Archive - How To RSS Feed

Good Enough Photography

May 16, 2013 in How To, living well with 4 Comments

I am not a fancy photographer. I used a basic point-and-shoot camera for a long time, and even now that I have a DSLR I shoot in auto mode 99.99% of the time. If I’m away from home I use my iPhone–no way am I gonna be lugging around a bulky camera and worrying about it getting broken the whole time. I snap a few photos and move on with my life. But I do like to think that thanks to this blog my photography skills have improved measurably, and I’m pretty confident these days that I can take a decent picture of my kid or my house. I thought it’d be fun to share some really accessible and easy-to-implement tips with y’all. You CAN take great pictures even without a fancy camera or Photoshop.

The biggest, number one, most important thing I can say is to never, ever, ever, EVER, use flash. Leave it to the professionals and their fancy bounce cards and diffusers. Even with my DSLR flash goes very wrong, very fast. Below is a photo that I took this morning in one of the darkest corners of my house on an overcast day. The left is with flash, the right is without.

no flash (570x429)

That one on the left is BLEH, am I right? I have yet to meet a camera that didn’t have an option to turn off the flash while still shooting in auto mode. It’s usually a little lightning bolt with a line through it. On the iPhone it’s in the upper-left corner of the camera screen.

Now if you’re thinking that your photos will be too dark without flash, you might be right. Welcome to the wonderful world of photo editing. I use the basic program that came with my computer. On the left is the photo straight out of the camera and on the right I’ve tweaked it a bit.

brighten (570x428)

Check out the difference between the photo lit with flash, and the photo brightened on the computer. There is so much more depth and just overall not-suckiness to the one on the right.

flash vs brighten (570x429)

As for what I did, here’s a screenshot. I used the “fine tune” feature to up the brightness, increase the contrast and shadows just a smidge, and lower the highlights. I just play around until it looks good but most photos get a similar treatment. I also often increase the saturation by clicking on “adjust color”, but not for this photo.

Untitled (570x320)

Now that we’ve got that under control, the next big frontier is embracing the crop. This is a photo that I took of Cassie and her mom at the baby shower I hosted last weekend. In addition to brightening it a smidge, I cropped it to get rid of all that wasted space around the perimeter and focus on the people. It’s an easy step that can really make a photo more frame-worthy.

crop (380x286)

Here are some more photos that I cropped from our visit to my sister’s baby goat. It’s a subtle change that can really make a difference. (btw these were both taken with an iPhone!)

crop2 (570x214)

crop3 (570x380)

And now for the final whammy–skipping flash, playing around with editing, and cropping to take a photo from “eh,” to “impressive!”

crop + brighten (570x191)

Big difference, right? And it takes maybe 1-2 minutes per photo (and of course turning the flash off takes no time at all). So, in summary:

  • abolish the use of flash
  • say yes to editing
  • cropping is your friend

I hope you find these tricks as easy and helpful as I do! Like I said, I’m certainly no expert and I’m actually really lazy so if I can do it you can do it. Even a cell phone camera can churn out frame-worthy pics if you’ve got a few tricks up your sleeve!

Related Posts

Baby Shower Pennant Banner

May 13, 2013 in Crafty Goodness, How To with 1 Comment

I’ve mentioned about a dozen times that I was hosting a baby shower for my friend Cassie at my house this weekend. It went so wonderfully and I can’t wait to share pictures and details tomorrow, but today I want to show you the last-minute decoration I made that can be repurposed to adorn the nursery. It all started with a $4 yard of burlap that I cut into triangles. I bought the whole yard because I knew I could use it for other projects but probably used less than half for this. Burlap is super forgiving so I didn’t have to worry about cutting them perfectly.

003 (570x380)

Then I printed out my letters in 300 point Cambria font (there are prettier fonts out there for sure, but I needed something that would be easy to trace with paint). How beautiful is the name that Cassie and Nic have chosen for their daughter? I hope that Jack and Olive grow up to be friends.

004 (570x380)

It was hard to resist the temptation to buy every bottle of pink paint Hobby Lobby had to offer. They were all so pretty! Even Jack was a fan–he yelled until I let him hold the bottle while we finished shopping.

007 (380x570)

I laid the paper letters behind the burlap and used a stiff brush to apply the paint. It went more quickly than I thought it would and was actually a really relaxing activity to take on the day before the party. Jack was napping and Nick was still at work so it was just me and my paintbrush in a quiet house.

010 (570x380)

013 (570x380)

After letting them dry for a little while, I peeled the paper off the backs, laid them out to get the spacing right, and then folded the top of each pennant over a length of cotton cord with a line of hot glue to secure. It’s the exact same technique I used for the banner I made for my sister’s wedding, except this time I didn’t get the letters mixed up!

027 (570x380)

My original plan was to hang it in front of the dining room curtains behind the food table, but I couldn’t get it to look right and it’s just as well, because I actually LOVED the way it looked over the drinks station we set up in the kitchen pass-through. I just used white thumbtacks to secure it to the wall (they blended right into the wood trim, but I used a dab of taupe paint to camouflage the one stuck directly into sheetrock).

