Several weeks ago, Ashley sent me a photo challenge. I’ll be honest (and I’ve told her this directly), I was a bit intimidated by her challenge…only because I don’t think I’ve ever fully removed a hand from a newborn photo like this. Now that I think about it though, the concept of removing any background is roughly the same – I don’t know what I was so worried about. Anyways, I put a star by it in my inbox and finally came back to it last night. By the way, if you ever wondered how to achieve this pose with newborns…here’s how you do it.
Ashley sent me the raw file through SENDSPACE, so I started my processing by opening the photo in Adobe Camera Raw. There I made white balance and exposure corrections before opening the photo in Photoshop Elements. I always start in ACR.
Last week, I introduced you to Perfect Workflow. I’d like to tell you that I went back to my steps from last week…but I went back to a slight curves adjustment followed my Squeaky Clean (sorry guys, I’ll try harder to use those freebie tools along with you since Squeaky Clean is no longer a freebie). I then used Coffeeshop’s Baby Powder Room to clean up the skin (really low opacities to keep it natural).
This is where it gets tricky…I merged my layers and then created a duplicate layer. On that duplicate, I used the quick selection tool to select the right side of the photo (just background). I then clicked ctrl T (free transform) and pulled the right side of the selection to the left (essentially reversing the selection) and positioned it on the left side of the photo in the space where the hand was.
Did I lose you?
I then used a layer mask (filled it black) to paint over the hand in the areas where it needed it be covered up. I cleaned up the edges with the blur tool (it’s a bit tedious, but not really hard). Finally, I used Amy McMaster’s Berries N’ Cream to add a clean, soft finish.
So what do you think? For more touch-ups, go to:
Now I’m off to finish writing a report. Have a great day!
