It’s Friday and that means it is time for Fix-it-Friday at I ♥ Faces. Each week they post a photo that was taken by someone who follows the blog at I ♥ Faces. Then a few contributors edit the photo and then they ask anyone else who would like to play along to edit the photo too. It is great practice and a fun way to learn new editing tricks.

Here is the original photo:

This photo needed to be lightened up and color corrected. I did both of those using my usual curves method. Then I decided to clone out some of the signs. I used the clone stamp tool for this. Last I decided to put a texture on this photo.

Here is my edit:

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

It’s Friday and that means it is time for Fix-it-Friday at I ♥ Faces. Each week they post a photo that was taken by someone who follows the blog at I ♥ Faces. Then a few contributors edit the photo and then they ask anyone else who would like to play along to edit the photo too. It is great practice and a fun way to learn new editing tricks.

Here is the original photo:

The main problem with this photo was the white balance. I really struggled with this one to get it right. I used my normal curves method to increase the blue and the red and decrease the green until the numbers looked right. Then I worked on editing out the snowflake on her cheek. To do that I used the brush tool. I sampled a good skin color next to it. I decreased the opacity of the brush to 12% and then brushed in the color over the snowflake. Next I just sharpened the eyes a little bit using MCP Actions Eye Doctor and Dentist tool. I didn’t do any skin smoothing to this photo. I’m not sure, but this one looked like it had already been smoothed a bit. Finally, I cropped the image.

Here is my edit:

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

It’s Friday and that means it is time for Fix-it-Friday at I ♥ Faces. Each week they post a photo that was taken by someone who follows the blog at I ♥ Faces. Then a few contributors edit the photo and then they ask anyone else who would like to play along to edit the photo too. It is great practice and a fun way to learn new editing tricks.

Here is the original photo:

I had a lot of fun with this photo. I loved the composition and the girl is beautiful. This photo was dramatically underexposed and needed some work on the skin. I started out using a curves layer to brighten the whole photo. I brightened it as much as I could, and then added a second curves layer to brighten it even more. After that I ran Noiseware to combat some of the noise that was caused by the underexposure. Then I went to work on the skin. I used the spot healing brush and the patch tool to fix some blemishes on her face. Next I used another curves layer to fix the white balance focusing on the skin tones on the face. Then I ran Magic Powder from MCP Actions and lowered the opacity to about 35%. Magic Skin from MCP Actions is one of my favorite action sets! I use Magic Powder on almost all of my portraits. After that, I was happy with how the girl looked. But I still felt like the background needed something. I decided to add a light texture from NicoleV textures.

Here is my final product:

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

It’s Friday and that means it is time for Fix-it-Friday at I ♥ Faces. Each week they post a photo that was taken by someone who follows the blog at I ♥ Faces. Then a few contributors edit the photo and then they ask anyone else who would like to play along to edit the photo too. It is great practice and a fun way to learn new editing tricks.

Here is my fix:

I didn’t do very much with this photo. I just sharpened the eyes a little bit, I adjusted the color using a curves layer, and then I added a soft light layer and lowered the opacity to about 30%. I tried to a few different crops, but I settled on keeping it the same and just zooming in a little bit. That’s it!

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

This week’s theme at I ♥ Faces is dramatic black and whites. I don’t usually take very many moody black and white shots. But I have a few from a class I am currently taking. I have two that I really like. I had a hard time choosing, but in the end I decided to enter this one of my son.

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

It’s Friday and that means it is time for Fix-it-Friday at I ♥ Faces. Each week they post a photo that was taken by someone who follows the blog at I ♥ Faces. Then a few contributors edit the photo and then they ask anyone else who would like to play along to edit the photo too. It is great practice and a fun way to learn new editing tricks.

Here is this week’s photo:

This is a really adorable photo. The angle is cute and the focus is tack sharp. The main problem with it is that it was underexposed and the white balance was off–the skin was too blue. The first thing I did was use a curves layer to bring up the exposure and brighten the image. Then I used another curves layer to adjust the blue and red channels to fix the skin tone. After that, it didn’t really need much. I sharpened the eyes just a bit and brightened up the catchlights a tiny bit. Both of those things can really make the photo look better, but if you overdo them you can ruin the photo too. Here is what mine looked like when I was all done:

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

This week’s theme at I ♥ Faces is “Focusing on angles”. I am sure that there will be some really creative photos this week. One of the angles that I use a lot is shooting from above the person. It really flatters most people and photos taken from above are usually some of my favorites.

Here is one of my recent favorites.

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

It’s Friday and that means it is time for Fix-it-Friday at I ♥ Faces. Each week they post a photo that was taken by someone who follows the blog at I ♥ Faces. Then a few contributors edit the photo and then they ask anyone else who would like to play along to edit the photo too. It is great practice and a fun way to learn new editing tricks.

Here is this week’s photo:

And here is my edit:

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.