Exploring Photoshop

Lately i have been exploring more of what you can do on photoshop. Here is a bit of what I've done.

This is the aftermath of an epic battle high in Mount. Garibaldi, between me and Terminator. I managed to disintegrate his "human" looking layer... but as is clear in the picture I still lost. He ripped off pieces of my neck and arm, but I'll be back!

This is a combination of about four pictures. To do this picture I had to use a lot of layers, rugged brushes, the eraser, burn and sponge tool, and the Gaussian blur filter.









This is the original unedited picture of me dramatically consuming my crystal light.








In the photographic society I gave a tutorial about how to give your photos a retro comic book style. This is what I used as an example. Some of the elements that give it that look, is the color halftone filter, darken blending option, text boxes and Comic Sans font, and finally the winkled paper effect, which is a lengthy process I learned from somebody elses tutorial.

This is the original.

Mega Update

It's been a while since i've posted so this here is a MEGA UPDATE of various happenings at school in no particular order.

Halloween Day, Mike and I went rock climbing with two other people Mike knew from class. It was my first time really rock climbing outside of a climbing gym. It was freakishly windy, but I forgot about that once I got up there. Mike taught me to belay, and put his life at risk by jumping off the rock face, just as a test of my alertness. It was really fun. I'm not actually in any of the pics, but I was there and I climbed the whole way up. The picture doesn't do the height justice.

About mid September the whole floor of guys pulled a couple mattresses out into the hallway, and had a blast hurtling, diving and flipping through the air. I enjoyed taking pictures of peoples deadly landings. There are more pics on facebook of this awesome event. Someone even pulled out their bike and used the mattresses as a jump. Some nincompoop told the HR, and we all got an e-mail with the definition of a mattress.

This was a fun date I went on about mid Octoberish. I went star gazing with Anne Tate. It was really fun, we shuttled to a remote location, burned some pallets and made a Bonn fire. Roasted marshmallows, made smores, looked at the stars in the telescopes that were set up, and played some Lightning Reaction.

This is my family. So far our family home evenings have consisted of Rock Band, Ping Pong, Pumpkin Carving, Nintendo Wii, lessons, and tons of sugary awesomeness. I think I have the best family (fake and real alike).

These are two different dates I went on with Kacie Birtcher. One of these involved driving around trying to find the ice caves, then trying to find the sand dunes, then trying to find mill hallow frozen yogurt. We finally ended up at Cocoa Bean where we had the best hot chocolate ever.

For the other date we went to see the BYU Ballroom dance company. It was amazing. We then went to get some chocolates at a quaint little chocolate store, called Florence's. It too was amazing, but expensive.

Sorry if the pics are all over the place, the blog does what it wants not what I want.

Portrait Photo Contest

About a week ago the Photographic Society held a photo contest. The two categories were Portrait (editing allowed), and Abstract (editing not allowed). I submitted this one and got honorable mention! I was pretty thrilled cause its my first photo contest. Thanks to Kacie for being willing to be photographed.

Its FINALLY here!

I got a call today from the help desk, saying that my laptop has finally arrived. After a month and a bit of waiting it is finally here! In addition to the computer pics, I thrown in a couple of my Rexburg home, and of my new cell phone.

This here is Darth Tater (thank you Aread) our designated room mascot and flag bearer. It is his destiny.

Paint Balling

This last weekend was very eventful. My Friday consisted of a crazy Egyptian dance party, watching the movie "the Mummy", and playin some Rock band and Halo back in the dorms after curfew. A few hours later at about 8:30 on Saturday, a group of 5 of us headed off to go paint balling, to shoot and be shot. It was my second time paint balling, and Becky's first, the other three guys in our group had more experience. About 30 or more people showed up, and all came dresses in camo. We were about the only ones who didn't.

In this epic "you don't want to mess with us" picture is: Trevor, Me, Devon, Becky, and my roommate Ben.

Me, Becky, Devon, and Ben

Trevor after having been shot in the hand.

Becky, who claimed to be nervous, ended up having more guts than any of the guys. She could be found on the battle field shouting "shoot me! I dare ya! Give me your best shot! shoot me, SHOOT ME! (Only a slight exaggeration) She agreed to be the hostage in one of the scenarios. She ended up getting shot over 8 times, though it doesn't show up very well in the picture below.

At this place, getting shot in the gun, counts as a death. I got shot a bunch of times, but only about two left noticeable bruises.

This above picture just reminded me of Metal Gear Solid.

The trip was totally awesome, and I cant wait to do it again, and get shot even more!

Duty to God Award

Self Portrait

Recently I just decided to have fun with my camera and photoshop, and this is what I came up with. Now it only needs a name. I was thinking somthing like... "Trapped Emotions", "Imprisoned Personality", or "The Kitchen Chair of Alternate Dimensions". If you have any better ideas, let me know.

Rockin Out in our Family Room

We did it, we have Rock Band. Mike and I split the cost and got the game, drums, mic, and two guitars, off of Craigslist for a good deal. To top it off, we downloaded the Cars album off Xbox live. Mom and Dad were both as eager to try as we were.

We decided to play it for family home evening, so as Mike and I were ready to play, Mom and Dad come downstairs in leather jackets and bandannas. We all agreed that this needed to be recorded, so Mike and I went upstairs and modified our wardrobe in kind.

Seminary Graduation

Seminary is finally over! A couple weeks ago we had seminary graduation. All the grads were consumed with terror and dread upon realizing that no speakers had been assigned on the program. Our worst fears were confirmed when the stake president announced that they would be calling up individuals to go up and speak for three minutes on a randomly chosen scripture mastery. I was not chosen. They did well though, nothing embarrassing happened. We finished off the night with floats, pictures and socializing. To be honest, I will miss seminary. I always loved going to seminary. We had a great teacher and great lessons.

Bishop Davis, Kelly Knudsen, Jake Madarang, Aread Leano, Sister Knudsen, Brian Walton, Quinn Marceil, Kumiko Murakami