Some people feel that using actions is cheating when it comes to editing. However, many of us have busy lives and rather than spend hours upon end editing a series f photos, we can use an action to speed up the process. I’ll be honest, if I had Photoshop, I’d probably write my own actions…but I use Photoshop Elements 7, so I use any freebie actions I can get my hands on. You’ll often see me using CoffeeShop’s Little Perk (that I often call “just a perk”).  It’s great for adding that little burst of color, contrast and sharpening without much...

I was in the mood to edit this afternoon, so I asked for a challenge… ask and you shall receive! To be honest, I think that the photographer did a fine job with her own edit, but I thought I’d give it a shot anyways. Here is the before and after: Overall, this is a pretty clean fix…so I used my typical post-processing steps using PSE7. Adjust curve (just a little under-exposed).Select people, adjust levels to make them pop.Select background, adjust levels. Run Coffeeshop’s Just a Perk – this brightens up the whole image (might be too much for some people, but...

You all know I love editing challenges, and this has got to be one of the cutest little boys ever (although I probably say that about every child I run across). I could get lost in his eyes. However, we had some shadow issues, so my goal was to lighten, brighten and sharpen. I may have actually overdone it on this first one – what do you think? With this first photo, I selected his face and did a levels adjustment. I then applied Coffeeshop’s Baby Powder Room action and lightly applied each of the steps – mostly focusing on lightening the shadow that was created by his hat...

I love these before & after challenges (on the photography board, we call them “edit my pics,” and this week we have another adorable little girl who just needs to be brightened up a little bit. I’ve included the before, after and my recipe. In this first photo, I cropped the image a little closer and adjusted the levels on her (selecting only her with my marquee tool and then adjusting the levels to brighten her up). I then used the eye dropper on her face to select a clean area and used a soft brush at 40% opacity to adjust any redness (I find this easier and less...