Wet Nothing Weekend

The Gorgeous wife has just phoned in, having arrived safely with 200lbs of luggage in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. What a funny old life it is where her job sends her to my homeland, where neither of us have been since my proposal.

So that leaves me to my own devices for two weeks, and what a slow start. My wife-pining mood was matched by it pouring rain most of Saturday—a flash-flood-warning level of rain. I have no soccer game tomorrow due to Columbus weekend tournament stealing all the refs, and even the normal Saturday refuge of the English Premier League was thwarted by World Cup Qualifying - which at the hands of Fox became a bunch of $20 pay per view games I was not touching, while free to air (where 'free' means after cable costs, equipment rental, and an extra digital cable subscription) means gignatic tussles amongst nations like Luxembourg, Russia, Hungary and Bulgaria. Thanks for nothing Fox.

So I busied myself with the mighty iMac and my new book on Photoshop, which I am thoroughly enjoying, even if it is teaching me once again that there are not enough hours in the day, even the day you just sit inside doin' very little.

This waterlogged trunk was my play picture for today, with some fiddling with Levels, bleaching of the sunny side of the trunk, and a little sky substitution for dramatic effect (here's the original). Came out nicely.

I really am enjoying the Photoshop stuff, although I am sure that doing it on a deadline sucks all the fun from it. In fact, I paid for the new book with a few dollars I got from a photography mate to touch-up a couple of model shots he took for his ex-wife's clothes store, then published in the Virginia Pilot. Here's the last one I did, which I think still needs work... but you gotta stop sometime.

The original had a lot of crap on the floor and on the wall, and if you view the large version, you can see the photographer in the window flash!Touch-up A has a lot of cosmetic additions to the model, clothes and surroundings, along with a lightened then burnt in background. Good depth. If only I could have fixed her right hand. Touch up B was because I wanted to remove the distracting window pane to improve the composition of the model, so cleared it out and added a new background (which looks a little too purple). That's Sydney as viewed from the Virginia Beach SkyBar!

I know there are a lot of Photoshop experts out there... any advice as to good books, good reference sites, or good habits?

Original version [larger]	Touch-up A [larger]	Touch up B [larger]