Just Call Me Cheetah (you know, from Tarzan?)

A little over a week ago, while cruising through some scrapbooking blogs, commenting randomly and waiting for inspiration to fall from the sky and conk me over the head I ran into a Photoshop tip that changed my life*. I didn’t think such a thing existed, actually. I mean, there are things that I can do in Photoshop that will transform a photo from ordinary to extraordinary, but rarely are they simple one-step processes that can be done by a monkey. This one is.

It’s called “Defog” and that’s exactly what it does to your photos. In Photoshop filters, go to Sharpen | Unsharp Mask and set Amount to 20, Radius to 60 and Threshold to 0. That’s it! To see the dramatic difference, do this on a copy layer of your original and turn the layer off and on. I did that forever on a couple of photos because I just couldn’t believe how easy it was to make my photos look so much crisper. Here’s an example - look at the hair to see exactly what I mean by crisp.

I did a bit of lightening with Curves, too, but that’s not where the drama came in. I liked this photo a lot before I processed it but, after… well, let’s just say I’m going frame shopping this weekend.

So, that’s what I played with this week. I hunted down some of my favorite pics and processed them with “Defog” and flogged myself for not having stumbled onto this tip years ago. Now I’m no longer in a rush to upgrade my camera.

I’m also cleaning up my files and decided to offer up another alpha. This one is sibling to the last one I posted and I call it Eclectic Engineer. It’s another experiment with paper and ArtRage glitter. Someday I might just be happy enough with the paper to share it, too!

Download Eclectic Engineer Alpha (Sorry, download link has expired.)

Don’t forget! Time is running out to earn the free Autumn Winds kit. Upload a layout using any one or more of my freebies in my gallery by September 30, and I’ll hook you up with the links.