Fix-It Friday #67 – Dana Suggs’s Contribution
This week’s photo is probably my FAVORITE so far! The photo isn’t particularly glorious, but the little girl certainly is! I just want to pick her up and SQUEEZE her!
Here is the ORIGINAL photo:
Oh….wait! That would be MY daughter! And MY not particularly glorious photo! 
Look at that! 
(Yes, I need to get a life….I’ll work on that next.)
So here are the problem areas I see right off the bat: color first of all. It appears pretty cool. And those flip flops! Good gravy, I told her not to wear those….they didn’t match the mood that I was going for AT.ALL! Oh well, photoshop can only do so much.
I opened up my photoshop CS4 and first adjusted the color with my color balance sliders. I don’t have any exact numbers of anything because truth be told, I don’t pay much attention to the numbers, I watch the colors as I’m sliding. Then I used both levels and curves to give it a nice little pop! Then I sharpened at 80/1.3/0 and cropped to a horizontal 5×7.
EDIT #1:
Pretty simple adjustments anyone can do with basic editing software.
But, come on…..it’s me: Queen of too many edits……so I had to do more!
EDIT #2
For this edit, I used Florabella’s Vintage Spring set I “Vintage Spring” and then because I thought she was a little too muted, I bumped the shadows in levels to bring her out a little bit more. Then I used “Sunflare (left)” from the same Florabella Vintage Spring set, just for a little more drama. Deepened the shadows a touch in levels again so she wasn’t so muted again. Then I popped her eyes SLIGHTLY. Ever so slightly. (Keyword: SLIGHTLY) Finally, I cropped to a horizontal 8×10 because I’m thinking I like it so much, I may print it and mat it and frame it. Cuz I lubs her so much!
EDIT #3:
I knew for one of them I knew I wanted to try putting fairy wings on her……although, I’ve never done it before! Hehehehe….I know, adventurous of me huh? So I did some looking for butterfly wings (that were free) and started experimenting. First, I prepared my image by adding a Gaussian blur to the background and erasing back in Brooklyn (that’s her name, by the way….the beautiful Brooklyn. My only girl. Not that I’m super proud or anything). Then I made a new layer and added the wings, a layer at a time and erased Brooklyn back in, so the wings were behind her and not on top of her. Oh, little note: this was NOT the original color of the wings! I used my hue/saturation slider to change the color. ‘Cuz I’m cool like that. Once I had the wings on her the way I thought they looked alright, I added the little twinkly lights (brush set). Then I did a selection of the background and lightened it and did another Gaussian blur around the edges to give it that ethereal look. Then I just added the scrapbook stuff and the quote! Easy as pie, huh? Not bad for my FIRST attempt at adding wings to anything!
Here is the photo a little closer:
Just don’t look “too” closely….. This is new to me and I’m still learning!
Now, if only I had thought of removing those darn flip flops……
Dana
