Thursday, March 25, 2010

I ♥ Faces - Fix it Friday!

What a great photo they have for Fix It Friday this week!  Here's one of my takes on it (more to follow).  Head on over to http://iheartfaces.blogspot.com/ if you want to play along or just see other renditions of the photo!

Before:


After:


1. Imported to Lightroom and adjusted temperature a tad to warm up the photo a bit.   I used the dropper on the white of the eyes as my basis for the adjustment.

2.  Still in Lightroom, I adjusted the brightness just a bit (+40).  I took a free online class recently on Lightroom and the instructor suggested that it is more beneficial to adjust the brightness instead of exposure so that highlights and shadows don't blow out.

3. Then I used the adjustment brush at a +75 exposure to bring out the catch lights in the eyes and then a new brush with a +100 clarity to sharpen the eyes.

4.  Then I hit the 'Punch' preset to just pop the photo a bit.

5. I imported the photo to Photoshop and cloned out some of the spots/blemishes on her face.

6. Ran MCP Actions 'Powder Your Nose' to smooth out some of the roughness of the skin and work on some of the blotchiness around the eyes and mouth. 

7. Ran MCP Actions 'Magic Skin'.  Because I had just done the powder your nose, I reduced the opacity on the layer to 23% - I didn't want it to look like too much.

8.  Almost done!  I ran the MCP Action 'Crystal Clear Resize and Sharpen and then masked out the sharpness of the skin, kept the clarity on the eyes for sure and the rest of the image.

Pioneer Woman's B&W and MCP Actions Burnt Edges


MCP Actions - Chocolate Covered Strawberries (I think this one is my favorite)


MCP Actions - Throwback Vintage (at 65% opacity)

and finally...one with a Texture!  It's called Cream Bokeh Swirls and the creator is  Pareeerica on Flickr.  There are so many textures in his free set and they're all gorgeous!

11 comments:

  1. OMG your edits are amazing!!! I love love loved them all :)

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  2. your edits are just beautiful :)

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  3. i love,♥ beautiful edits. where do you get the actions you used in the photos?

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  4. Wow, What amazing edits! That chocolate Covered strawberries one is really cool, I love black and whites and how the pink just barely peeks through on this one.

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  5. My fav is the texture one...thanks for the link! All of your edits are really fabulous though!

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  6. I cannot even pick a fav. here! Thanks so much for all of your edits on my photo this week! It is so fun to see what everyone has done to it! I keep going back to PW B&W one I think! LOVE it!

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  7. Love the first edit and then the texture edit. Adorable!

    Oh, and I got the HKT apron today. Thanks for doing such an awesome give away. It is so cute!

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  8. Yay! Go glad you got it :)
    Thanks for all of the compliments. It was such a fun picture to 'fix' this week!! For @anyangxx, the actions I use almost exclusively are from www.mcpactions.com the B&W version of the photo and other free actions are also available at Pioneer Woman's website...http://thepioneerwoman.com/photography/category/photoshop-actions/
    Hope this helps!

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  9. Great edits! I love the last one! So cute!

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  10. Throwback vintage is gorgeous! I just love your retouches!

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