Touch-Up Tuesday

I  had so many great responses from the Scrabble photos I uploaded! Scrabble is just so classic—I love seeing pictures of the pieces.

SOOC:

Edit:

What I did: Boosted the brightness and ran a contrast layer to make the black on the letters more defined. Then I ran PW's "colorized" action and dropped the opacity down a bit. Once I had the photo at a place I liked, I gave it some texture (not sure where I found that particular texture!) and dropped its opacity down. 


I'm really happy with the way it turned out—it's soft and romantic, perfect for Valentine's Day! 

Fixing it Friday

Since I'm pretty gung-ho about learning and practicing with photoshop these days, I've been looking forward to I Heart Faces' Fix-it Fridays. But as of 9:30 am, their photo to fix still isn't up. Luckily, Ashley with Ramblings and Photos found another link-up dealing with fixing photos! I seriously love the collection of photo challenges Ashley has on her blog, thank you!

So here's my version of Trendy Treehouse's photo. 

The original: 

Cute picture and I LOVE the water!

My first edit:

I wish I knew what I did to this photo, but I just play with it until it looks right to me. I lightened up the whole thing and then boosted and sharpened the image. That's pretty much it.

My second, "fun" edit:

I'm taking Kim Klassen's e-course for PSE and I'm LOVING it so far. This is basically what we learned to do yesterday. I gave my original edit a "slight light" layer and then a "screen" layer. Then I added a navy blue solid adjustment layer and ran "exclusion." Then I changed the opacity to make the water less yellow and more blue. I really like the retro look this picture has now!

 

 

Which is your favorite?

Fix-it Friday #77

Click above to see more edits...after you check mine out, of course!

I absolutely adore this weeks photo. I loved the angle and the perfect crop it already has, so I didn't see any need to adjust it any more. 

Before:

Edit #1

I used PW's Boost and added some green hues into the photo. I also lightened it up a bit and then erased part of it over her face so her cheek wouldn't get too blown out.

Edit #2

I kept the edits from the photo above and then ran PW's "seventies" action. At first I thought I liked this one the best, because it gave her almost an angelic and soft glow, but today I'm drawn to the first edit.

Which do you like best? 

Before and After

I really need/want to start taking more pictures. In the mean time, I'll work on some of the challenges I see around the web. Hope you all don't mind!

Before: 

Kinda dull and "blah."

After:

Used PW's "boost," and warmed it up by changing some levels around and brightening it up a bit.

Fix-it Friday #76

I'm really beginning to love fix-it Fridays! 

Here's the original: 

This is fine on its own, but I think it's a little to "hot" and overly saturated. 

 My edit: 

I changed some color levels and desaturated the whole image.

 Another edit: 

I think I like this one the best.

 

Fix-it Friday #75

This was a fun picture, but also extremely hard for me, because I'm still so new at this and there was a lot I wanted to do, but couldn't. A few things that drove me crazy: it looks like the little boy is missing his right hand, his eyes are closed, and he's not really in focus. 

I'm almost positive there's a way to add a hand (I tried cloning his other hand, but I have no idea if there's a way to rotate the cloned part). And I still have no idea how to add on layers, so adding eyes are kind of out of the question. 

I did a few edits, but I don't know if I'm happy with any of them. 


Here's the original:

Edit 1:

The original photo needed to come to life a little bit more. I ran PW's boost action and then lowered it and added in some warmer red and green tones to make it look a little more like fall.

Edit 2: 

My husband suggested a landscape crop and I really like it this way. I don't remember what actions and levels I played with, but my goal was to make it look a little more whimsical and soft.

Edit 3:  

This is the one I'm not so sure about. I had an idea in my mind, but I just couldn't get it there. I wanted an extremely soft, almost dreamlike photo. I desaturated it and then added some color back in. I also sharpened it. On my Smugmug screen (and PSE and my computer screen) this photo has a little more warmth to it with a touch of gold and red.

I've been trying to back off from using actions so I can learn how to edit manually, rather than falling back on clicking a sweet action. Are there any books or great tutorials online you recommend to learn more tricks of this trade?