Fix-It Friday

It’s that time again…and I missed last week.  So here is my entry for this week.  The picture was truly adorable…not much to “fix”…honestly, I fixed a few stray pet hairs on her leggings and a small bruise on her wrist…other than that, I actually let photoshop do it for me…a quick auto enhance and removed color cast.  Done….then on to the more creative fixes.

Here’s the original:

Here’s my fix:  OK…so one last thing I did was pop her eyes with CoffeeShop.

And the creative fixes:

    This is also a CoffeeShop Action….Sweet Bakery Glaze

Vintage, vignette, and soft focus using Picnik.

Make sure you check out the other “fixes” over at iheartfaces.

Fix It Friday

POTD – March 12, 2010

Missed a day…but here we are at Friday and it’s time for Fix It Friday over at iheartfaces.  This week’s photo needed some adjustments.  It was under-exposed, but not impossible to fix.

Here is the original:

For my first fix, I just wanted to lighten it up a bit.  I also cropped it and cloned part of the little girl’s arm.  Once lightened it had an obvious color cast that I then corrected.  That gave me a better palette to work with.

Fix 1:

Much better…but there was still work to be done.  I reduced the noise and applied Perfect Portrait [a CoffeeShop Action] to the photo.  Then, the dark circles under the eyes were bothering me so I touched those up.  Personally, I’m not a 100% happy with how they turned out, but they are better.  There were also a few stray hairs that really stood out so I got rid of them.

Fix:2

Then for fun, here are a few more.

Fix 3: Increased blur in the background

Fix 4: Selective coloring on the pinball machine

And finally, I used Picnik to give it a vintage look:

Check out some of the other “takes” on this photo over at iheartfaces…there are some seriously talented photo editors over there.

POTD – February 5, 2010

Fix-It Friday – January 22, 2010

Meet the Zwart Family!  When I first read about them over on Angie’s site, it broke my heart.  I can not even imagine what this family is facing in the very near future and my heart is breaking for these children.  I would never [and I imagine most of us feel the same way] want to walk down the path they are walking down right now.  I think about my own daughter and family, and can’t even fathom the possibility of losing her or [even worse] her losing one of us!

If you have a moment, check out their websites and leave a comment if you feel so inclined.  I am sure they can use as many kind words as possible right now.  Wouldn’t it be cool if they were inundated with thoughts and prayers from [distant and unknown] internet family!

Adrienne’s Blog

Caring Bridge

Anyway, the Fix-It Friday photo for this week is of the Zwart Family!

Here is the original image downloaded from Flickr:

It’s not bad, but I knew I wanted to make it pop.  I wanted richer color and less “haze” [I know that’s not the technical word, but the best I can come up with right now].

Here is Fix 1: Basic fix…even used the Auto Fix feature in PSE 5.0.  Then I added a Soft Light layer with opacity at 50%.

Better…but still not what I was going for…

Fix 2 – For this one, I applied the Moody Pop Action from Coffee Shop and lowered the opacity quite a bit. 

Fix 3 – I used Coffee Shop Strawberry Glaze for this one.  I like the effect, but it still didn’t have the “WOW” factor for me.

Fix 4 – Creamy Chocolate Action from Coffee Shop.  I bumped the brown tones up and increased opacity to 85%.  I think this is one of my favorite Actions.

Fix 5 – Back to my own edits…no Actions to help out.  I still wanted more pop.  So I created a layer and applied the Equalize filter.  This is what I was going for…

Fix 6 – And finally, a crop! And I added a vignette with Picnik.

Make sure to check out the other fixes over at iheartfaces!  And please add this family to your prayer list!

POTD – January 13, 2010

POTD – January 11, 2010

Week 2 – Best Face Photo

It’s time for a weekly challenge over at iheartfaces.  I had a hard time choosing which one photo I would use.  But here goes…

This one was taken in Orlando while home for Christmas.  We took a day trip to a state park and I snapped away while we hiked walked along the boardwalk trail to see the manatees.  I loved the way it turned out [even SOOC] but after using PSE and Picnik, I added a softness to the tones that was quite appealing. 

Head on over to iheartfaces and check out all the other entries for this week.

52/365 - Day 141 (Fix It Friday)

It's Fix It Friday over at iHeartFaces. This week's little doll is called "Ponytail Princess." It's such a precious photo and there isn't much to change about it...but it gave me another chance to practice my PSE skills.

This is the original image. As you can see, she is a cutie patootie. No spots or blemishes to fix on the face. Most of my fixes revolved around lighting and cropping. The only thing that bothered me (and it was slight) is the dark distraction of the the furniture in the corner of the photo. So I tried to deal with that a little too.










Here is my first fix. All I did was play with the color curves and lighten the furniture a little...just to make it not so dark. The last thing I did was sharpen her eyes to make them pop a little.
Fixes 2 & 3: Used Fix 1 as the base and cropped two different ways.

Fixes 4 thru 6: Again, I used Fix 1 as the base. This time I played with light and contrast. For #6, I used picnik to add a vignette.

For Fixes 7 & 8: Using Fix 1 as the base, I wanted to add a texture/background. Since she is wearing white and I am sick of the sticky hot weather here, I decided snowflakes were perfect. For Fix 8, I used Picnik for the vignette.

Fix It Friday

It's Friday and time for Fix It Friday over at iHeartFaces.This week's photo is of an adorable and tiny little munchkin! It's called Cooing Baby. I mostly used PSE 5.0, but I pulled one into Picnik to add a vignette. I also created a collage in Picnik with some of the images since I did so many fixes this week.

Here is the original photo. As you can see, the baby is adorable to begin with.

Here is my first fix that I then used as my base for all of the other. I fixed a few baby blemishes and adjusted the overall skin tone (thanks to this week's tutorial). I also rotated the image for the simple reason that I just didn't like it's original orientation. The final fix for my base was a little dodging on the darkest part of the blanket...it seemed a bit too dark to me.

Other Fixes:
For these two, I rotated the image back to its original orientation. I then stretched the images so that I could crop and then rotate the crop a little bit so that the baby seemed a little more natural to me on its side. The second one was pulled into Picnik where I added a boost and a vignette.


The rest:
These four were all edited in PSE 5.0. I only used Picnik for the collage.
Top Left: Very close to the first fix. Minor level adjustments and a soft light overlay.
Top Right: B&W conversion. I adjusted the contrast and then had to go back and reduce the "shiny" areas.
Bottom Left: Cropped and titled. Then I added a lens flare and lightened it a little. I think that one is my favorite.
Bottom Right: Again, similar to the first (base) fix. For this one, the only thing added was that I burnt the edges a little.

I tried some backgrounds and textures this week too, but I wasn't happy with them. Hope you like these.

Another Fix It Friday

OK...I got sucked in by learning a new PSE technique! One of the contributor's fixes stretched the canvas...and I just had to know how to do it too! This contributor, Jodi from MCP Actions, was nice enough to post a link to a tutorial on her website.
And I tried it out for myself...and I am jumping for joy that I actually did it. And, I also was inspired by all of the "fixes" that incorporated writing and great quotes. So after editing and stretching in PSE, I use Picnik to add the text and the frame! Check out some of the great fixes ove at iHeartFaces.

Fix It Friday

Another Fix It Friday over at iHeartFaces means another chance for me to play with editing software. This week's picture is of an adorable little boy submitted by Susan Keller.

Here is the picture SOOC:
Here is my clean-up version. I made a few minor adjustments (my clean slate) before making my many "fixes" this week.
And here are my "fixes"...make sure to click on the collage to see it bigger.
Thanks in advance for your comments and constructive criticism. I used PSE 5.0 and Picnik to do my editing.