I ♥ Faces - "Pets"

Now I just could not pass up this week's challenge. It also helps that I am not working today so I don't have a whole lot else to do except pack for my move and that just sounds boring. :) This week at I ♥ Faces the theme is "Pets" and I just love me some animals! I scanned through the photos that have already been posted and I see lots of cute and furry pets! I did also see a rooster and a frog on there so there are a few oddball ones. I am torn at this point as to whether I should us one of the adorable pics of my cat, Drizzt, or one of the awesome pics of one of my snakes. Sadly, I can only choose one, so let me take a look at all that I have and see if I can decide.

Well...after much debating and some opinions of others this is the photo I have decided to go with:

This is my ball python Madmartigan right after he got done eating. Since a snake's jaws unhinge to help move the move the food down their throats they tend to 'yawn' afterward to realign everything.

If you want to see a bunch of other Pet pics, and most likely no more snakes, then click the I ♥ Faces logo below and check them out!

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 - "Then & Now"

It's an interesting challenge at I ♥ Faces this week. I almost didn't participate, because I wasn't sure I'd have time to do this and get an accurate representation. For those who don't know what this week's challenge is, it is Then & Now. Meaning, you find a picture of yourself as a child, then try to recreate it in present time. I had to settle for some pretty uninteresting pictures since the cuter ones had a whole lot of people who live a bit too far away, or props that I don't have. So here are my entries....since this is not a challenge with winners selected, we are allowed to put up multiple attempts.

This picture is of me when I was in 6th grade, probably I was about 11 or 12. I was working on my homework and I think my brother took the shot, he and I shared a room. Notice the stone-washed jeans (that didn't reach my shoes). I didn't have any jeans that were that light or that short on me, since I can now purchase pants that DO reach my shoes!

This shot was taken in my son's bedroom, since his was set up the closest to how the original picture looked. I even hiked my pants up to show my socks to make it as accurate as possible, but then once I had it on the computer, I realised I forgot the pencil.

This was a school picture from 7th grade. My mother was meticulous about dating pictures so I know that it was taken in 1989 and I was 12 years old. (The same age my daughter is now.) Funnily enough though, at this age, my son more closely resembles me than my daughter (minus the make-up.)

Take into account, the fact that I unfortunately do not have studio lighting. Now in this picture, my daughter looks more like me. It's weird how that works.

I hope you enjoyed my Then & Now images. I would like to thank I ♥ Faces for offering up this challenge, my son for the use of his room, and my daughter for taking the pictures for me. She didn't mind too much though since she got a chance to get her hands on my DSLR for this. To see more Then & Now pictures, click the I ♥ Faces logo below.

I ♥ Faces - Smiles

This week at I ♥ Faces the theme is smiles. I happened to caputure a sweet image of my friend's daughter at the shoot I did last month. I think this smile is perfect.

Now...if I can only get my entry in!!! To see more Smiles click the I ♥ Faces logo below!

I ♥ Faces - Collage

If I hadn't been feeling like hammered dog doodoo earlier this week, here is what I would have entered for this week's I ♥ Faces challenge. This week the challenge was to do a collage, and I had this GREAT idea, or at least I thought it was great, to do an 'old style' collage. As in, I didn't use a collage template, there are no borders and I even cut out some of the images. It reminds me of the collage pages from my High School yearbook. I also cut up my own pictures when I was younger and made personal collages for my notebooks and walls. While there is nothing wrong with using the templates, I have used some myself, I just wanted to go with something different. Enjoy my collage, and be sure to click the links below it to see other entries as well as the winners!

And for the winners of the challenge, click below:

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 - Dramatic B&W

I have made time tonight to get back to my blog and post something. I've been easily distracted of late. I am happy to add my image to the list of (over 1000 now!!) I ♥ Faces challengers. This week's challenge is all about dramatic B&W photography. I have so many pictures, but only a few that would fit into this one. Most of them are on the other computer though, so I chose one that I took during a location photo shoot a couple of weeks ago. The little girl is just precious (and very hard to get a non-blurry picture of). The daughter of one of my friends, Emma, is seen here walking with her mother. Luckily, this week's challenge does NOT require showing a face, just so long as a person is IN the photograph. So here it is!!

To see more Dramatic images, be sure to visit I ♥ Faces!

I ♥ Faces - Hilarious Outtakes

This week I ♥ Faces is allowing up to FIVE entries in a blog for their Hilarious Outtakes Challenge. I will do my best to put up some funny pictures, at least ones that I think are funny. I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else has put up as well. If you want to take a look at what everyone else has done then click the link below.

Here is one I took just yesterday of my boyfriend, he is not what I would call camera shy...but he is against having his picture taken frequently.

{IMAGE REMOVED}

My son...apparently he's "Got A Little Cap'n" in him.

My daughter and her 'Jazz Hands'!

My friend showing off her new...balloon job?

And my all time favorite, if I do say so myself. I wish this image hadn't turned out blurry. It was taken quite a few years ago with an SLR that did not have a built in flash so it had a too slow shutter speed.

Hope you enjoy my outtakes and I'm headed to I ♥ Faces to check out everyone else's!

I ♥ Faces - "Hands On" Challenge

This week at I ♥ Faces, they are moving away from faces. Which is totally cool with me because I love to take pictures of people and not just of their face. Hands can be very distinguishig and interesting as well as mouths, feet (not bare, unless it's a baby), eyes, etc. Well, to be even more of an off the wall kind of person (like I need any help there) I present you my image for this week's challenge:

My boyfriend's best friend Bruno allowed me to take this wonderful image of his "hand" recently and I thought it was a great shot to share for this challenge. Hope you enjoy my image and be sure to click the link below to see everyone else's Hand images!

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!