Playing Around With Pictures

After playing around with Pinterest, I ran across this blog (Mommy's Camera) and decided to try my hand at photo editing.  You know, with all of this new free time.  :)  Not sure just how much I'll really play around with this but at least it was pretty easy and fun. I have absolutely ZERO photography experience unless you count that 7th grade photography class where we used 20 year old cameras and developed the film ourselves.  I'm guessing that probably doesn't count.  I also don't have a fancy camera, just a regular old Canon PowerShot.  I love my camera but it's just a basic point and shoot camera- exactly what I need.  So here's what I did...

Ever see those pictures where the kid is in focus, but the background is all blurred out?  I always wondered how that was done.  I'm sure you can take that type of picture with a fancy camera and a little bit of instruction, but here's my attempt using a free program (GIMP).  Before and After...

I used this tutorial and it was really easy to follow.  Definitely a rough first attempt but it took about 10 minutes, and I did it on my laptop with just the touchpad instead of a real mouse.  Anybody know of any easy/simple photo tricks?  Or any Canon PowerShot tips?