Masking and Color Emphasis

This is a vine on a tree in my backyard.

This is a brick path in my backyard, shot at a worm's eye view.

The beads and cross belong to a rosary on a statue of St. Francis of Assisi at the St. Michael Church grotto in Wheaton.

Here is another vine with its leaves colorized to add emphasis.

For all four pictures, I used a masking technique in photoshop that allows you to duplicate a picture, desaturate the copy (make it black and white), and then pull color from the original picture into certain selected areas of the black and white version, like with the leaves in the picture above. I then played with the saturation and hue to create the color I desired for my selected objects. This is a great way to add emphasis and movement to your photographs.

Cool Mirror--Mirror Images

This is an image of a piano that I solarized and made into a mirror-mirror image.

This is a brick path that I shot in my backyard. I turned it into a mirror-mirror image.

Downtown Wheaton-September

The top two pictures come from the grotto at St. Michael's Church in downtown Wheaton. The bottom one is of some flowers in Adam's Park.

Fourth of July Pre-Fireworks Show

I took this picture at the Bollingbrook golf course on the Fourth of July two years ago. It was right before the fireworks started.

Butterfly 2

Here is another butterfly picture from the nature museum. I really like how the pink flowers contrast with the dark green trees in the background.

Butterfly

This was taken in the butterfly garden at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago. It was cool how close we could get to the butterflies.