One of the things I hate about the winter months in the midwest is how dark it gets so early in the evening. This frustrated me as a kid because it always meant we had to come in earlier from playing. Now, as an adult and one of those crazy people who can always be found taking photos of the food she cooks, the early sunset means that it is that much harder to get a good photo of dinner in the natural light. Around this time of year, a lot of food bloggers will be posting baked goods and desserts simply because it is too difficult to take a good photo at dinner time.

Enter my friend Julie and her Photoshop tip. This tip works if you take a photo and notice that the image is too dark, which usually happens when your flash is off and there isn’t enough natural light pouring in. I am not a techie, so please excuse my non-technical terms as I flubber through sharing this with you.

1. Open your dark photo in Photoshop
2. Up at the top toolbar go to the “Layers” tab and then drop down and select “Duplicate Layer”
3. If your layers window isn’t open on the side of your PS main window, go up to the top toolbar, go to the “Windows” tab and select “Layers”
4. OK – now that the layers window is open, you should see a drop down menu in it that shows “normal”. Click on that and go down to where it says “screen”. Your photo should brighten up immediatley. If it is too bright, adjust the opacity (located in your layers window) to a lower percent.
5. Now, go back up to the Layers tab on the top of your Photoshop screen and drop down to “Flatten Image”
6. If your photo still needs to be brighter, repeat steps 2 – 5.
7. When I have the photo as I want it, I usually adjust the saturation slightly to give it a little pop of color and will also sometimes do a curve adjustment

The photo below was a prior version of the one at the top of this post. To save this photo from ending up in my computer recycle bin, I made the changes listed above and was able to salvage it. Many of you probably know this tip, but for those of you who don’t, I hope you found it helpful! Thank you, Julie, for sharing this tip with me and for allowing me to showcase my dinner in a new light.

What is one of your favorite photo editing tips?

And now for the recipe… a quick and easy one from Simple & Delicious magazine!

Thai Shrimp Linguine (from Simple and Delicious Magazine)

20 min | 5 min prep

SERVES 3

The post Dark Photos Photoshop Tip (and Thai Shrimp Linguine) appeared first on Dine and Dish.

For example, the “to-do”list. I’ve mentioned once or twice here that I love lists. I am obsessed with lists. I love to read lists (you know when you get a new calendar or time management program and they have examples of how to use it? I scour those reading the lists that are on the example. Anyone else do that?? I am list obsessed.) Often times, I will create lists just so I can mark things off. I will often sit down at night and make my to-do list from the day I just finished and then mark it all off, just so I can have that sense of accomplishment. Yes, I know that truly organized people sit down and write out their to-do list for the next day. That is not the way the “organized in a very chaotic way” folks like to roll.

This past Sunday I did a little pantry organization project. Inspired by an episode of Real Simple Real Life, I decided to buy some nice clear plastic containers from The Container Store. I went to town using my handy dandy new Brother P-Touch label maker and started dumping things into containers and labeling my shelves and the containers. I realized things were getting a little out of control when I labeled a clear, mind you, container full of what was obviously pretzels, “pretzels”. As if you couldn’t tell by just looking at the container that it contained pretzels. Still, it got a label and I was a happy, chaotically organized camper.

During my pantry organization project I realized I had an insane amount of flout and raisins. It was with a thrilling glint in my eye that I decided to pull an issue of Simple & Delicious magazine off of my labeled Cookbook shelf, grab a clear container of raisins marked “raisins” and take my over abundance of flour and put it to good use. This Cinnamon Raisin Bread from the most recent issue of Simple & Delicious is really good and it makes two loaves. Guess what you can do with that second loaf? Stick the bread in a Ziploc bag, take your handy dandy label maker and create a name label of who you want to gift it to. You will feel like you are the most organized person on the planet!

I am giving you all the chance to be “organized in a very chaotic way” too. I have a new Brother PT-80 P-touch Electronic Labeling System to give away so you can be label obsessed just like me. Along with that, Kate from Kate in the Kitchen has two more cookbooks to include in this giveaway. The lucky winner will win the Labeling System, the 2003 Taste of Home Annual Cookbook and the 2005 Light and Tasty Annual Cookbook. Lots of great stuff to snag up here! Enter to win by leaving a comment on this post sharing with me one simple organizing tip. Steal it from FlyLady, borrow it from Real Simple… just share any tip you can think of that has to do with organization. All comments must be accompanied by a valid email address. Comments will be accepted up until midnight on Monday, December 15th.  Good Luck

Oh – and before I share the recipe… did you know that my first guest blogging post is now up at the SC Johnson Right@Home website? Won’t you please go check it out?

Cinnamon Raisin Bread (2 Loaves) from Simple and Delicious Magazine

1¼ hours | 15 min prep

2 Loaves

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Yesterday afternoon, the two year old in my family had a meltdown… in the middle of the grocery store. Let me tell you, it was a lovely site. First, refusing to wear her shoes and then refusing to sit in the cart, my normally sweet and laid back daughter completely lost it. Running off, laying in the middle of the aisles and screaming at the top of her lungs, she really let everyone within a ten mile radius know that she was not happy. I would attempt to pick her up, and she would  scrunch up her legs, pushing me away, and would scream even louder. Three kids, lots of grocery store trips, and this was my very first time to experience such a show firsthand.

Most sane mom’s would pick up their child and leave the store with their groceries un-purchased. Me? Nope – I continued to let her make a scene simply because I had these luscious, juicy, aromatic peaches in my cart and I couldn’t bare to walk out of the store without them. Women, who apparently have never had children or who were as terribly annoyed as I was kept giving me dirty looks in the checkout lane. But, as stubborn as my two year old, I refused to leave without my peaches.

And I can honestly say… all the dirty looks, all the built up frustration, all the cussing at my husband for traveling for work this week which lead me to go to the store with my three kids in the first place… all of that was well worth it when I took my first juicy bite.

In fact, I may even brave the store with the temper tantrum thrower again tonight. This simple recipe (even though my whipped lemon cream had a meltdown of its own) is worth any embarrassment I may face.

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