Sunrise .... Sunset ....

So ... yesterday was rather unusual day for me for a few reasons. One: I had to actually get up before noon (NOT that I stay in bed until noon ... er ... all that often ...) and go to a doctors appointment. I actually watched THE SUN RISE!

And what's a girl to do, driving on the freeway at 70 miles per hour with a lovely sunrise right in front of her?


Mocking her?


EXACTLY! Steer with one hand, rummage around in your purse, find your camera, take it out of its case, turn it on, set the setting to 'sunset', set the distance, point it in the right direction, and start snapping away!


Simple as pie ...


'Simple as pie'? That just wandered out of a darkened, web filled corner of my brain. I don't even know if it a real saying ...



... but - since I don't believe it is all that easy to whip out a pie, this is pretty apropos! So the second unusual thing for me for the day was I was actually taking photographs! Risking life and limb for that perfect sunrise photograph.


And it wasn't even seven am yet!


Go Lori!


Got to the doctor, went through the usual pain protocol procedure, but with an exciting addition to the appointment in the way of a random drug test. Let's face it ... I am a junkie. More to the point: I am HER (my docs) junkie, so I guess she feels the need to check up periodically and make sure that you are ...

Taking only the pain meds prescribed for you.
Taking the pain meds as prescribed for you.

Also an unusual situation for me. I guess their office is one place where it is a given that you are going to 'fail' the test! It had been years since my last random test, and I have been good girl, so no biggie ...

Went to the pharmacy and the bank, which I decided was enough for the day to check off the box labeled 'Be Useful' for the day and headed for home. Got home and then commenced to start playing with my photos - and seriously - I am NOT exaggerating here by any means - I didn't stop Photoshopping my brains out for over 24 hours ... more like 36 hours - but it is a long story and this post is already defined as 'Epic' based on the number of photos I uploaded, so I really should shut up and get on with it ...


I cannot stress enough how much fun I can have with Photoshop and the Plug-Ins that I have purchased to go with it. My love affair with the magical 'Content Aware Fill' command has not waned even a little bit in the months since discovering it in CS5.

Took this photo - about the only one that was acceptable in that set of photos - since at this point in my risky, rushing, reckless photo shoot - to actually photograph the sunrise - I had to aim the camera over my left shoulder pointing it a bit behind me, which forced me in an uncomfortable, awkward twist. Needless to say - it was slim pickins to find a halfway decent photo. This one is full of signs and fences and power lines and cars and roads and stuff that I would rather do with out:

So, I take a deep breath, pick up my magic wand - cleverly disguised as a Sanford Black Uniball Micro Pen - and wave it at my monitors ... complete with the lucky magic flourish at the end. I outline an offending item in my photo and left-click my mouse a total of three, yes count 'em ... THREE - times and watch as the nasty post, or car, or sign magically disappears from my photo and in its place (more often than not) is EXACTLY what should be there ... namely what ever was hiding behind the post, or the car, or the sign. How a computer program and a machine can see through a sign in my photo, and replace it with the proper part of the sunrise, the proper part of the fence and the proper part of the shrubbery is something that I find - in equal parts - both creepy and fascinating all at the same time ...

Repeat from the beginning ... the wand waving, the magical lucky flourishing, and the chanting of spells disguised as muttering are optional at this point - the power of the Magical Content Aware Fill is not to be abused. Do this as many times as you have items to send to the Land-Of-Ugly-Unwanted-And-Spurious-Items.


And ... voilá!


You are left with the photo you would have taken if given the chance ... or if you had lived in the 1800's ...
Played around with it, cropped it to get rid of excess non-sunrise stuff and called it done.

If it looks weird, it is because I gave it a bevel and a background to make it look like one of my canvas photos hanging on the wall, but I didn't really leave enough of the 'wall' to see what I was doing ...

Of course, I could have grabbed a texture file and made the photo look like canvas also, but you can only squeeze so much in 36 hours of Photoshopping ... (y'all would not be able to see that level of detail anyway):
Cropped it some more to bring the sunrise closer:
Then I was just playing:
A lovely sunrise photo taken while speeding down the freeway - not the smartest thing I do ... *coughs* often ...
And, the next photo - is in honor of my monthly trip to the doctor being:

"The Ugliest Drive in the Entire State of Texas"

Seriously - there should be some sort of plaque's or very large signs on this Tollway announcing their claim to fame. Hey - infamous is still famous ...

