! 🎉

heheh yes I am! its actually proper difficult, so many layers. so much respect for you whizzes