Fix-It Friday #31 ~

This is such a great image from Kim at My Family's Circus ~ good focus, well composed. I just love that extra sparkle in the eyes that is captured when photographing in open shade.

Admittedly, most weeks I get far too lost in the creative process to remember what all I have done, so this week I remembered to write down each step I took during my fix -- and this week, no actions!

Are you ready:

(In PSE7)

- cropped

- adjusted lighting for shadows/highlights

- remove his chocolate traces (delicious as they were) with the both the clone stamp and healing brush tools

- softened the under-eye shadows and touched up the rest of his face with the healing brush

- adjusted the brightness/contrast

- brightened his teeth a bit by creating a layer and then selecting a white shade already on his teeth with the eyedropper tool and then reduced the opacity to about 15%

- sharpened

- adjusted the levels

- brightened his eyes - here is my method, a combination of tricks I have read:

• use the magnetic lasso tool to draw carefully around the eyes
• open a layer (Ctrl-J)
• run a high-pass filter (they look ghostly and awful at this point)
• on your layers menu, select soft light
• the eyes are really sharp and bright at this point so reduce the opacity A LOT!
• use a very light touch with this method for best results

- softened his skin a touch with the blur tool

- sharpened his lash line on a layer and reduced the opacity to a pleasing point ...

It seems like a lot, but really only took maybe 5 minutes (with playing). For the b&w version, I converted to b&w, chose the "scenic landscape" mode (I know, weird) and then lightened the image a bit and added a vignette with some very light-handed burning ...

Head over to I Heart Faces and see how others are working their own brand of magic ... just click the button below ...





be well,
~m