Friday, March 23, 2012

{flashy} Fix-It Friday #136

It has been quite a while since I have participated in Fix-It Friday over in the I Heart Faces community. When I saw the image up for editing today I knew I wanted to play! Editing my own photos, I often stick to basic clean edits but sometimes it is a nice break to have a little fun with it. I knew looking at this picture, by Angie Arthur Photography, that I wanted to give it a saturated urban feel. 

Here is what I did for my final image, it may look like a long list but each step is fairly basic

Edited in Photoshop CS4
  • Cropped
  • Selected a portion of the brick wall, feathered to 20px and copied to a new layer to get rid of the small amount of window that was left after cropping. 
  • Levels adjustment layer on each channel (you can see my tutorial on this here
  • Duplicated the background image and set to Overlay blend mode, reduced to 80% opacity and masked back her shirt to bring back some detail
  • Duplicated the background image and set to Multiply blend mode, reduced to 40% and masked back the girl. 
  • Duplicated the background image and ran a High Pass Sharpen with a radius of 20px and set to vivid light blend mode, reduced opacity to 35%
  • Duplicated the background image and set to Linear Light blend mode, reduced to 10%
  • Selective Color adjustment layer, selected Reds and reduced magenta to -50 and upped yellow to +5
  • Gradient adjustment layer with a violet/green/orange gradient, reduced opacity to 30% and masked back the girl at 50% opacity to reduce discoloration in her skin. 
  • Flatten layers and save. 






Wednesday, March 7, 2012

{flashy} I Heart Faces B&W Challenge

It has been quite a while since I have participated in the challenges at I Heart Faces. I have been hoping to jump back in to Fix-It Friday's but it looks like I will start with the B&W challenge! I love black and white photos but for some reason while editing my photos I rarely think about doing a black and white edit. This challenge was a good motivator for me to pick some of my recent favorites and have another go at them.

I took this picture at the first village we visited in Takeo, Cambodia as we were setting up our clinic for the day. This photo has reeled me in from the moment I pulled it up on my computer. Most people may pass right by it, but I. Am. Just. Stuck. On. It. The light pouring in from the window. The man's smile. The children anxiously awaiting brand new tooth brushes, which many had never used before. It is a story.


Take a look at some of the other entries!

Photo Challenge Submission