Photo 1:
My first image was taken during a hot air balloon I went on as my birthday gift. This is approximately 2000ft in the air, and it’s about 8am. With the early light and fog, a lot of the color was washed out of the photo. For this image, I did some general global editing such as adjusting the black and white points to give it more contrast, giving it additional contrast, adjusting the midtones, and the hue of the overall photo.
I also did some local adjustments, as well as and HDR type of edit. I created a duplicate of the image and edited it so that certain colors had more punch to them and were darker and/or more vibrant. Then, I layered it over the first image, and using a mask, I only allowed parts of the duplicate image to show through where I wanted it to. It made a huge difference in detailed contrast, saturation in certain areas, and really gave it a depth it didn’t have before. Finally, I did a little lightening and darkening in certain parts of the image; particularly the mountains and housing in the middle of the photograph.
I really like how this image turned out with the autumn colors being far more prominent and the contrast giving it more depth.
Photo 2:
This next photo was also taken during the balloon ride, but it was a bit earlier when the sun was first still coming up. I really liked the way the sunrise light hit the fog and made light streaks across the land. For this photo, I did mostly local adjustments, but I did do my usual black and white points, contrast, and midtones.
As for local adjustments, I used an overlay mask of the same image to give it depth and contrast in certain areas; particularly in the trees and fog below the sun. I also did some lightening and darkening throughout the photo to keep the eye towards the middle of the photo, as well as some saturation adjustments in the middle of the photo. Finally, I used a photo filter with a mask to make the sky a little bit orange and purple rather than the blue that it originally was. It made the overall color of the photo feel a lot warmer.
Photo 3:
My third image is a collage of the dock and Napa River out in Kennedy Park. I frequent this spot simply because I love sitting beside the water on the dock. I spend a great deal of time here, especially on breaks between classes, and I thought I should include it in my portfolio since it is such an important place to me. I decided to make it a collage because I think this area is so beautiful but key details get overlooked, and a collage sort of brings all those little pieces into focus.
This collage consists of about 50 photos; give or take. Without editing any of the original photos, I placed them all onto a canvas and adjusted them accordingly, often using the free transform tool to rotate and adjust them individually. After the whole image was compiled, I created a merged layer and did some global adjustments to the photo, as well as some local adjustments. I did do some lightening and darkening in parts of the photo to bring out some parts that I wanted to be a little more prominent. I also did some saturate and desaturating. I desaturated the bushes next to the dock since they were overpowering the rest of the image, and then I saturated the dock to really make that the main focus. I also saturated parts of the water to show how blue it really can be, which I think is one of the prettiest parts of this spot.
Photo 4:
This photo is an HDR photo. I chose to do one indoors since my last was outdoors, and I wanted to show the mix of light inside as well as outside of the window. For this, I layered about 5 different exposures of the same area, and used masks to paint in the areas I wanted to come through on each. I did a few adjustments on it afterwards to bring out certain areas.
Photo 5:
The next image I created is similar to the culture jamming project. I used a photo of a glass of wine and made selections from other photos of the insects. Then I placed them in the wine and used different blending modes to make it looks as though they were in the wine glass. Then I added some shadows and text.
I chose this idea because wine is such a prominent thing in our area. I did some research and found that there are almost always bugs and small rodents that go into the wine people consume. It’s nearly impossible for wineries to filter out all of these things, and the majority of the time, they get crushed in along with the grapes. Of course, this is something they never tell advertise, but it’s not uncommon that people have found insect legs and various other inspect pieces in their wine.
Photo 6:
My next photo is a portrait I did for a friend, and I did extensive editing to it. Originally I removed people walking in the background and some distracting wires. I then did some facial editing, removing blemishes, enhancing makeup, etc. I also did some airbrushing of her skin. Finally, I did some darkening and lightening and a few other local adjustments to give it the defined and finished look.
Photo 7:
Lissa Dianne Photography 