Fixit Friday #53

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ORIGINAL

For the sake of a better location, I am posting my edits to I Heart Faces "Fix It Friday" here on my design blog. Since I have no new designs (yet), I guess this is the most logical place to work on my photo editing skills. This week's photo over at I Heart Faces is a sweet close-up. I love these because there is so much that can be done with the eyes. First I cleaned up the stray spots (looks like food or boo boos) on the face and then I used curves in Photoshop CS4 to lighten the left side of the face. I used a mask to keep the right side unaltered. I pretty much use masks and layers on all my edits.

I transported the image back and forth between Photoshop and Lightroom. I have a preset that I designed in Lightroom that I call "Purplelicious". I knew it would work well with this image. It gives the image some muddy and purple tones. After that, I placed a couple of textures on the image to add interest and depth to the background. These layers created a vignette to the image that highlights the center and fades away the background. Lastly, I forgot to mention that I enhanced the resolution and cropped the image before doing anything else. When I am almost done, I lighten and sharpen the eyes for extra impact. Here are my edits.
AFTER IN COLOR

AFTER IN BLACK AND WHITE