072 (570x380)

My hope was that Cassie would like to bring it home to use in the nursery, but I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want her to feel pressured if it just didn’t jive with the look she was going for. Imagine my excitement when she said she wanted to hang it over the crib! Cassie is truly one of my oldest and dearest friends so I’m honored to have something I made on display in her daughter’s room. I am so so happy with the way everything with the shower came out and I can’t wait to post about it tomorrow! I hope you all had as lovely a weekend as I did–it’s not every weekend I host a fabulous party at my home AND celebrate my first Mother’s Day!

Related Posts

Restoring Rusty Outdoor Furniture

May 9, 2013 in Before & After, How To, The Great Outdoors with 3 Comments

Nick and I bought this patio set from craigslist the first summer we were in this house. At $75 it was a steal, but I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve used it. It was so grimy and rusty that I never wanted to sit, much less eat.

024 (570x380)

It wasn’t this bad when we got it, but three years of exposure to the elements had really taken their toll.

028 (570x380)

I finally got inspired to try to fix it up this year! I gave the whole set a quick pass with a wire brush (at least a month ago), sprayed it down with the hose(last week), and then dragged the chairs around to the front yard (this weekend). I created a handy painting station with the concrete walkway and some protective paper that I got in a big roll at Home Depot for $11 and use for everything from painting to gift wrap. I have been thinking about doing this for two months so it was so great to finally make it happen.

040 (570x380)

This can of black enamel spray paint was about $3 if memory serves. I picked it up kind of on a whim and wasn’t sure whether it would work so I just bought one. I ended up going back for another can to finish the project, so if you’re trying this at home you may want to invest in two cans from the get-go.

045 (379x570)

After only one coat the chairs were looking great! I guess because I was painting black-on-black I didn’t have to worry too much about getting perfect coverage. I was just trying to cover the rust and get a more even appearance. I don’t even mind a little character-building grime on the areas that don’t come in contact with skin or clothing. I did go back a little bit later to touch up some thin spots, but I really didn’t stress about perfection.

052 (570x380)

I let the chairs cure out front for a day or two before having Nick switch them out for the table. It was looking better after the wire brush treatment, but still had a long way to go.

003 (570x380)

And voila. Like new again!

013 (2) (570x380)

When Nick got home from work yesterday I had him move the table back to the deck and I put it all back together. I can’t get over how much better it looks now! I really wasn’t sure whether the spray paint would work well at all but I’m so happy with it!

044 (2) (570x380)

So. Much. Better. Now this is a table I can eat off of!

046 (2) (570x380)

I was also excited to set up this umbrella I bought (again, impulsively) on sale at Lowe’s a few weeks ago! One of the things that has held us back from hanging out back here is that the sun is relentless. The umbrella is perfect for providing a little shade in the summer months. I wish I’d held out for one with black hardware instead of white, but it’s not a huge deal. It was only $35. If I’d known big umbrellas were that inexpensive I would have gotten one years ago! For some reason I always thought it would be like $100.

056 (380x570)

071 (570x380)

I’m itching now to set up our grill and have a meal out here (note to self: google how to grill). Maybe Nick and I can have a little at-home date night with dinner on the deck after Jack’s in bed. Or I can sit outside and sip a mojito with all the free time my stay-at-home-mom lifestyle affords (LOLOLOLOL). We still have a lot to do to make our backyard a more pleasant place to be (um, like maybe mow it more often?), but this is progress. One small step for spraypaint, one giant leap for outdoor living!

Related Posts

How to Score Free Babysitting

May 3, 2013 in How To, Jack, On a Personal Note... with 4 Comments

Eating out is not nearly as fun as it used to be. Turns out dining with a baby is a whole lot of work. I’d rather just stay home. Unless, of course, we go without him! That’s something we’d never done until last night. People are always offering to babysit left and right, but I’m pretty sure what they mean is that they want to play with him when what I really need is for someone to sit on the sofa while he sleeps. So I turned to facebook to see if I could recruit any volunteers!

free babysitting

Within an hour I had not one, but TWO nights of free babysitting lined up! Brandi is a single girl with no cable in her condo, and Turena is a mom of two kids under two years and just wants to sit in a room by herself that she doesn’t feel obligated to clean. Nick and I had set a goal to minimize meals out for the month of May, but we cashed in our rewards points from our debit cards and got $77–enough for two modest nights out. I’m on day two of swigging pepto to combat some sort of stomach bug I must’ve caught, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying my steak dinner last night (bonus: my digestive situation felt too delicate to eat more than half, so I’ll have leftovers for lunch!). My parents are hosting their annual crawfish boil tomorrow so I sure hope I’m feeling better by then! I hope you all have a fabulous weekend, and if you’re not in crawfish country hopefully your weather will at least be warm enough for you to enjoy the great outdoors a bit.

Related Posts

Page 1 of 3112345»102030...Last »