Free Webinars Rock!

I've had a Wacom pen tablet for nearly two years now.  It's just a cheap Bamboo one, but a tablet nonetheless.  I absolutely love it and going back to a mouse would be difficult.  I use the tablet for everything.  I also have Photoshop on my computer, but after two years, I'm still quite a novice at using the program.  In a recent email newsletter from Wacom, they had links to three free webinars, which I signed up for all of them.

The first webinar was this week.  I missed the original, live one, but they sent a link to the recorded one.  I watched it earlier today.  It was about using Wacom with Photoshop.  Of course, I knew the basics of what was discussed such as how pen pressure works and how to change the settings for it.  There were a few things that were new to me however and I immediately went to try them out afterward.  I'm still learning and fiddling with them, but I'd figured I would post some of the pictures I've played with today.

I don't have a 'real' monitor with 'true' colors since I use a laptop so hopefully they still look good on other monitors.  Hehe.

This is a picture I took of Madisen at my parents house about a year ago.  I've tried playing with it in the past and didn't like what I came out with.  In the first place, the photo isn't perfect, especially the blurriness, which is a shame; she looks so adorable.  I thought I would try again with the new techniques I learned on the Webinar and see how it went.  Result:


Link to original

This picture is one I took about two years ago.  I've played with it several times, trying to get a result that I liked.  There are still a few things I am not happy with, but for the most part, I think I'm pretty happy with this time around.


Link to original

The last two I took with my new camera when I got it.  I was just messing around in the front yard taking random pictures of things.  These are not good pictures in the first place.  Originally, they are way to bright and blurry in places I don't want them to be blurry.  There is even a big blurry smudge on both pictures due to me not noticing that I had small fingerprint on the lens.  Whoops.  ^^;   I decided to play with these anyway because it's not like I could make them all that much worse than they already are (lol) and even with their flaws, there is something that I like about them.  I'm actually tempted to go back out and get good pictures that are similar to these.  Anyway, I put the sorta finished pictures below.  I like the darker look on them; to me it makes them a bit artsy looking. 


Link to original


Link to original

If you have a tablet and are a novice at Photoshop or photo editing in general, I highly suggest checking out the Wacom website calendar in about a week or two when they update it with the schedule for the new webinars.  They are a bit boring, but you never know if you might learn something you didn't know before.  All knowledge is worth having.