Inside the Insanity of the Mind of a Modern Day Scrooge Sharing the Holiday Love

Being that I am in a very depressed state, I was actually going to post a post about how much I hate the holidays and why. I actually just wrote a 20 page rave about my loathing for the holidays, but rather than vent my holiday humdrums on the few readers that frequent this blog, I thought that I would simply share some love and give some stuff away and I deleted the 20 page rave.

So now to spread the joy of love of the season.


Presets....

 In many cases the light of the scene may actually reduce the saturation of the lips of your subject. As you can see from the photograph on the left, this is exactly what happened to my model.
This is where the CMS-Lipstick brushes come in handy. You can now add back a natural pink or red color to the lips of your subject.

The first of the two presents is CMS-Lipstick – Pink. This creates a natural looking tone to the surface that it is applied to.

In the photograph on the right, her lips just pop a little more than in the before photograph above. It is subtle, but it works amazingly.

In the application process, I zoomed in at a 3:1 ratio and then used a brush size of 8.9 with a feather setting of 52 to create a soft line around the edges. I also did not use the Auto Mask because that can create holes in the application due to the texture and color shifts that happen around the mouth.

The first of the two presents is CMS-Lipstick – Red. This creates a less natural looking tone to the surface that it is applied to.

In the photograph on the right, her lips jump right out as compared to the results of the Pink preset photograph above and to the right. It is subtle, but it works amazingly.

In the application process, I zoomed in at a 3:1 ratio and then used a brush size of 8.9 with a feather setting of 52 to create a soft line around the edges. I also did not use the Auto Mask because that can create holes in the application due to the texture and color shifts that happen around the mouth.

Download The Lipstick Presets Here

To install the preset, copy the file in the zip (xxx.lrtemplate) to your Local Adjustment Presets folder on your computer. If you don't know where to find this folder, open Lightroom. Click on Edit menu and select Preferences. Click on the Presets tab and click the Show Lightroom Presets Folder... button.

And now a little photo love...

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

Sippage for the Masses

Coming to Terms with the Inevitable

The State of Oregon Unemployment system sucks. The State of Oregon Child Support Services (Department of Justice branch) sucks even more. I am becoming a firm believer that the State of Oregon (at least the governmental agencies) sucks period. But enough with how bad Oregon, as a state sucks. How about them Ducks; also from Oregon. How about On The Rocks, also from Oregon (even the same University as the ducks). How about them Blazers... oh that's right, they suck to. Trying to stay positive.

After several weeks of shooting various cool things, like Help Portrait, the Cascade Mountains (which do not suck) and even the Mission Mill Museum, I took an evening to lament about where I am going with my photography. I learned that what I want to shoot, which everything under the sun and then a few things as not under the sun, is quite different from what people are willing to pay me to shoot, which happens to be absolutely nothing thus far.

I am so damn tired of shooting for free and having a butt-load of expectations from these recipients of free services. How much is a butt-load you may ask. I have that unit of measure nailed down and defined. While helping a friend move, a dresser drawer opened and spilled some screws on the ground. I said, "Hey a butt-load of screws fell on the ground." When my friend asked how many were in a butt-load, I didn't know. So I went on a mission to find out. I picked up each screw, one at a time. One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight. Eight is the official count for a butt-load. So now you know.

In lieu of doing anything free again for some time, I have spent the last few days studying glasses at my favorite hangout, Freddies. I studied the rim, the outside, and occasionally the inside bottoms... okay I lied. I studied the inside bottoms a lot.

Now these glasses aren't the glasses used to improve one's vision, although the contents have been known to particularly ugly people look better. I have been using my Droid to photograph various drinking glasses and I have found a particularly keen interest in the subject of glassware. I guess that glassware might be too definitive of a term, as most of my subjects have actually been made of plastic. Here is my six favorites from the last couple of days... take a look and let me know what you think.

 Iceland is looking real good this time of year.