Baseball 09

[My2Girls66]

A few of my DD playing softball.

 

[DisneyDayTripper]

Can't post any WDW shots yet but I do have baseball pix! My 12 year old pitching for the first time this year, and doing a bit of the catching. It's a 6th grade team so they're still learning. I love catching the facial expressions .. the concentration is embedded on their faces!

I played baseball my whole life until college and always played with my pants pulled up to my knees with knee-high socks....I've never seen pulling the pants up to the knees with ankle socks haha....maybe he'll start a trend! Great pics though!


We're going to a college wooden bat league game tonight and are hoping to get some great shots with our new camera.

 

[AndrewWG]

I played baseball my whole life until college and always played with my pants pulled up to my knees with knee-high socks....I've never seen pulling the pants up to the knees with ankle socks haha....maybe he'll start a trend! Great pics though!


We're going to a college wooden bat league game tonight and are hoping to get some great shots with our new camera.

What wood bat league are you watching? I photograph for a team in the Cape Cod Baseball League. All college players with wood bats and LOTS of scouts.

 

[DisneyDayTripper]

Here in Florida we went and saw the Clermont Mavrick's (our local team) verses the Leesburg Lightening. Nice stadium, admission was free.....so you can't ask for more lol. I was sort of confused though because for being from colleges and just getting done with their regular season these guys were swinging at some BADDDD pitches and making some basic mistakes in the field (like no one covering first base and then trying to throw the ball to first which cost them 2 runs). Very entertaining though! I love wooden bat leagues.

 

[AndrewWG]

Here in Florida we went and saw the Clermont Mavrick's (our local team) verses the Leesburg Lightening. Nice stadium, admission was free.....so you can't ask for more lol. I was sort of confused though because for being from colleges and just getting done with their regular season these guys were swinging at some BADDDD pitches and making some basic mistakes in the field (like no one covering first base and then trying to throw the ball to first which cost them 2 runs). Very entertaining though! I love wooden bat leagues.

Well, the play in the field is confusing. Seeing the same thing up here. However, the wood bat is a SERIOUS change for them and swinging at bad pitches, etc is regularly seen until the season is going for a few weeks or more. Our guys are doing real well with the bat this year so I am looking forward to a playoff scenario. Long time left though before that happens.......

 

[Brad M]

A few of my favorites from this season...

 

[lap3]

Nice photos, Brad! What kind of camera equipment are you using?

 

[Pea-n-Me]

How did you make this, Brad? Love it, and would like to make one for each member of my son's team if I could.

 

[handicap18]

A few of my favorites from this season...

How did you make this, Brad? Love it, and would like to make one for each member of my son's team if I could.

YES! That is a great idea! I'd love to do that too.

Brad do share your secrets!

 

[Brad M]

Nice photos, Brad! What kind of camera equipment are you using?

Thanks! The first 3 images were taken with a Nikon D90. The images that make up the collage were taken with a D60 while my D90 was in the shop for repairs. The lens for all the images was a Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 NR (love this lens btw...perfect for sports, indoors and outdoors).

 

[Brad M]

How did you make this, Brad? Love it, and would like to make one for each member of my son's team if I could.

YES! That is a great idea! I'd love to do that too.

Brad do share your secrets!

Thanks for the comments! I will be happy to share some information. My secrets are just the product of several hours of playing around in Photoshop with an idea of what I wanted to end up with. There may be more advanced techniques available.

I do my initial conversion from raw to jpg in Lightroom 2, then do the editing for the collage in Photoshop Elements 5 (old I know, but it works and is cheap).

For this particular collage, I started with this image as a background...

I opened the background image in Photoshop, then opened all the other images I want in the collage. One at a time I use the cookie cutter tool to crop closely around the subject in each image (rectangular shape is what I used but you can use any shape you want) using a feather setting of 50px (for the blurred transition look around the edges). Next I select what was cut using the cookie cutter tool, copy-n-paste onto the background image, resize and place where I want it.

I also like to add at least one image where the subject (softball or baseball player) appears to be standing in front of the photo (for lack of a better description). For that, I used the lasso tool to closely trace the girl. The initial attempt will not be perfect. You'll end up needing to zoom in and use lasso adjustment for fine tuning. Once the selection is good, cut-n-paste onto the background image, resize and place similar to before.

Here are 3 other collages from the same set...

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Thanks for explaining, Brad! It may be a little beyond my capabilities right now, but maybe I'll figure it out by next year.

 

[PoohJen]

Nice collage, Brad!
I've had fun with creativity w/ my baseball pics using the software that came with my Rebel XT - even without directions! - but I tell ya, I have more trouble with my Photoshop Elements 6!!! Doh! It's not as intuitive as the Canon software - especially the layers! Go figure!

 

[PoohJen]

Well high school season is done here now.......

But it's time for travel ball.......

I love this pic, MKhead!

HEY DISBOARDS...wish we had a Mickey baseball hat smilie!

 

[Brad M]

Thanks for explaining, Brad! It may be a little beyond my capabilities right now, but maybe I'll figure it out by next year.

Assuming you use Photoshop Elements, maybe this image will help you (along with the instructions I already posted)...

You can start by just using this tool to put images on a background of your choosing. The lasso tool for a more precise selection can come later.

Hope this helps get you started.

 

[Poohsbear]

I played baseball my whole life until college and always played with my pants pulled up to my knees with knee-high socks....I've never seen pulling the pants up to the knees with ankle socks haha....maybe he'll start a trend! Great pics though!


We're going to a college wooden bat league game tonight and are hoping to get some great shots with our new camera.

Thanks! This is the local city teams playing each other so my DS doesn't care too much. When he plays for his travel team though he always wears his purple knee-high socks. The uniforms are purple and white so he's sure to have the purple belt and socks to match.

They just got the opportunity to play at Helfaer Field in Milwaukee last Friday and had a blast! If your not familiar, it's the old Milwaukee County Stadium where the Brewers used to play before they built Miller Park. It was really cool for all the 12 year-olds to get a chance to do that. I'll have to get some photos loaded into photobucket and post them on here.

 

[AndrewWG]

A few from the Cape Cod Baseball League this year.

 

[handicap18]

Great shots Andy. I'm bummed that I haven't made it down there this season. Things are a little tough around the household and I haven't had much extra time.

DS is playing in-town summer baseball. The other night he got his first chance to catch with all the gear on. He was very excited:

This one was during warm ups... they moved him back once the batter stepped in:

 

[MichelleVW]

I love the little kid pics!

I don't have kids that play baseball, but we did go to a Rangers game 2 weeks ago!


Our seats were AMAZING!!

DH has this as the background on his blackberry and it looks amazing..

DD18 (blue hat) and her BFF boo a bad call!!

My girls love Ian Kinsler...

 

[tebi73]

Here are some from my little guy's 7U All-Star Tournament. He's Morgan #2. They came in 2nd place.