New Classes at Jessica Sprague

I'm really excited about the new classes at Jessica Sprague! After taking my last class, I got a 20% off coupon that I put toward two more classes. In the first class, we'll finish a 20 page digital album in 20 days. I have an album I've been wanting to work on. This will be a great way for me to get a start on it! I was hoping to finish it before Christmas!

This class is all about digital brushes. I'm actually pretty good with brushes, so I was going to give this class a miss. But, since I had the 20% off coupon, I decided to go for it. The last class was so much FUN! I'm in the mood for more and don't want to wait until the end of August for the other class to start. The brush class starts in just one more week!

Happy Monday!

And what a beautiful Monday it was! Sunny, HOT, and just an all around good day :)

And it was a good day for changes, hehehe... Chris says that bleached blond is so LAST YEAR! The new color is ORANGE, LOL! Jim stayed home from work today. He worked on Chris's hair, after Chris got home from summer school. (BTW, Chris is getting an A in geometry! Way to go Chris!)

Chris LOVES his hair! He wants to get it done again before school pictures so that his hair will be orange on his ID card... well, that will liven up his portrait, that's for sure!

Photoshop Class Day 13

Yesterday's class was an extension of Friday's class. Instead of a three photo storyboard, it's a nine photo layout. The size of this one is 8"x8", at least this one will print on our printer. I don't know where to get Thursday's 7"x14" storyboard printed.

These photos are from our trip to Hawaii last summer. I'm working on a photo book of our 2008 trips. This will be one of the pages in the book.

This is our last day of instruction. The very last class (which is today) is just another test. I haven't logged onto the site yet to take it.

Registration for Jessica's new classes starts tomorrow. I'll post again tomorrow to remind you! If this class was any indication, the new classes will be GREAT!

Friday-5... 5K Mud Run!!!

Here are promised photos for the mud run. It was less than exciting... I mean the mud run AND the photos. I didn't marry my husband for his photography skills, that's for sure, lol!

It was HOT, it was CROWDED, it was CRAZY! Every time we got to an obstacle, there was a huge backup of people. I ran with Cheryl, and Chris took off with the front pack... there's no holding that guy back. He even admitted that he's too competitive. It drives him crazy to have anyone pass him.

Here we are before the race. We couldn't find the staging area, so we waited at the starting line.

Here's Chris going by. You can see one of the mud pits behind him.

Here's me... or at least half of me.

Here's Cheryl. She ran the entire way (except of course where the group came to a dead stop.)

Here's our after photo. You might be wondering why Chris isn't muddy... well, he fell in crossing the lake.

There were photographers on the course so maybe they'll post some photos of the race. If I find some good ones of us, I'll post them later.

Maybe I'll feel different about it in a week or so, but to sum it up in a nutshell, "That was kind of FUN, let's NOT do it again..."

I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Photoshop Class Day 12

No Friday-5 today... I'll post my 5 photos from the mud run tomorrow!

The class is almost over, BooHoo! I'm really enjoying this class. I read on Jessica's blog that the next class will be a 20-paged digital book completed in 20 days. I'm definitely going to take that one! It's supposed to start at the end of summer. I'll keep an eye out for the registration and let you all know.

Today's lesson is on storyboards. I loved the clean professional look! Can you just image these printed out and framed?

Photoshop Class Day 11

Today we learned how to use layer masks to mask off colored areas of a photo. I've done this before, but I used a duplicate layer and erased the areas I wanted colored. The teacher said that this works much better because it's easier to fix mistakes. I don't think that's true... with the undo key, I can fix ANYTHING! LOL!

I took this photo of my daughter and my niece last summer. They are showing off a few mountain apples that grow in Kauai.

This is your chance to go to Mars!

How fun is this?!!!
Enter your name, and it will be included with others on a microchip on the Mars Science Laboratory rover heading to Mars in 2011!

Photoshop Class Day 10

Is it day 10 all ready? I've learned so much! Textures, clipping masks, frames, brushes, text, adjustment layers... Here it is all put together in one lesson!

This is a photo that we took on our cruise to Ensenada. It's such a grey photo (it was a grey day). But look how beautiful it is now!

Photoshop Class Day 9

This is a cool technique! It's a way to darken the edges of a photo, leaving the center bright. That way any distracting backgrounds can be muted, bringing your eye to the main subject of the photo.

Here is the before photo:

And here is the after photo:

The look is very subtle, but it does make a difference. The background of the photo drops further into the background. I tried this on a bright, colorful background and it didn't work as well. It's much better with a background that will wash out by darkening it.

Photoshop Class Day 8

What happened to Day 7, you ask? Well, Day 7 was test day... and I scored a 100%! YAHOO! Today's lesson was on Typography. Using type on PSE is just like my old PS7 program, so I took my spare time today and added: a clipping mask, an adjustment layer, a texture layer, and text...

This is a photo from Chris's 2009 track season. This quote by Steve Prefontaine is one of his favorites:

The only race pace is suicide pace and today is a good day to die.