I ♥ Faces - Fix It Friday

Ok...so today is Sunday which means I'm a little late. I had my hands full the past couple of days though, but I made it finally. Doesn't that count for something? I mentioned in a previous blog that I found a great site I ♥ Faces, and I participated in the weekly challenge. (I didn't get picked as a top 10, but that's ok, cause I plan to keep entering anyway.) Well every Friday, the people at I ♥ Faces chooses a photo to be 'fixed'. It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the original image, it just means that there is so many artistic things that can be done to it if you have the inclination. Altering photographs is one of my favorite things so of course I am up for the challenge. Here is the image that we were given this Friday to 'fix'.

This is a beautiful image in and of itself, but it is also a great image ripe for 'fixing'. I decided I would give it my best shot and here is what I came up with for this week.

The challenge this week was texture, and we were given the suggestion to use texture to 'fix' the image to keep with the theme. While I don't think that was mandatory, I decided to add some texture anyway. Only, I'm not as good at adding texture as some of the other people I've seen. I haven't quite figured out how to get it to look just right. I did add my own sort of texture though, and I hope it's deemed passable by the 'pros' of texture.

Here's what I did:

First, I use Ulead PhotoImpact for my picture editing. I opened the image and using the object extract, I cut the adorable little girl from the photo. I pasted her on a seperate image for the time being and began working with the original. Now there was still an image of the girl on the original, but I started by increasing the contrast to bring out the snow drifts behind her. Then I increased the saturation to get that pretty blue color. I used my clone pen to remove the original girl from the now background image and used Oil Paint tool and Impressionist tool to add color and texture to the background. After I was satisfied with the background and the nice vibrant colors, I took the cut out of the girl and replaced her on the new background. I added a shadow behind her and merged the objects. Next I used the Diffuse Glow tool to give the image a nice glowy look. It softens and enhances the light areas and I really like the effect. I used the Edge Preset frames to create the distressed/scratchy look and cut that off the base image. I then used a gradient fill of pastel colors to fill the base image and pasted the distressed/scratchy image back on the base. Once again I merged the objects. Last, I added the Lighting with a spotlight effect which created the dark edges and light center. All in all I think it turned out pretty well. Not your standard texture technique, but it works for me. I can't wait to go take a look at everyone else's 'fixes' now. You can too, just click on the link below!