This is an adorable picture of Carter, but there are a number of spots that have been blown out, thus, the burn tool was my friend. Carter’s mom took this photo at her in-laws’ farm and hoped that this might be a photograph that she could frame for them. It’s such a cute photo that it must be saved!
My steps on this one are fairly typical.
- I started by adjusting the curves and then applying Squeaky Clean. I really focused on the levels and warming it up.
- I then merged those layers and created a duplicate layer. On the duplicate layer I used my burn tool to darken the bright spots on his body…and even the roof of the barn.
- At this point, it was time to add texture! I used textures from Shadowhouse Creations and Johnna LaFaith. You can certainly do a search on their websites for the textures to use on your own photos (or just send me a note and I can do something similar for you). Here’s the order:
- Lost, Soft Light, 90% opacity
- Ghost4, Multiply, 50% opacity
- RVT-Blue, Overlay, 21% opacity
- Background Copy (just a copy of the original), Hard Light, 16% opacity
- Aged2, Soft Light, 46% opacity
- Vintage Grain Overlay 5, Overlay, 77% opacity
- I did use layer masks to erase the textures (using a 40% opacity soft brush) from his body and some from the chair he’s sitting in.
- I then applied Paint the Moon’s Sugar Cookies action. I adjusted the layers until I felt really good about the coloring – increasing the contrast so he popped.
- Before resizing and sharpening, I decided that I didn’t like the composition, so I cropped…still leaving the old barn in the background.