I deserve a medal for driving it monthly and not being suicidal ... How commuters aren't always pumped and primed to fling themselves off the next overpass is beyond me ...

... or, maybe they are always 'at the ready'?


Hmmm.



So, I TRIED to salvage the ugly, but it's tough. Ugly is just plain ugly:

So ... that was my sunrise!

Lovely, no?

And a pleasant surprise for me.

As I said earlier, I was off and running with my photos in Photoshop when the next thing I know it is evening and Gary is walking in from the garage telling me that I should go take a look at the sky.

"Too busy" I muttered with a glazed look in my eye and my fingers flying on the keyboard.


He insisted.


I snapped out of my Photoshop stupor and decided if he was insisting and everything, maybe I would take a camera along ...


And what a pretty sky we had! It must have been something in the air ...





Ha!






Get it?






Air?






Sky?






Never mind ...



It was getting dark and I wanted to take the photos with my 'sunset' camera setting and no flash, so I should have grabbed a tri-pod, but I am lazy and the moment would have passed before I got it all set up. I just locked my arms tight to the sides of my body and took a ton of shots hoping a few would turn out crisp and clear.

Went back inside, downloaded my photos, and was pleasantly surprised to find a few that turned out. So I had yet more photos which I could make look weird and vile with Photoshop and my graphics:

This little guy was what my wonderful, good buddy old cameras 'sunset' setting was plonking out for me:
I saw it had potential for masking. Since the photos delineation between lights and darks was so clear, it makes it a no-brainer to separate the top from the bottom. So ... I decided to brush up on my 'masking techniques'. I have no desperate need to do this ... but, hey, you never know when you might be caught in a 'life or death' situation where the sky of a photo needs to be swapped out for another one ...

A few tricks later, I had the sky masked out:
And a 'Top Mask' created to use with the photo. This lets me replace the sky with anything I want ... sunny blue skies, cloudy skies, maybe a moon shot since the bottom of the photo is pretty dark. I can lighten it up to a point, but beyond that, it would just look weird.
And then there is the bottom masked out:
And a 'bottom mask' is created:
Put them both on top of the photo and IN THEORY the entire photo should be masked out, but since this is Photoshop slaving away trying to figure it out for me so I don't have to even think about it - things get overlooked.

This is the reason we have a glowing crack between the two masks:
So ... using the same techniques to grab the sky, or the dark houses to isolate them and make a mask - I selected the glowing section and made an edge mask:

Now I can (and did) append this edge mask to both the top and bottom masks so that the glowing line is not there when you go to mask the photo.

I went with 'Moon Scapes' since I could lighten my backyard by quite a bit, but you still could tell it was night:
Then I got fancy and made MOONBEAMS!

The sheer awesomeness of playing with moonbeams was an experience! But, then again, it could be some bizarre form of sleep deprivation craziness instead ...



But,

but,



MOONBEAMS!!!

The power! Bestowing beams of light to my backyard! Just like Mother Nature herself!

The sparkly-ness!

And the twinkly-ness!

The glittery, gleaming, streaking, streaming rays of light!



*dreamy sigh*

The glowy-ness!


The 'Urban Dictionary' online defines 'glowy' as:

"The warm, bubbly feeling you get inside when you're happy about something. It generally gives you a constant, content, small smile on your lips."


I ask you, who can go wrong with MOONBEAMS?

Moonbeams make me happy ...




Hmmm, well, OK - I just might be a wee bit tired and my senses are ...



what?


Maybe a bit .... off?



'Cause, I SWEAR if I just so happened to give birth to a baby RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND ... girl or boy ... I would SO name it him/her 'Moonbeam' ...


OK ...





I'm thinking this might be weird even for me ...



Über-weird ...



so maybe I should stop typing before things get ...



well,



what is the word for 'weirder than über-weird'?




In Norwegian it would probably be Kjempe-weird ... or, more accurately: Kjempe-merkelig ...




... but I digress. Must stop before I slip into that what-ever-the-word-for-'weirder-than-über-weird'-is state ...





On second thought - I believe that ship has already sailed ...

Playing around with a Plug-In that does normal stuff, but when abused, will alter photos to something that magically thrusts trolls, fairies, elves and leprechauns into the photo of my backyard, along with various woodland creatures - playing a vigorous game of 'Kick the Can'.



Tell me you don't see them:
Yeah, yeah,


I know what y'all are thinking:

"I'd be curious to see the results of her random drug test ..."




Night all ...