Jessica at the Caterpillar Family Blog contacted me last week with an editing challenge. She loves this photo of her son but thinks the background is a little distracting and thought I might be able to help. She was so patient with me as I got through a busy week, but I did want to share the before and after for Touch-Up Tuesday.
I will be guest-blogging on a couple of blogs within the next couple of weeks and plan to go through a typical workflow, but for those of you that are new to my blog, I always start my photos (RAW or JPG) in Adobe Camera Raw. This photo was no different.
I made an adjustment to white balance and gently adjusted the exposure before bringing the photo into Photoshop Elements 7. I ran the image through Amy McMaster’s Squeaky Clean and merged my layers.
From there, I created a duplicate layer and used the spot healing brush to clean up his shirt. I also decided to try out Morgan Kevin’s new action: Eye Love. Love it although I had to adjust the layer masks (meaning that I filled them black and then painted on the effect using a soft white brush). Again, I merged those layers.
I initially was going to completely replace the background. To be honest, I felt like it was a little sloppy looking so I decided to apply texture instead. I actually test drove a couple of Love That Shot textures that I received after submitting some photos to a photographer search. Here is what those layers looked like (texture, blending mode and opacity):
- Duplicate layer, filter, blur, radial blur, zoom at 25 (I think) – before adding texture, this really helped make the background disappear without really disappearing.
- Tuscany-owc-lts, Soft Light blending mode at 100% opacity
- Rome-owc-lts, Overlay blending mode at 70% opacity
- Pulled down the overall saturation -45 and then used a layer mask to paint saturation back on his body
- Poster 3 from Shadowhouse Creations, Multiply blending mode at 60% opacity
I always use layer masks to paint texture off of people. Also, if you’re looking for more texture and action resources, click on my Inspiration tab…tons of information there.
Finally, I applied Paint the Moon’s Sugar Cookies action for a little bit of style before I resized and sharpened for the web. Confused? Yeah…me too, or rather I’m just sleepy. Feel free to comment or contact me with any questions or just stay tuned for my guest post over at Skinned Knees next Wednesday. Actually, if you have any questions that I can better answer next week, please send them on.
Alright, time for bed. More tomorrow. Until then, go see my friend Karli at:
Good Night and Good Morning.
