"But he is black and white"

I should probably put this on the photography blog because it is related to class, but oh well. The beauty of it being my blog is I can do whatever I want with it. (Yeah, I'm feeling a bit sassy at the moment).

Monday night, after we went over the last concept the instructor wanted to teach us, he gave us an introduction to photo editing software. I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I can see cleaning photos up but on the other, it changes what has been captured and I kind of think it is cheating in a way. Finally, at 8:30. we were allowed to start playing with pictures of our own. I was pretty ticked at this point because we were supposed to get to start playing at 8:00 and this only gave us a 1/2 hour before class ended. I have Photoshop CS2 at home. In class, we are using Adobe Elements, which seems so much easier to use. I need a book for CS2, I think. James had one that he borrowed from the library at work and I gave it back after he died. They were pretty anxious that I do so and were very accommodating by agreeing to meet me halfway, which was very nice. They also brought the stuff from his desk at the same time so I wouldn't have to go and pack it up myself or have his best friend, who works in the same building, do it for me.

Anyway, back to class. I was playing with the following photo of Charlie:

The first time Mr. S. came around, I had managed to make the ball a darker shade of red to closer match what it looks like to my eyes. He asked if I had cropped the picture already or if it was great composition to start with. I pulled up the original so he could see I had only changed the ball and he said that it was a great picture to begin with (I have to agree since I am still feeling sassy). Later, when he made his second pass, I had figured out how to put "before" and "after" pictures side-by-side to see the changes. I was messing with the colors and saturation and made the ball lime green and the couch purple. He seemed impressed with my changes, and made the comment that I had almost succeeded in making the dog black and white. He was referring to a technique, but I just looked at him confused and said "But he is black and white." He looked at me, laughed and said it was much easier to achieve the effect when the subject was black and white to begin with.