I’ve been following Kathy’s blog…and her little boy, Andrew, for months. I know I say this all the time, but he is truly one of the cutest little boys I’ve ever seen. I think he’s got an almost angelic look about him and I have really enjoyed watching him grow.
Kathy sent me a note recently regarding a recent before and after, where I was really getting into the use of texture. I told her that if she ever wanted me to experiment on one of her photos, to just send it over. Well, she took me up on that offer last night.
If you’ll go over to her blog, you can see her simple and clean post-processing. I’m a huge fan of this simple approach, but it’d be boring if I just replicated her style…wouldn’t it?
I’m seriously loving this portrait. So, after doing a little Squeaky Clean post-processing of my own (well, I actually started in Adobe Camera Raw by adjusting the white balance and exposure), I did a little dodging on some of the dark spots on his skin, then brought on the texture layers. Well, before texture, I cropped so it is now a 5×7 photo.
- I used a series of textures from a variety of sources (mostly from Shadowhouse Creations and Johnna LaFaith – I’ve got links in Inspiration). Here’s the order:
- Painterly Effect 2, Overlay, 71% opacity
- RVT-Tan Overlay, Multiply, 65% opacity
- Cloth Texture, Soft Light, 40% opacity
- Background Copy, Hard Light, 15% opacity
- Vintage Grain Overlay Five, Soft Light, 71% opacity
- I used layer masks to remove the texture from his body and I erased a good bit from the floor as well (I mean, it’s a wooden floor…does it really need more texture?).
- I then used Paint the Moon’s Sugar Cookies action (that’s my current favorite – link also in Inspiration) and adjusted the layers by increasing the contrast and making a little darker.
- I burned the edges and then did a quick re-size and sharpen for the web.
