Picture 392

So ummm….
My brain hurts.
As you can tell, I started college.

So far things are ok.
I have had all my classes at least twice now.
Which is good.
We are past the “Hello” part and on to actual work!
I’m loving my photo class.
Computer graphics is starting to pick up.
We are still in the introductory part.
And Design isn’t doing so good.
It’s…. Drawing…..
I hate drawing.
I have to come up with ideas.
I can barely think of a blog post!
I can’t just doodle something!
But that’s why I’m going to college.
I need to work on my thinking skills.
And half of computer graphics…. is drawing.
And photography slides in there as well.
They all blend together.
I can't give up.
That’s not me.
I need these skills!
So, I'll push through.
Other than that, things are fine.
It’s just like going to high school…… Just more important……
My online classes are good as well.
I’m working ahead.
I don’t have anything due until the 28th.
People like me in my online classes.
It’s easy to lie and make yourself seem cool!
I didn't.
I even posted links to my blog because the asked about it…. Sort of.
Hopefully, I would get in trouble for self-advertising on the school discussion boards!!
THEY ASKED!!
I couldn't say “NO!!!”
“I don't want you to see my pictures even though I post them online for the world to see along with snippets from my life.”
No.
I’m too nice.
There is email.
I could have used that….
Oh well.
Sue me.
I expected to ramble on about school in this post.
But I guess not.
I am tired.
I didn't get any sleep.
I got up early to see my niece go to school!!
:-’(
The feels.
I was there to get some videos and pictures.
I used the slo-mo cam.
So, I was taking videos and pictures at the same time!!!
I didn't get too many.
I tend to let my family things be… MY family things.
I did get this picture that is currently being loved on Facebook…

AWWW!!!
………………
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!
I haven't heard about how the first day went.
Well, in person.
There were some things on Facebook about how she liked the bus ride and lunch.
OF COURSE!
That was the best for me!
FOOD!!
And on the bus, I took a nap.
But it was over AN HOUR LONG!!
Anyways, they’ll be over tomorrow.
I’ll ask her then.
I’ll do an INTERVIEW!
As for the picture, it was a little tricky to make.
It was all about the right angle and whatnot.
I had an idea in my head.
It just took a bit to get there.
This wasn't the only picture.
Here was the other choice…

I picked the other one because it was what my idea… Was…
This is how I pictured the picture in my mind.
I did have to do some extreme editing to make it look right.
I used the NEW Lightroom and Photoshop.
There were trees and a house causing issues in the picture.
So…. I took them out!
Which worked better than I thought!
I like the new Photoshop!!
The new Lightroom has the same features.
There is a new de-haze tool.
It helps take out atmospheric haze.
It made the clouds POP!
Then I did my usual contrast, clarity, and saturation.
IT LOOKS GOOD!!!
COMPARE!!

Hover your mouse (the computer one :-P) over the original picture to see the after editing one.
If you're on a touchscreen device, just tap on the picture. You may have to tap more than once.

That was just the Lightroom part.
Now compare just the Photoshop part….

Lastly, compare all the changes at once….

And for fun, compare that other picture I didn't use to its original.

AMAZING!!
Just what I wanted!
Let's try the Image Slider.
Here's how it works...
There's a blue bar in the middle of the picture.
That's the slider.
The slider will disappear when you move your mouse off of the image.
I did that so you can really see the split.
But, it'll come back when you hover over it again.
You can CLICK on it and DRAG it around to get our own split image.
Or, you can use these presets.
Before FULL, After FULL, 50/50, Before a QUARTER, or After a QUARTER.

Before

After

ONTO THE VIDEO!!!
The video is why I didn't post this yesterday.
For school, I needed to get the REAL version of Photoshop.
I was worried!
It used to be $600 when I first started!!
But now it's just $10 a month.
I was just going to get that.
But I also wanted to try all the other programs.
Dreamweaver looks awesome for my websites.
I knew I would need Illustrator for computer graphics.
And I wanted to see what Premiere Pro did.
So, for $20 a month I got…. EVERYTHING.
There was a school discount as well!
So, I've been playing around with Premiere Pro.
I used it to edit the BTS video.
There are loads of good things about it.
It works faster and rendering and importing.
And there's color grading and sound editing all in there.
All organized by panels.
You assemble in one.
Then move on to editing.
Then lastly, color.
I didn't play with the color grading, though.
ALSO!! There’s another program in the Adobe suite call Media Encoder.
When I’m done editing.
I render the main video or in other words encode it.
In Premiere Elements, I could only render on video at a time and I couldn’t work on another one.
Because it was in the program.
NOT ANYMORE!
Now, I can just send it to the encoder and it’ll do it.
That allows me to work on something else!!
It’s like what I wanted to do it our two computers.
One to edit, one to render.
But that didn't work. >:(
This is a good step….
But there’s one catch…..
It doesn't work……………………………………………..
Premiere Pro doesn't.
I didn't know what was wrong.
But I figured it out.
PICTURES!!!
Like on the computer in the basement!
It couldn't handle big pictures.
Neither can Premiere Pro.
If I let the video play, it fine.
But if I jump to a picture in the timeline…. It crashes….
It will play through the pictures, but I can jump to them.
If deleted a section of a video and a picture follows it, it’ll crash.
Because it deleted that video and jumped to the next thing which is the picture.
I explain it in the BTS video.
I have found ways around all this.
But it is so annoying.
WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER CAN WORK BETTER THAN THIS!!
That’s what I did for this video.
I loaded the pictures into Movie Maker as a quick slide show and render it there.
I might as well not even switch!
Go back Premiere Elements.
I’ll take a step backwards…. WHICH HELPS!!!
But I like the good things about the program.
I’ll just have to change how I do things.
I can just cut the pictures out.
I DO PHOTOGRAPHY!!!
Whatever…
I don't know what I'm going to do.
I’ll make it work.
WATCH THE VIDEO!!
I didn't talk about school too much.
That’ll all be in the update video at the end of the month.
This week's video would have been short….ish.
But then the whole Premiere Pro issue happened and I wanted to talk about it!!!
IT’S ALMOST 34 MINUTES LONG!!
You can CLICK HERE to see the video or watch it below. 

Ok.
That’s all I have!
Come back next week and see if I feel better.
COME BACK NEXT WEEK AND SEE IF I FEEL BETTER!!!
I SHALL NOT GIVE UP!
I’ll make school work and Premiere Pro.
I WILL!!!