My photo
Every morning I wake up with a head full of things to do. I scramble around trying to put them in lists of importance all while trying to keep the peace within my little brood (trying to recall everything I've learned and read about parenting at the same time.) I love being a wife and the quirks that come with having my man forever. I love to be creative and thrive on crossing off my to do list. I strive to find balance and put first things first which brings me PEACE & JOY and allows me to sleep so much easier when I do. I think that one of the secrets to being HAPPY in life is to find that balance. I'm learning how to be kinder to myself and learning patience in progress. Everyday, through the thick and thin of life I'm trying to turn my heart towards heaven and remember what's really important.Oh, and I love to eat, so much so that I love to exercise too.

7.10.2009

My first attempts at actions and image editing


I'm asking I♥faces for some constructive feedback. I'm wondering if the after picture is washed out and if the eyes look realistic.

I used coffeeshop action- perfect portrait, and the eye pop technique that I watched here on one of my new fave blogs-I♥faces, I also used a brush and did something with pink to make his cheeks blush. I followed a tutorial in a free class that I'm taking from Jessica Sprague! I'm not sure of all the terms. I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere in Elements 7. I've had it for several months and thought I might have to go back to college to figure out how to use it. Thankfully, there is so much on the wonderful www to help me along the way!!!


Taken with Canon 50D
f/3.5
1/800 sec.
ISO 400
51mm

BEFORE

AFTER




♥ Image Hosted by ImageShack.us


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4 comments:

  1. Drew7/10/2009 6:32 PM

    First of all, you have a gorgeous family! You picked an awfully cute photo for the CFF.

    Normally I would try to crop this photo so that the eyes fall into the "Rule of Thirds" grid, but I wasn't able to do that without chopping off part of the hair. His little spike in the front is just to cute to be cutting out of the picture. :)

    It's probably personal preference, but I like this photo a little on the cool side. By lightening skin tones, I think the eyes really become the focus. To lighten things up, I made a levels adjustment layer. I also cropped in a bit closer because it seemed like there was too much empty space on the right of him. There seemed to be some purple tones in the siding behind him, so used the "Remove Color Cast" option in the Enhance - adjust color menu.

    One more consideration...it looks like this photo was taken outside with good lighting, so you probably could have lowered the ISO. I have to point out, though, that you picked great lighting! There isn't any blotchy light or harsh direct sunlight. This sets the scene for an awesome portrait.

    To see my take on the photo, go to: http://rileyyearinphotos.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-faces-constructive-feedback-friday.html

    Thanks for sharing this great photo!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amanda7/10/2009 7:10 PM

    I love love love your blog and your picture of Jesus. Praise the Lord that just spoke to my heart!!!

    Great picture... your boy is so handsome!!!

    God bless-
    Amanda

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  3. Anonymous7/10/2009 8:23 PM

    First of all, this is one handsome little guy. What a great picture.

    I don't think there is much you need to do to this photo. I agree with lowering your ISO maybe closer to 200 or so.

    The one thing I noticed is just working on getting the image to be a bit more tack sharp. Now that could do with lighting, holding your camera, possibly not opening your camera to that aperture, try shooting closer to f7 and possibly a tripod. Even though with that shutter speed, you surely don't need a tripod.

    So since we need to sharpen this up, I use the UNSHARP MASK in photoshop. I run that with 75, 2, 3 for the settings. Then I used the action "TELESCOPE" from MCP Actions. This sharpens as well and also gives the image a little more detail and color. Next, I ran a free action from Pioneer Woman, "SLIGHTLY LIGHTEN", i then lowered the opacity. Voila, that's it. Now I decided not to crop it just because of the image size I had to work with. Cropping, is seriously just all personal preference or if you are going for a particular look.

    Here's the image with my ideas: http://i445.photobucket.com/albums/qq178/boybariandad/kimiscircuscopy.jpg

    I think everything else looks great. Thanks for joining us today.

    B Dad

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  4. I Heart Faces7/11/2009 3:37 PM

    Hi! I just wanted to say that I love this photo so much that I was hoping you'd let us feature it as one of our future Friday Fix-It photos. If you are interested in doing this, please just send me an email (iheartfaces@hotmail.com) and I'll let you know what I need from you to get started. :)

    Thanks,

    ~Angie
    co-founder of iHeartFaces

    ReplyDelete

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