FAB Photo tips!

Hi friends, it's Gabrielle here with a few photo tips!

One of my favourite things to do while I'm editing my photos is to create a soft faded edge. I find it helps frame the photo and create a layer of it's own even before matting. I use Photosuite photo editing software (It comes with Roxio Home Creator)....for me it's a really easy to use editing software.

A fun effect I stumbled upon a couple years back is this sheer looking frame design. I had printed off the same photo in 4x6 and 5x7 because sometimes I'm not sure what size I'm going to want for a given layout. I had stacked the 4x6 on the 5x7 and thought, HEY! that looks pretty cool! Here is a photo I recently layered in this way for an upcoming Bo Bunny blog layout (you can see the full layout on the 11th)

 Here are a few photo-taking tips I have for taking portrait style photos....

~ I always prefer to take my photo's outdoors on overcast days, you don't  want harsh shadow so ...bright sunny days are not good for this.
~ try to take your photo's from a slight upper angle, so many of us have a bit of a double chin 

taking a photo from a higher angle hides this and also gives you more of an open eye.
~ Want a more glamorous looking photo, try changing the photo to a black & white and bring up the brightness and contrast, this bleaches out minor wrinkles and blemishes and focuses on the eyes and lips only. This is what I did for the photo below....

 Here is one more tip! Don't have photo editing software and want to give your photos interesting edges? Look for free photo editing sites! One of my favorites is Pixlr-o-matic http://pixlr.com/o-matic/ ...All you do is choose a photo from your computer, then you can choose all sorts of frames and effects to add to your photo. Here is a photo of my nephew and his bride on which I added a sanded looking edge with the Pixlr-o-matic site.....

 Here is another one I made up using their software that 

gives an extreme aged look...

You can add very subtle design elements to your photos or very extreme, it all depends on the look you are going for in your layout. Hopefully implimenting some of these tips in your photo-taking and editing will help in bring a nice focus on your photos. Give it a try.