Tuesday, January 3, 2012

The One With New Year’s, Timeline and the Selfie

 
Happy New Year! And guess what? I am posting again! It has only been about a week. I’m trying to get back into the swing of blogging. And I actually finished a book I started about four months ago! I feel like a new person. New Year, new person... and Facebook (yes, another Facebook post) rolled out their new “Timeline” profiles. Everyone will probably complain because no one likes change, but I happen to think this one is pretty cool. You can look at your life on a timeline and add events, locations on a map and photos to highlight it. It also lets you click on a year in the past and read what was happening on your Facebook then... so if you have some old boyfriend lurking in 2007, best to delete delete delete. And the good news is, you can. Once you click to change over to the new Timeline format, you have seven days before your profile goes live to the world, in order to make any changes you like and clean all the skeletons out of your closet.

One of the cool features of the new Timeline is that it gives you a big photo that they call your Cover Photo, with a smaller inset profile photo. The Cover Photo is really a banner like you would use at the top of your blog or on a website. I decided before my Timeline went live at the first of the year that I wanted a cover photo that would represent me and my interests. I couldn’t figure out a way to represent my music. I tried a couple of different things and didn’t like them. I have been doing a lot of photos for people lately, so I figured I would put up a cover photo that showed my photography.

But I didn’t have anyone to take the photo, so I took it myself. Here is the raw photo. (Yes, I am showing you my raw photo!) P.S. If you want to see up close what I am doing to this one, you can click on each photo to see it full-size.



Now, to fix the problems. First, the photo was taken by the camera in the photo, using a mirror. So the photo had to be reversed. Secondly it was taken in my bedroom, and to get the morning light coming in the window I had to face the French doors, which put the smoke detector and bedroom doors in the photo. Had to at least minimize that.

Then fix any major facial flaws... had a little acne going on, especially on my forehead... and then the fun part. Adding a Photoshop action. I tried a few different ones. It is interesting how once you find a photoshop action that flatters the subject, it usually works on most of their pictures really nicely. For me, Starlet from Florabella was magic. Brightened everything up, added a cool center light and burned the edges a bit. Only thing I don’t totally care for was that it burned my outside arm along with the edges, which makes it look kind of red and chapped. Could have fixed that, but I didn’t really care, especially since my arm doesn’t even show on the Facebook Timeline... the photos are cropped wide and short.



Oh, and the finishing touch. A cool ornament for the corner. :)

AND it goes along with two of my resolutions:

1. Take more photos

2. Spend less time straightening my hair. :)

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