Yes, I love to photograph and I should know how to photoshop up one side and down another, but even Photoshop Elements has me more than a little intimidated.  I'm a huge novice here, but I'd like to hover and glean all I can from all the moms out there who know their way around Photoshop!  Thanks DawnMHSH for starting this Circle!!!!

I want to know how to do this so badly but have not taken the time to figure it out. Thank you so much for starting this group. I am sure there are lots of moms who will LOVE this. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi!I hope this will be a fun forum!  I use Photoshop CS (yes, I know, I'm way out of date) and I guess my biggest tip is - get to know your layers.  Make sure you have the layers box visible and then create new layers before you make any modifications to your photos.  Then you can play with the effects using the opacity slider to see if you like them full force or just part way.Play, you'll learn a lot just by discovery!

Do any of you use Lightroom, too? If so, have you found yourself spending less time in Photoshop and more in Lightroom, or do you separate the workflow between them, depending on what you're doing?

Debbi's Favorite Beverly Hills Boutique

Debbi's Favorite Beverly Hills Boutique

Good morning, my lovelies! It is once again that time of the week. The day that we can come to our safe haven and expunge all of the wreckage of the week from our souls! Don't be afraid, we won't bite. Just take your load and dump it here! Happy Tuesday! I'm sure tomorrow will be better! So, that being said, here are my 3 (yeah its been that kind of week) for the day; I wish so badly that my 2 year old could wipe her own little butt. It's not that I don't like helping her out but this week my back has decided to go out and it is rather impossible for me to bend over to her level to wipe her without doubling over in pain, which at any moment could become permanent form if the back decides to completely seize up. It's like a really awful game of slots. I am just praying for no whammies! I am wishing I could grant my four year old's wish, to teach her a lesson. Last night, she informs us that she wants to be an only child.Little too late for that one, we have 2 children. I so want to banish her from her little sister for 24 hours so that she knows how much she would truly miss her. Of course, at the mere mention of grounding her away from her sister, she went into hysterics and said she only needed a couple hours! OK, I have one more. I wish that I could freaking find my back pain medicine amongst all the rubble that is my slowly but surely unpacked house. You know the house I just packed up in January and moved 1/2 way across the country,only to have them inform us 7 days later that we would be returning home. Not to be stuck on repeat but I am perfectly within my rights to be pissed at this situation.All 10 of the times I was searching for my meds in the past 3 days, I have wanted to kick somebody's teeth in. I have yet to hurt anybody and the meds are still lost in space. I know you are wondering, "Why doesn't she go see her Dr. and get more?" The answer is simple,with the return home and the downsizing, we lost our insurance.So there you have it, the gift that just keeps on giving!!! Hugs all around!!

From The Dallas Observer: One Woman's Journey Through the Mommy Blogosphere to Gain Parental Prowess and Free StuffPeople talk about the "magic of birth" and the "joys of parenthood" and, yeah, in my 12 months of mom experience, that stuff's all totally real and exists, but that part's like the http://www.dallasobserver.com/related/to/Hallmark+Cards+Inc. movie part. And in between those Hallmark movie moments, there's a reality-show marathon.Sure, a baby is a gift. But it's also a giant poop sack. When I found out I was pregnant, people told me that when I had my kid, all of a sudden I'd "know what to do" because, see, my "instincts would kick in." But I have no faith in my instincts. I've lived in http://www.dallasobserver.com/related/to/Dallas+%28Texas%29 since I was a kid, and I still don't know what direction I'm going when I take the Dallas North Tollway South. And I'm pretty sure my instincts were the ones who told me I wasn't ovulating in the first place, so I'm gonna go on record and say my instincts are a bunch of lazy, untrustworthy bastards. And sure enough, when delivery day finally came a year ago and they handed me that bundle of joy, my instincts were like, "Peace out! Have fun with that." So I talked to my mom, but even she was pretty sure things had changed since 1980 when you'd give your kid "just a little whiskey" to help her fall asleep. I needed information from moms who were in the trenches right now, rock-star moms who were currently succeeding at the task of keeping baby happy. I'm pretty sure I found one a while back when I went shopping in the Super Target in Northeast Dallas, after being told that Target is where all the moms who know what they're doing shop; that's where I saw one of these rock-star moms in the wild. She saw me pushing a cart with a baby in it and, since I was doing a pretty good job of pretending to be a real mom (picture http://www.dallasobserver.com/related/to/Sigourney+Weaver in Gorillas in the Mist), she recognized me as one of her own and pulled her cart up to mine. Her baby sized up my baby. My baby waved. And then Target Rock-star Mom spoke to me and asked me out on a play date. http://www.dallasobserver.com/2010-03-18/news/moms-gone-wired-one-woman-s-journey-through-the-mommy-blogosphere-to-gain-parental-prowess-and-free-stuff/1