Before & After

I've found my newest internet addiction. Photo blog photography challenges. It makes me giddy just thinking about it. Don't worry facebook and flickr I'll never turn my back on you. How else will I keep up with my family and friends on the other side of the Mississippi, and edit my photos. ( No I don't have Photoshop, but that's a discussion for a later.) I was out skimming blogs for inspiration. I great page to visit is Ashely Sisk's blog. 

She's a total challenge junkie and has put together a  list of photo challenges. One for everyday of the week. It's awesome and diverse. I can't wait to check them all out. I've been practicing portrait photography lately. Since my hubby bought me a DSLR for Mother's day, I've been obsessed with mastering the camera. I've done macros, bokeh, and silhouette. I still love to shoot these style, but I've now moved the focus of my learning on to portraits. Th

I have a Cannon Eos Rebel T1i and the standard 18mm-55mm lens. The only accessory I have is a small tripod that's about it. So I'm building. As far as editing goes. I don't have photoshop or other editing tools. I mostly use picnik or gimp. I have a want list a mile long, but right now I'm happy with what I have. It doesn't matter the tools you use, but the vision you put in to it. I was excited to find Pixel Perfect Before and After.

This is just a shot I took in the backyard playing around. So I thought I would mess around with using a flash outside in the sun for portrait photography. This turned out really washed out, but I love the color of his eyes, so I thought this would be a good first shot for the challenge. Just to see what happens.

Before.......

The first thing I did was turn the brightness down, and tweak contrast and strength. Next I  added a little saturation and warmed it up a bit. Then I added vignetting as large and strong as I could then faded it out. That added a bit of color around the edges of his face, leaving the center bright. He still need a bit of color though. Before that can happen I edited out some dirt and a scratch off his face, and did a light color boost on his eyes.  I added some Sepia tones to give his face some color and to add to a vintage feel to the photo. To finish it out I used the Ortonish effect in picnik, Raise the bloom to around 70%, lowered the brightness to around 10%, and faded the whole process out to 75%.

After....

I've been inspired by {http://www.theworkshopworkbook.com/} lately. I love her children's photography and the editing that she does. I would love her workbook, but that will have to wait. Until then I hope to maybe win it.  Check out her site it is enlightening.