I ♥ Faces - Fix It Friday #50

It's friday again (thank GOD!) I am so ready for the weekend, here's to hoping I can sleep in late and have a restful weekend. Maybe I'll get motivated to go take some pictures since the kids are both gone for the weekend. Anyway, it is Fix-It-Friday at I ♥ Faces and I've been slacking off lately. I decided I'd have a go at fixing the image for this week. The original image is a great shot, positioning is wonderful, the only problem is that it turned out a bit dark. Here is the original:

I love her eyes, they are gorgeous and the distressed building behind her is a great background. Here is my 'fix':

And now for what I did.... (Disclaimer- as usual I would like to point out that I do NOT use Photoshop, I have a different program called PhotoImpact. I am certain that there are the same or at least similar features and actions to what I used in most photoediting programs, but I will list them as I see them in my program.)

First, I started off using Smart Curves to brighten and lighten the image. Since I wasn't sure what type of camera was used I ran through the list in my program and ended up using the one for Nikon. It produced a nicely brightened image without the graying that will sometimes occur with changing the brightness.

Next, I used an action called Beautify Skin. The posting on I ♥ Faces commented that the taker of the image wanted to learn about smoothing out the skin. The action I used smoothed out her skin just a bit, enough to make a difference, but not so much as to make her look like plastic.

After I smoothed the skin, I used a Clone Airbrush to diminish some of the blemishes that were prominent. I would have liked to have had a larger image to do this with, as it is easier to touch up when the image is larger. My idea was not to make her look fake, so I didn't do a whole lot of touch up here.

Lastly, I used the Enhance Lighting feature to brighten the entire image up just a little bit more. In my program this feature allows adjustment of a Fill Flash and Enhance Shadow. I moved the Enhance Shadow to -40 to make the bright red of the background pop a little more.

Well, there you have it. There are many more fixes to look at on the I ♥ Faces site. Be sure to click the link below to check them out.