Fugly Horse of the Day had a post recently that I am going to borrow. I know most of you read Cathy's blog so this won't be new to you, but if not, you can view the blog entry HERE. Essentially there was a photo taken of this horse at a show who has enough APHA and PtHA points in halter classes (judging the conformation of the horse) to make anyone who knows anything about equine conformation to say "Um, wait, WTF?!?!" Some called it a "roach back" some just said hi had a "big hip" and a short back. Others said it was hunched up because he was about to move. Whatever the heck is going on, he looks like a deformed horse. But that's not the point of my blog...
At the left you will find the picture of the horse in question, and then a quick photoshop fix I did in about 5 minutes. All it takes is a few clicks in the Liquify Filter and you've got a fixed horse. I still think he has a small hip, but that was more mouse clicks than I wanted to do. The horse I almost bought before buying Junior was over at the knee and had long toes/low heel. I Photoshopped a picture of him and "fixed" his front legs. If only it was really that easy in real life!!!! I first learned about this back in 1994 when I toured the offices of Arabian Horse Times on a Minnesota 4-H field trip. An employee showed us how she could remove things (handlers, lead ropes, flag poles, fences, etc) from the background. She then showed us how she could actually change the conformation of a horse with the same techniques. I was not very computer literate at the time, it was long before I had a use for Photoshop myself. The woman was careful to mention that they would NEVER to that to a horse in their magazine and ONLY would touch the backgrounds of pictures. If only that was actually true.
I am waiting to hear whether or not we'll go to the clinic tomorrow. We're having the worst storm of the year. Weather is very relative, of course, and for Minnesota this would just be a normal snowfall, but for central Ohio (where we do not get the Lake-Effect snow) it's a big ol' mess. We really don't have the plow arsenal to handle 6"-9" of snow in one day. And watching the news cracks me up. They were explaining on the news what an ice scraper was....cracks me up! So I haven't gotten the cancellation call yet, so I'm preparing to get up at the butt-crack-of-pre-dawn, get some coffee and head to the barn. The bag is packed and the clothes are washed. I didn't get to the barn tonight so he's not clipped (he just needs a bridle path and his beard trimmed so he looks less wintery) or clean. Hopefully we'll have time to do that before we have to be seen by a judge...and audience! With all the prep I'm trying to do there's NO way we'll end up going. This is how my life works. Oh, and my halter hasn't come into the store yet and they aren't sure it will. Grrrrr.
Stay home if the roads are hell. It's the other idiots on the roads that worry me.
ReplyDeleteVery cool! How did you learn to do all that Photoshop stuff? I am such a novice with all that stuff.
ReplyDeleteHope you got to go to your clinic.
Michelle, I pretty much learned Photoshop on my own. I only understand a certain amount of it, though. What really helped was going to Barnes and Noble and pulling several How-To books off the shelf, finding two things in the index that were totally new to me (I chose Rasterizing and some other weird word) and then read that section in each of the books. The one that seemed to make the most sense was the one I bought. I learned about the liquify filter from a friend and then just played with it until I understood (somewhat) how the tools worked.
ReplyDeleteA lot of colleges have classes on digital imaging. My colleage teaches one, but teach another class at the same time so I can't take it.