Current Mood : Happy with me !
Today was one of those where
nothing goes the way ya think and plan for it to – but it ends up sooo much
better ! I lost an auction that I really, really wanted, but it’s the best
thing that could have happened. It made me get creative…
Gotta back up first, though,
‘cause I gotta confess. Several years ago, I experimented with pasting photos
of my dolls into digital backgrounds – fun, but time consuming. I have to take
the photo, remove the background, touch it up, find a background that works,
fuss with getting it positioned right…arrgh. Removing the background was the
worst, but I found an updated PaintShopPro that made it much easier…and I
begged and bugged ‘til we bought it. Luckily, it was still on an upgrade sale,
but still a nice chunka change. Shortly after all that, I decided it was too
much work and didn’t use it anymore. (sigh) While I’ve enjoyed PSP PhotoX2
version 12.1 very much over the years – six, to be precise – I’ve felt vaguely
guilty for not using the very function I craved and stretched our budget back
then to get.
Until today. I lost an
auction for a doll backdrop – artcloth (whatever that is) printed with a photographic
background just the right size to use for doll pictures. The ones I’ve seen are
mailed from China, and normally run about $21. to $23., the one I wanted was a stunning
waterfront pier on markdown for $18. – which sat there with my lonely only bid
until just before it closed. Arrgh. The seller had about eight I really liked,
but at $20-something each, I needed the most versatile one possible ! At least,
until I could afford another one or two. I went for this one because of that,
and it was slightly cheaper, but getting outbid kinda shot my plans.
I snagged the image anyway,
thinking maybe I could print it out at the Library and still use it, although
it’d be too small to be very useful. And at 30c a page, glossy finish on thin
copy paper…it just didn’t seem I’d get what I wanted out of it even then. And I’d
probably have to deal with copyright hawks if I took it to an actual copy shop.
Shame there weren’t very many photographic scrapbook papers out there. Looked
for some. Wash out.
So I remembered and started
thinking about my old stash of backdrops I’d amassed for what I was sure to be
years of digital doll photos – yup, still there waiting, dozens of ‘em. I’d
even subscribed to an occasionally useful image group that, out of every three
e-mails, actually attached useable images, and harvested quite a few, years
ago. But I got tired of endlessly deleting spam and scams, and bailed. Hmm…
Took that image of Abbey and
the Wampa, and rediscovered how easy PSP made removing that snowflake
background. Unfortunately, the blue of it blended a bit too much with the
dolls, so the resulting image looked really bad and fake. Took a quick photo of
‘Sushi’, the sole remaining Catwalk Kitty in my doll herds – Calico was lost in
a move last year or so – against a white backdrop, and that went better. Until
I tried to fit her against a dark background digital image. Decreased the
brightness and increased the shadows, blurred her a bit – and yeah ! That works
! That’s today’s first image.
I’d pulled up digital image
packages on eBay, and soon found some I liked. Just for giggles, I cut/pasted an
image directly from its auction page and used it with some other experimental
techniques, and that became ‘Moondance’, here. By now, I’ve tumbled onto the
idea that I kinda need to know what digital image I wanna use before I take the
photo, because that determines whether I photograph white, grey, or black – or maybe
something better I’ve yet to discover. It also determines where I should set
light, if I can.
So, I’m really glad I didn’t
win that auction. Sure hope someone bids
on mine tomorrow, when I get Fiyero listed. He lit no fires on DollPage, even
with a reduced price.
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