...She's Clever

I'm a little out of practice, but here's my latest nonetheless... (all SOOC  a P&S set on auto, please forgive)...

I loves me some Shutterfly (doesn't hurt that they're constantly offering me discounts).  My first ever photo shoot involved my sister-in-law and her family (wanted to get a Christmas card photo - hence the Shutterfly bit - and some other photos).  The house we were in was quite dark (the before's you see here are after they were converted in PSE from RAW where I did some major lightening/brightening, etc.).  If you ever need to know how to do a composite (or would like to talk about the Christmas miracle known as Photoshop Elements), let me know - I learned some valuable lessons here.

(You were warned in the last post about a bit of flurry.)  So, things have been a bit difficult the last week or so for our household.  For instance, here's S (in a rare full-face appearance). 

I can tell you, you haven't had a bad day until you realize your BFF does NOT float.  (I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos.  They were taken on an iPod 4g because it was the closest thing I had, and these are the moments that Hallmark doesn't advertise.)

This week in class we're working on A LOT of stuff (in fact, I'm just getting caught up on week 2, and the course is actually in week 3, so expect a little bit of flurry as I try to get caught up).  Not to mention (among other things) I totally jacked up all my old photo posts, and now have to recompile them -- that's more time consuming than it sounds.

Here's the mini-assignment:
Photo 1:  Auto White Balance (AWB)
Photo 2:  Shot on camera preset
Photo 3:  Custom white balance (CWB)
This was fairly enlightening, because I thought my camera was doing "ok" with regard to the White Balance on presets, but (as you can see from picture 2) not so much.  The CWB is useful if you're taking portraits, or really trying to get things right (and have the time to set up).  But, for everyday snapshots (you know, the "hurry, get my camera, the girls are sitting next to each other and not hitting/slapping/kicking/fighting") I can't fault AWB a bit.