On my first outing with my new camera we went up to David Crockett State Park and over in the corner of the park we found the top to the old courthouse. I love the clock and I think it really has potential but it needs to be reworked with Elements. So, I'm asking for some suggestions what you think I could do to it to make it a better photo?

(My idea was blurring the tree background because it takes away from the clock itself.)

Julie, I played with it a little and I would leave it as is as far as background goes. I did crop in tighter on the left side and at the bottom. Not much at the bottom. Then I upped the saturation on it. Did the saturation on a duplicate layer in case I needed to lower opacity. Merged, duplicated again and ran filter>other>high pass at 5.0 blend mode soft light lowered opacity to around 80%. It is a really nice image.

Julie... can you post a bigger image on Pixentral so we can play with it?

I've got two images ... take your pic




Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've reposted the images at Pixentral, so they should work now!

Julie, two nice images with lots of potential but neither Pixentral link works. Can you repost please.

they work for me, Kim. Try again

I used your picture as if it had been posted as a challenge. Here's what I came up with:

1wKgcKNcPpUGGkmj7OMfgQYTjQc.jpg (153.33 KiB) Viewed 1039 times

I duplicated and then used OnOne Essentials Make it Better. I then used a Contrast Sharpening Mask; merged the layers and used a Colored Pencil Sketch tut on it. I cropped it slightly before saving. I think it's a really, really interesting picture...would love to know the history of the courthouse.

Julie you are off to a great start and I love the photo.......kudos to you.

I played around and the only thing I liked was B&W. Then I decided to try some plug-ins, always forget those. I duplicated the layer and I used Nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 GE that came with my Wacom. I used the Brillance and Warmth option and played with the sliders until I liked it, hard to tell on the little preview so once I clicked OK it was a bit much I reduced the opacity to 75%.

suzib, sunny and Kim,
Thank you ... I like them both! You've given me ideas on what direction to go. Thank you!