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L Learns Photoshop

I was going to type my name because of the alliteration, but I don't want to use my name here and Novel Learns Photoshop doesn't work. I thought about Novel Needs Photoshop, but that's just daft.

Anyway, this is what I've been doing all evening, because I have nothing better to do, natch. Nor do I need to get up early and take the dog to the vet--ha ha.

Matt linked to a very cool site with fun things to do with Photoshop, and as I'm going to be using Photoshop more and more I decided to try some of them:

My car as a car from Cars by Pixar. It's not perfect by any stretch. I couldn't get the color blending right around the mouth--I'm still working on figuring out paths, levels, etc., but it gets the idea across.

Of course what I really want to use it for is a better version of this:

My car as Tonari no Totoro. As soon as we brought the car home last year I said, "I think it looks like Totoro, don't you?" (to my husband). "I bet we could Photoshop that and it would be funny. The Toyota symbol is in just the right place for his nose, and the grill looks like he's smiling." I had the eyes over the headlights at first but that just looked creepy. I'm torn as to whether it needs to be Totoro's more crescent shaped smile, but I like leaving it in the place of the grill. Again, I have a ways to go--I worked the left headlight (right in the picture) out nicely, but the right had too many shadows. If you go in close you'll find an overuse of the smudge tool. I couldn't change the color of the ears, just lighten them, but still not bad for no lessons. Each bit of tinkering teaches me something new.
Edit: My clever (and paranoid) husband pointed out that I probably don't want to have my license plate number plastered on the web.

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