More Belly Shots

I am loving the black and whites....and of course one of my favorite actions... "Seventies" from Pioneer Woman.

A Sweet Moment

The other day my oldest daughter was having a hard afternoon. After listening to about an hour of off and on, whining and fussing, I had had enough. (Mean mom!) So I sent her outside to talk to daddy. A few minutes later I look out the window to see this....

it totally melted my heart. I have an awesome husband who is a great daddy to his girls!

I used an action from Coffee Shop Actions. They have some great free actions for Photoshop and PSE. The one I used here is Creamy Toffee Latte. It just gives the picture a sweet soft look.

Fix It Friday ~Redheaded Beauty~ *Edited*

Original

I loved this picture when I first saw it, so I had to join in on the "Fix it Friday" at I ♥ Faces. What a beautiful girl....here is what I did with the original from above. (The first two are my favorites.)






On these last ones I wanted an even more dramatic line, so I rotated it a bit more to the right. I tried just giving the picture a boost, but it still wasn't quite what I was picturing. The last picture I decided to give it an acid wash look.

I had one more idea in my head but my photoshop kept closing down on me this morning...so here it is now. I love adding textures to pictures, but I don't do it very often. Its fun to try.

A little insider info...

I had a lot of questions and comments on this picture. Which is one of my favorites, btw. So, I got the idea from the I ♥ Faces blog (well, and lots of other photo blogs) to do a little tutorial. First of all, I use photoshop to edit my pictures. I don't run a lot of actions on all of my shots, but I do like to adjust some of them here and there.

To start...this little girl is just adorable...so that is where the picture begins its journey to greatness. (ha!) The picture started out with a cute expression, and good focus, but the color was a little gray. (Blah) I shoot in raw, so I can adjust the color before I even get started on editing the jpeg image. Though on this particular shot I just started with it straight out of the camera.

So I used CoffeeShop (free!) color pop action. There are several choices from decaf to triple shot. On this picture I used double shot color pop.

I basically just follwed the steps and clicked okay a lot. I adjusted a few things here and there after I had run the action once. But that would just depend upon your individual picture and the look you are going for.

Once I flattened the layers I then ran a free portrait pop action. (If you click on the link, scroll down to portrait pop) It works on the eyes and anything else you would really like to stand out. (Eyelashes, eyebrows, lips, hair etc.)

On this action you can adjust how much you want the high pass to affect your picture, the action automatically suggests between 5-20. If I only have one person in the picture (and the eyes are a large part of it) I typically use a higher number, closer to 20. I think I used a 19 on this.

I like to use a soft brush that is just a bit smaller than the section I am using it on. (In this action you use a white brush and you can adjust the opacity to your liking. I used it at 100% and typically do for kids. On adults (if I use the action) it seems like it has to be brough down to around 50% opacity.)

I then flattened the image again and saved as a JPEG.

The original picture, straight out of the camera is on the left, the edited picture is on the right.

Here is the final shot....

101 Posts

This is my 101st post! Wow...can't quite believe that. My photographer friend, http://www.jennifertibbettsphotography.com/ had a post about the some actions she uses. I had not found a picture that I liked one of the actions on yet, and decided to try the same thing she did. (Just call me a copy cat!) I really like the results. Here are just a few more snow pictures that we took this morning! Of course, they feature my three faithful models!

I absolutely LOVE the snow!

I used the 70's action on the picture above and below.

Oh, the FREE actions are from http://thepioneerwoman.com/

The *J* Family

Okay, so just a few more shots of this cute family. I am having a really good time with these pictures. I have some new actions from http://coffeeteaphotography.blogspot.com/. They are so perfect for the outdoor pictures. I really like one called "Hot Cocoa" it does awesome things to the browns and greens and just looks really neat. It isn't your standard coloring for portraits, but I think it is a fun one to add.