New Look – New Features

We’re in the process of updating the PhotoBlast site. If you’ve visited here before you can already tell there is a big change to the way the site looks. We’ll be tweaking it over the next few days and weeks.

We’re also adding some new features for our clients. We’ve got the new interface that allows online ordering of your photos (See Your Photos). and we’ll be making some changes to the new features as well.

We’re also excited about the summer… We’re going to be working with Capricorn Equestrian each week, taking photos for the summer camps as they happen. Fun times ahead.

Thanks for visiting,
John

#55 - Challenge

This week at I Heart Faces, this lovely little one was featured. The photo is a slightly more challenging due to color tones and sharpness, and I wasn’t sure where the photo would lead me. I took a little time to play with a few options and here is where we came out.

Here is the original:

I decided to start by correcting the skin tones and adding a little sharpness. I used the I Correct Photo filter to do the main color correction. Once the color was set, I added a levels adjustment to brighten the photo a bit. I also used the EZ Eye Care action from EZ Actions to do some work on the eyes to brighten, whiten, and add some slight enhancements.

Here is where the photo was at that stage:

I thought the photo lent itself to a porcelain effect, but was concerned about her dress. This is because the dress has those dark tones and the very dark tones don’t play nice in a porcelain effect. Porcelain photo do much better when the photo is high key (white on white). So, I played with the EZA Porcelain action to see how it might work. I liked the approach and needed to do a crop and add a border, but I think the end state of the photo was what I was looking for.

Here is the final:
 

Added one more…
I call this… Pretty in Pink

I hope you enjoy my attempt this week.

Thanks for stopping by,
John

A Photo

I’ve been doing some clean up of some older files and thought I’d share one that I found. I took this photo and played with it about 5 years ago. I still like how it came out. It’s really more of an art piece at this point, but it was fun to see it when it came up on my hard drive.

Talk to you later,
John

Fix-it Friday #52

Here is my play for the week.

Basically, I removed some items out of the background using the clone tool. Then I ran the Midnight Color action on it, added a grunge border and that was it.

Here is the original:

Here is my edited version:

I hope you like my changes…

John

I Heart Faces #51

This weeks photo was a bit more of a challenge and I had to take a shot at it. The photo shows a lovely young lady in a winter setting. You will notice in the original that she has some contrasty light on her face showing some darkness around the eyes and some really bright spots on her cheeks and nose. Also notice that the focus is a touch soft on her eyes.

Here is the original:

I decided to do a few things to start. First, I did a little color correction, which is always where I start with a photo. Then, I gave her back her missing top teeth, which I pretty much did just for my own purposes to see how I could blend replacements back in (I thought the teeth came out nice so I left them in). Then, I used the patch tool to correct some of the bright spots on her cheeks. Now the photo was set for me to really play. I took the ContraSoft action from EZ Actions and used it to pop the color, soften her skin, highlight the eyes, and darken the background. This resulted in a nice photo, but I wanted a little more sharpening in the eyes and a little more color pop. So, I ran the Sharp Shot Color Pop Pro action. This really popped the color to my liking and added the right amount of sharpness to her eyes. I used the layer masks to tone down the contrast that the action added and removed some sharpening from her face and hair.

Here is what I ended up with:

I hope you like the result…

Thanks for stopping by,
John