Your Photo- My Edit

I had an “open call” for photos a few weeks ago, and you guys sent me some fun ones!  A few of the photos were perfect as is, while others needed a lot of love (Ha!).  I chose this picture from Jess because it was right smack in the middle.  I also chose this one to show you that, with a little tweaking, you can salvage a photo and bring it a little more life with the “unsharp mask” tool.

 Edited Version:

 

Original Below:

I am not a fan of overly Photoshopped edits.  I wanted to keep this picture close to the original, yet give it some pop.  These are the steps I took to clean up this adorable photo:

1.  Imported picture into Photoshop Elements 7

2.  Duplicated the layer in layers palette.  Edited with soft light at 20% to add contrast

3.  Selected only the irises of the eyes with lasso tool and upped the contrast to +7… then with the eyes already selected, I chose “unsharp mask” to sharpen the eyes (Doesn’t it seem weird to select “unsharp” when you need to sharpen?  I’ll never get it).

4.  Enhanced lashes with the “burn” tool (lashes are always my favorite part).

5.  Cropped the picture just a little

6.  Used the lasso tool on the left to select each face, then used “unsharp mask” (under “Enhance” at the top of the screen) to help get rid of some of the “fog” in the picture

Here’s a screen shot so you can see what this step looks like:

 

Total time spent was only about 10 minutes, maybe less if I didn’t have my two year old “helper” in my lap. 

Sigh.

These girls just make me smile.

 

Encourage one another,