Guest Post: Photo editing in Pixelmator!

Good Morning! Today I have the lovely Sara on the blog sharing how she edits using software other than Photoshop (and much cheaper, too!). You may remember Sara from her last guest post, and I'm super excited to have her back!
--------------------- Hola Again Analog Readers, Jessica has graciously had me back to visit and I must say, I am very excited to return! One, because it's summer (which means I'm off from work), and two, because that means I'm sharing some photo editing tips with you! Jessica is way more of a whiz than I am, but I figured since you love her amazing camera snapping skills, you are like me and try to bump up your own savvy ways.

I'll be the first to say I'm a beauty and fashion blogger first, but I find myself diving into photo editing more and more so I can get just the right shot of the products I chat about. So here's a quick show and tell of how I amp up my pictures with an Apple friendly editing software called Pixelmator.

Here's the original shot of my Bowl of Beauty peony in my front garden. Not a bad shot if I do say so myself. However, it could be more Angelina Jolie (minus the blood necklace) and less Tara Reid (blurry and confusing to the eye).
To touch-up this lovely pic in the making, I added saturation to the petals, used a vintage filter on the flower in focus (meaning I selected the area I wanted to filter), and blurred the background out more so your eye naturally falls on the flower due to vibrant tones and less distractions behind it. Easy and effective.  
I recently moved into this new home of mine, so I can't be sure what the name of these beauties are, but I decided this picture simply didn't highlight them very much. It was midday light I was using, so the shading is funky and again, the eye isn't really impressed with anything here.
Therefore, I did a bit more editing, but don't be intimidated! Messing around with editing features can always be undone and can have really fun results! Here I used a channel mixer, which let's you adjust the blues, reds, and greens of your image. I went into the reds and lowered the green, increased red, and lowered blue a bit to increase the healthy look of the greens and make the blossoms look more ethereal. Then I duplicated the first layer, essentially blurred the whole layer (a Pixelmator option called "Gaussian"), and then erased the area in which I wanted the eye to fall. Next, I gradually de-blurred the rest of the image so it looked more natural when transitioning from the center image to the background images. I also went back in and messed (official term) with the Green channel, increasing the red, lowering the green and increasing the blue just a smidge.
Another fun feature is the Clone Stamp in Pixelmator, which let's you copy pieces of your image. I used it a few times so I can add more flowers and make the image look more full.

And voila! Now if you're a novice to editing, don't fret! I literally taught myself how to do all this using tutorials online and by trial and error. I don't always edit my photos this much, but it's fun to do it once in awhile, especially on bad skin days. So off with you, you photo experts in the making! Go snap something beautious and link up with Jessica on Photography Friday! For more editing tips, beauty reviews, outfits of the day, and baby bump updates (a new series!!) with me, visit my blog over here at SookieSpartan.

Adios!
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