What a Mess!!

So my hubby bought me a new video card, hoping to enhance my pictures. Well I have finally gotten to the point that I am appreciating it (after tinkering with it and fretting over it all weekend). I am having the hardest time calibrating it. Either, my last calibration with the old card was way off or something is funky with this new calibration.

ANYWAY, please help me. For those with and without calibrated monitors how do these pictures look? I edited them, and on my screen they look good. So please tell me what you see. This is starting to sound like a beg.....pretty, pretty please help me out!

I am debating getting a calibration software. I would rather not if I can do it myself, but after this weekend I am exhausted with trying to fix this darn thing. And almost bought Spyder 2 today.

Thanks for listening and if you got this far in reading, congratulations! Here are my pictures from the other day. Let me know how they look.

One I edited with old card.


Here is a side by side comparison. First was edited with old card and old calibration. Second was with new. Which one looks better? Is either correct?




Here is my SOOC on this one. Please let me know how the exposure looks on this. I am so not trusting my computer right now.

JPEG image
ISO 400
1/200
f 2.2
Natural light coming from south window.



Here is the edit I did a few days ago with my old set up.


And this one I did a few minutes ago with my new set up.


Thank you for your help and honesty! You guys are the best!!

My poor Livvy

Here she is, so sick. Olivia does not sit still, so to see her out (and it not being bedtime) is unheard of. Unless she is really sick. Poor little girl! Thanks for all your get wells and warm wishes! You are all gems! Hope everyone is healthy :)


Aubrey wasn't near as sick, just a runny nose. So it didn't slow her down. This is the only picture I snapped of her yesterday. Not the greatest, but creative, right?! Don't know how I managed to get her eye in focus. Just a lucky shot!

Finally back

So my last post I wasn't feeling well and it only worsened over the week. So I am finally feeling good, but my little ones are now sick. The good news, I have time to put up a post. These pictures are from a few days ago, and I finally got around to posting them. When I didn't feel well Olivia and I had a Pretty Pretty Princess Party while Aubrey napped. We started with painting our nails, I even let Olivia paint mine all by herself. Don't they look lovely? By the way, my Pictures of the day are at the bottom. I just thought you would all love to see my lovely toes! :)







After, we played Pretty, Pretty Princess (the game) which Olivia won and was SO excited. When Aubrey woke up she wanted to join in the fun :)

And these are my photos for today. My two little sweeties, when they were nice and healthy :)



Aubrey's picture was a little washed out, I tried to save it :)

Also, here is the SOOC for the above picture. I was proud of the way it turned out. I think it is one of my better SOOC. I think I nailed the exposure. What do you think? Maybe I am still sick :)

JPEG Image
ISO 400
1/250
f2.2
Natural light coming from South Window, which she is facing.

Rub a Dub Dub...

Two little girls in the tub.


Today is a sick day, I am feeling a little under the weather. So I put the girls in the tub to entertain them. They always want me to make their hair 'really high' when I wash it. So I thought I would use this as my picture of the day. I do this everytime they are in the tub and have not taken a picture yet.

I have posted one SOOC, because all the picture were taken with the same settings. The rest have post processing.

JPEG Image
ISO 400
1/100
f 7.1
50 mm lens
used Nikon sb400 flash, bouncing it off the ceiling.

Picture seems to lack contrast. I find this a problem when I bounce my flash. Is this a normal problem?


Here are my edits:

I LOVE my husband

I love my husband for many reasons, but here is one of them:
This is what I came home to today. An early Valentine's present (along with my new 50mm lens). He also took me to dinner tonight, no kids. What a sweetheart! Tomorrow we will have a family Valentine with our girls. I am thinking heart shaped pizza, red bread stick, pink punch and a good movie :)

A little Sugar cookie love

So these aren't the greatest pictures, it was just one of those days. Plus Olivia wasn't in the greatest spot for lighting and I didn't feel like making her move.
This is what we got up to today, making cookies and getting belly aches from eating WAY too many! My friend and I made one batch of wheat sugar cookies that actually weren't too bad. Don't get me wrong, the full unhealthy bleached white flour version is still the best, but it felt good to eat a cookie that wasn't totally unhealthy.

Decorating cookies:


She was napping during the decorating part, but jumped in for eating them :)


And here is what was left. Of course they had to try a little of every cookie they decorated :)

We LOVE daddy

So when I asked my girls about love this is what they said. So we went to the side walk chalk to spell it out, since daddy has school late tonight.

And here is the reason I love (or not so love) sidewalk chalk:

With the post processing I had NO idea what I was doing, plus I didn't have much time. I wanted to have a little fun and make them look funky. Maybe I hashed the photos, but you get the idea :)

Also thanks to all of you for your sweet comments on little Aubrey's hair. It is starting to grow on me, she looks older, not my little baby anymore :(