There are *so* many things to see and do the Northern Virginia area – for traveling and homeschooling. Whether you’re into nature, history, culture, current affairs, sports, you name it. The DMV area has it.
As a historical homeschool trip, we visited Claude Moore Colonial Farm in McLean. It recreates what a small farm would have been like during colonial times. Walking the walk and talking the talk.
Yesterday, I made the comment that I didn’t know how to recreate the preset from Coffeeshop Blog that I like so much. So, I spent some time on her blog last night, and lo and behold, she has tutorials. And one of them is how to get the “matte effect”. SCORE. I love the look that it gives to many photos. So, to edit, I went straight to the tone curve slider and it worked its magic. It does darken the picture so I lightened the shadows. The man standing in the doorway of the barn was distracting, so I used an adjustment brush on him and completely lowered the exposure. Thankfully that area was already dark. I moved the tint slider a little towards magenta and the temp slider a little towards blue. I used a graduated filter to bring in some warmer light from the upper left corner. Then I used an adjustment brush to sharpen their eyes. Here’s the original:
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Not So SAHM 