Project 52 ~ Week 14 {Fusion}

For those of you who don't know what Fusion is, allow me to explain.  Fusion is set of actions designed by a techie photographer for use in various versions of Photoshop (The same photographer, I might add, who is sponsoring this whole Project 52 idea, so it could just be some grand scheme for free advertising on her part.  She's pretty cool, though, so I'm kind of thinking not, but you never know....I digress.....).  The actions in the Fusion set allow an image to be "punched up" in a variety of ways that were not initially captured by the camera and lens.  It's part of the process that is sometimes referred to as the "Digital Darkroom". 

Now, I am not a fan of revealing my secrets.
   
"How do you get such amazing color?"  Gosh, it's just the settings I know how to use within my camera when I take the picture.  

"It's so clear.  It's so pretty."  Really, it just comes out looking like that.

And on and on because I do not like to give away my secrets!  Did I say that already?

So, when this whole Fusion thing came up as this week's theme, and when I applied it to a few of the images that I had taken, I thought, right on!  Those look great.  Which one should I choose?  And then I ran the actions (that's what it's called when you click the application within Photoshop and let it work it's magic on the picture) on this image of a fish I took at a Chinese grocery store last weekend.  I couldn't help but take a step back.  It ain't sexy, but, I mean Wowza!....

I did some other things to it, too.  I added a couple of color overlays and what not, but what really added the punch were the Fusion actions.  I put the edited version next to the one that came straight out of the camera (We call that SOOC, if you ever see that on Jeopardy or something) and was just blown away.  I had to make the Before & After my image of the week.

And since I'm giving away secrets, I may as well air all of the laundry at once and offer up a few of my other favorites in the "Before & After" category while I'm at it.  These read from top to bottom, by the way, but if you couldn't tell that, then what am I doing here?

(The chicks are doing great, by the way.)

Alright?  The cat has been let clawing and screeching out of the bag. 

Now, remember, you all promised to cross your heart that you'll still love me and all my pictures and hope to die if you tell anyone about this...Yes, you did.....Yes, you did!   And if you do utter a whisper, I'll never tell you another secret as long as I'm a clickin' chick.

But, I will still love you.