My 1st Attempt at Portraits

Update:
Overall I was still concerned that my background wasn’t white enough.  Well today, MCP Actions had a blog post about getting white background using actions. I decided to purchase it and try it out.  It did make the background whiter, but I still have more to learn about the actions and other editing.  His skin still looks a little off to me.  In the first edit, he looked too pale (also probably because it’s winter).  I gave him a tan using MCP Touch of Dark action, but I just realized that I forgot to adjust the opacity so that may have helped some.  It’s definitely a trial and error kind of learning curve.
Original:

I decided a while back that I was going to start taking my own kids birthday portraits.  In the past, I’ve only taken them to Sears, Walmart, and Portrait Innovations anyway.  I figured I could do as well as these places.  I ordered the white backdrop and number prop back in October.  I finally decided to give it a try on Friday since Cameron still has his 4-year old picture hanging up, Miriam just had her birthday, and the other ones have birthdays coming up.  I set up the backdrop outside on a north facing wall of our barn, based on this article.  I knew the color wouldn’t be exactly right.  I used some work lights that Craig had in the barn, but I don’t know how much they helped.  All my flash did was cast shadows on the backdrop.  I probably need to work some more on the editing of it, but this was my first stab at it.

Original

Edited

2nd edit

365-268: Beach Series

I love how the yellow beach house stands out in this picture.

I did some editing using the CoffeeShop Action Golden Vintage. I think that's what I used at least...I kept going back and forth trying out a couple of her actions that I have.

Fix-it Friday: No Limits

It's Fix-it Friday over at I ♥ Faces.

Original

My edit

1. Using PS3
2. Adjusted curves
3. Used dodge & burn tools on the eyes
4. Ran MCP Actions Touch of Light/Touch of Dark

Fix-it Friday

It's Fix-it Friday time over at I ♥ Faces. I've been wanting to try this for some time since taking Tracy's Photoshop class. I thought this little boy was just too cute so it would be a good one to try.

Original

My fix

• used CS3
  
• adjusted curves
  
• used the dodge & burn tools on his eyes
  
• ran MCP Actions Touch of Light and Dark
  
• cropped
  

Something funny

Craig just told me that yjod picture that I took was really good...at first he didn't really think that I took it. He said it looked like a postcard picture and that we should frame it. The funny thing is...I didn't try really hard to get a good picture...I actually took it while sitting on the side of the kiddie pool.

So just to prove I took it...here's the original before I edited it in Photoshop.

First Photoshop Fix

My first attempt at editing a people picture...trying to remember the steps that Tracy taught me. (Tracy, of course it's another picture of Levi! I told you he's been taking the best ones.)

Edited & cropped

Original