Modern Bird Studios Copy Cat in Picasa

I really love the images that Modern Bird Studios does.  They take regular pictures and make them into amazing art.  Here's the example they show on their website.

I love the look but can't spend $165+ to order one from them (although for the quality and the wood mounting they do I think it's a great deal).

So I started playing around in Picasa.  I've tried several free photo editing programs and Picasa's my favorite.  I'm sure anyone could figure out how to do this by playing around, but I thought I'd do a quick step-by-step of it to make it easier....and so that later when I forgot how I did it I can look it up!  I did the process with a few different pictures and it worked best with pictures taken without flash, although any picture will work to some degree.  Here's my before and after.

 Here's my original, a picture we took at St. Simon's Island last month.  First, I like to save a copy of my picture, that way I have the original handy.  You can always undo, undo, undo, until you have the original back after the editing, but this saves time and you won't have to redo, redo, redo to get your modified picture back.  Just go up to File and Save a Copy.  It'll put the copy at the end of the album.

Go to the Effects tab and make the picture Black & White.

Next, go to the Tuning tab and play with Highlights and Shadows.  On this picture I slid the Highlights bar all the way to the right and Shadows about halfway.

I want to use the Highlights and Shadows effects again so I click over to another tab and then come back to Tuning.  This resets the effects so I can slide the bar again.  This time I slid the highlights about halfway and the shadows a little more than halfway.

Next, I went to the Effects tab toTint.  Click on Pick a Color.

Then to the Basic Fixes tab to Crop...

...and we're done!  

(Too bad I look partly bald, but isn't Shane's messy beach hair the cutest thing ever?)

If you have any questions let me know and I'll see what I can answer, but I'm no computer wizard (I can hear Shane laughing at the thought!) and I figured it out so I don't expect you to have any problems if you try it.

Linked: Between Naps on the Porch, The Persimmon Perch, Today's Creative Blog, Thrifty Decor Chick, A Soft Place to Land , Transformation Thursday
Tomorrow I'm going to show you a sweater I made cuter with a little ribbon...can't wait!