The Making of The Apron Pic

I was pleasantly surprised to receive an e-mail the other day from Carole Lanham, The Horror Homemaker, inviting me to join her wonderfully wicked gallery of writers and artists in aprons.

My first thought was to do a quick photo in our kitchen wearing an old apron that my dad used to wear on Saturdays, the one day a week he fixed dinner. Steak and French fries!

Then I realized some cleverness was happening on the gallery page, so I decided I'd better do something a little more than just don the old Hot Tunes/Hot Pans apron.

I asked Christine if she'd participate. She agreed, asking only that I acknowledge that she indulged a whim.

Then I enlisted my buddy, Jeff, photographer extraordinaire. He recently completed his first online photo/Photoshop tutorial on making his girlfriend into a super hero. (It's much better than this one.)

He still had the handy green sheet he'd utilized as a backdrop, so we strung that up, put Christine in a chair and placed my hand strategically.

A few great shots by Jeff later, Phase I was complete.

After dinner, for Phase II, I slipped on the apron, grabbed a few props, and Christine took some shots of me. Selecting one with a slightly-less maniacal expression, I set to work.

Knocking out the green background and making some use of the magnetic lasso tool, I removed Christine's head, then dragged the head as a new layer onto my pic.

With a few tweaks using free transform, I adjusted the size a little. Then I touched up the relatively smooth neckline, so to speak, with a slightly jagged brush acquired long ago from deviantArt.

It was all oddly satisfying in a creative way, though there are far great Photoshop users than I.

The result along with many other fun shots can be viewed at The Apron Hall of Fame. Carole also has an invitation to other writers, so feel free to submit your own. Come on, do it. It's fun.