about how time flies when you’re having fun? Well, I must have been having a blast in February judging by the date of my last post. Over a month without a single word written on this blog. Yikes! I had hoped to put up at least three posts a week but as you can see, I’ve failed miserably. My only excuse is research and writing has taken up a great deal of my time. That and promoting Whistling Woman which is currently #1 on the Kindle southern and historical fiction list. Woo-hoo! We’re a Kindle bestseller!
Something else I’ve been spending a lot of time on is Photoshop. I bought the program last July and finally got it downloaded (uploaded? I never know which is right!) to my computer. The first picture I added was one we have of Aunt Bessie and Uncle Fletcher on their wedding day. It’s in pretty bad shape and I have plans to take it to a professional picture restorer (or whatever they’re called) but I wanted to see what I could do with it on Photoshop first.
Here’s the original picture:
Told you it was in bad shape but it is from 1902 and was tucked in a small picture album Aunt Bessie gave to our dad before she died. He’d wrapped it in plastic and stored it away for years before pulling it out and giving it to us when we started writing Whistling Woman. This is the only picture we have of Aunt Bessie when she was young and it’s the only picture we have of Uncle Fletcher at any age. Because it was taken on their wedding day, Christy and I have decided it would be the perfect picture for the cover of Moonfixer which starts where Whistling Woman left off–a week after their wedding with their train trip to Old Fort.
Anyway, here’s my first attempt at fixing it myself on Photoshop:
Still needs some work but I thought for a first time try it wasn’t too bad. At least I got the edge cleaned up! Here’s the second attempt:
I know, I know, too dark so I went back and tried to lighten it up and came up with this:
Not real happy with that one either, although you sure can see them a lot better. So, next time, I’m going to work with this one and see what I can do to clean up the background. Photoshop is an amazing program but I have to tell you, it’s terribly complicated to learn. Or maybe that’s just me!
Okay, that’s it for now except to tell you my new goal for this blog: at least one post a week. Surely I can handle that!
CTHodges
christytilleryfrench
CC TILLERY 
4 comments
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May 1, 2013 at 11:35 pm
tami
When will moonfixer be out?
Can’t. Wait
May 11, 2013 at 5:43 pm
CTHodges
Hi Tami, we’re aiming for late 2013 and we can’t wait either. You can be sure we’ll shout it to the mountain tops when we release it. Thanks for your interest!
May 5, 2013 at 9:50 am
Wanda Greenlaw
The book was great. There was so much that I didn’t know about Aunt Bessie and Grandma. Thank you so much. I still plan to get to Hendersonville one day to meet you. I can’t wait for the next one.i never knew about Green. I don’t remember talking about him. I couldn’t put it down.let me know when the new one is done. GOD bless.
May 11, 2013 at 5:49 pm
CTHodges
Wanda–so great to hear from you again! I hope you do make it to Hendersonville sometime soon. Or maybe to Hot Springs? I’m only a little over an hour away from there. Christy and i are so glad you liked the book–that means a lot coming from family and from someone who knows the background of the story. As for Moonfixer, we’re aiming for later this year and as I said to Tami above, we’ll shout it to the mountain tops when it comes out! Thanks for commenting. Bless you!