From that to THIS

I can't help but go through my "old" images and gasp and my edits. I have learned in these few short months that most of the time less is more. I tend to run into a lot of images where the eyes are over sharpened and the skin is too smooth. I like photos where babies resemble little like dolls and more like real sweet babies.



Anyway, I came across, this photo. A favorite of mine. From the hat that took me months to figure out how to make to the catch lights in Lias' slate colored eyes. Being a hobbyist photographer, I don't have the props, equipment and such like professionals. I do not have the need or the space in my tiny house. So, sometimes I have a vision in my head and I just have to improvise. My intentions were to use the cream colored blanket for a backdrop, draped over my couch, and just smooth/clone all the wrinkles during my post processing. Well, things didn't go as planned, as they rarely do and I was left to clean up the background in photoshop.

The first thing I did was select the color of the blanket and use a soft brush to paint the entire background. TIP: Zoom in closely!

Now that the background is uniform in color, I went on to soften the edges of my subject. I ran Whisper Softly from Paint the Moon Photography, twice, masking out everything except the areas touching the white background. The photo needed a boost in contrast, so I ran "Soriee Pop" and then "Get Rid of the Wonky colors" for a more even skin tones and to banish some of the grey in his skin. After getting the skin how I like it, I ran a few artistic actions at very low opacities (Flirt and Twitterpated).

To finish off, I ran a tiny bit of "Light Touch Skin Smoother" and a little "Spot on Sharpening" to make his eyes pop a bit. And lastly I used "Warm Me Up" and "Limelight".

All actions used were from Paint the Moon Photography