I ♥ Faces - Fix It Friday #56

Yes it is Friday again, and besides the fact that I get two whole days off in a row now, it is Fix-It-Friday over at I ♥ Faces. I love to participate in these but don't always get to every week. This week's image is of the cutest little twins...well, they may not be the cutest anymore since my niece and nephew were born. ;) Here is the original image:

The submitter of this image loves the interaction of the twins, but thinks it's a bit dull. I agree...while I like the pattern of the background, I didn't care for the dingy gray tones it produces. Here is my fix:

Now for what I did, please keep in mind that I do not use Photoshop, but a program called PhotoImpact. If you wish to follow my steps I am sure that there is something compatable to the actions and such that I used to get these results.

First I went to Smart Curves as I usually do but I could not find a preset that worked well.

Having failed on Smart Curves I went to Brightness and Contrast and increased those to B +20 C +15.

I then went into Color Cast and added just a touch of green to diffuse the red in the image.

I applied a mask to the babies and the white cushion then cut them out.

I opened a picture I took a while back and cut out a little piece of the sky then pasted it to the original image.

I then returned the babies to the original.

I merged all the layers and used clone and blur tool to clean up the edges where I made the cuts.

Lastly I used a font called KRDecoFrames and added the frame to the image.

That's it...hope you enjoyed my fix and to see more click the I ♥ Faces logo below!

I ♥ Faces - Fix It Friday #54

Yes, it is that time again. Can you believe I have missed out on this wonderful fun for the past TWO weeks? Well, as they say "life got in the way". Here I am this week though to share my process for fixing this photo. The original is very washed out and there is a bad highlight across the boy's face. I decided to be brave and did some retouching on the highlight to make it 'disappear'. So here is the original image:

And here is my 'fix':

So here is what I did to get here (As usual I must post my disclaimer that I do not use Photoshop, but PhotoImpact. I will be listing actions as they are in my program and hope that you, if you decide to follow my steps, can find similar ones in the program that you use.)

Smart Curves - the Kodak preset gave me the best initial lighting adjustment

Cone Tool- I used this tool to 'reconstruct' the area of his face and hair that were 'whited out'

                   I also used the clone tool to remove/reduce the blemishes on his face.

Colorize Pen- I used a deep blue at 75% transparency to brighten up his eyes a little

Contrast- increased to +10

Colorize Pen- I greened up the grass some to make it stand out better against his white shirt

Mask Mode- I masked off the background for the next step

Enhance Lighting- Increased Fill Flash to +40

Deselect All (to remove the mask)

Enhance Lighting- Increased Fill Flash +20

Contrast- increased to +24

And there you have it, a nice bright image of an adorable boy! To see additional fixes be sure to click the Fix-It-Friday logo below. Also, to see a 'reverse fix', check out my post When Was I?

I ♥ Faces - Fix It Friday #51

It's that time again! I haven't been posting this week due to feeling rather poorly, but I'm feeling better and I'll have a post up tomorrow about my down and out week. I was going to post it today, but I can't give up the chance to do a Fix-It-Friday from I ♥ Faces! So here we are...the original image:

The request for this image was to bring out the eyes and brighten the colors. Here is my fix:

Now for what I did...keep in mind, I do not use Photoshop, I use a program called PhotoImpact X3. I will give directions for what I did based on what the actions are called in my program, I am sure there are similar actions in every editing program.
First, I used Smart Curves, I am not sure what type of camera was used to take the picture so I ran through all the options available and ended up using the settings for Sony.
Next, I used the clone airbrush at 50% transparency to clone out some of the blurred falling snow that showed up on her right cheek, inbetween her eyes and just a tiny bit of her hat. I also used it to darken her left cheek as it seemed overexposed a bit.
I entered Mask Mode and masked off her entire face, then went into Hue & Saturation and increased the Saturation to +40. That brought out the colors of the scarf and hat nicely without making it look overprocesses in my opionion.
I entered Mask Mode again and blocked everything but her eyes and once again bumped the Saturation to +40. This brightened up her eyes just enough.
Finally, I cropped the image.

That's it! Not too difficult and now there is a brighter photo of a beautiful little girl. To see more fixes, be sure to visit I ♥ Faces and see what others have done, to get there, click the image below.

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.

I ♥ Faces - Fix It Friday #44

TGIF!! I am so glad Friday has rolled around again. Not just because I now get two whole days off, but because it's time for:

This week's image is the cutest little girl. The original image was a great pose, but she was in shadow and I didn't like the houses in the background....but that's just me. So here is the original image.

First thing I did was to cut her out of the image. I then chose a new background for her and pasted her on it. I cropped the feet off the image since I couldn't get a good position of them on the new background. I adjustd the B&C on the girl and then merged it to the background. The only other thing I did was to add a Diffuse Glow to the merged images. Here is my 'fixed' version.

Hope you enjoyed my fix. Have a great weekend everyone, and don't forget to click the I ♥ Faces logo at the top to see what everyone else has done!

I ♥ Faces - Fix It Friday #43

It's that time again!! Time for :

This week's image it just too cute, but had a blah background and some lighting issues. I had fun with this one, and I even created a slide show to explain the processes I went through to create the "Fixed" image. I just hope I can get it to upload!

Sadly, no, I cannot upload the slideshow. But I will show you the original image and my finished image and figure out later how to show the slideshow. Be sure to click the I ♥ Faces link above to check out what everyone else had done!

The Original Image.

My "Fixed" Image.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my work here. Be sure to stop by my SHOP and browse around my own photography and digital art. Who knows, you might find something you like!

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!