Before and After Blog Hop



I know it looks like all I'm doing is participating in meme's this week. That's because I'm really not at liberty to discuss my actual week until later tonight. Then I can share with you all what's really been going on with our family instead of just showing you a picture a day of stuff I shot last week :) Don't get too excited, though, this week has not been fun at all!

Anyway, on to Thursday's "Before and After Blog Hop". I just love reading Monica's Pixel Perfect blog. I love her tutorials. I love hearing about her every day life with her family. Go check her blog out and you will not be disappointed!

So, here is my shot, straight out of the camera (SOOC). Ugh.  The first thing you are drawn to is the gaudy florescent stuffed caterpillar wearing sunglasses, no less.  You totally miss Jaina's cute freckles and smile! So, first I cropped out the caterpillar. Sorry dude!

Then I played with the lighting on Jaina's face. I added some fill light and high lights in Picasa. I know I can do this in GIMP, but I just like how it looks better in Picasa. Then I decided the mix of colors was way too distracting, so I chose to edit this in black and white with a blue filter. Then I sharpened the image just a bit to bring out Jaina's freckles more.

Then I tried to open the file (only 1.1 MB because of cropping) in Picnik to add a little vignette, but it was not uploading my picture at all. I always have trouble with Picnik being incredibly slow on my computer. I am not sure they like my Firefox browser.

I finally had to open the resized SOOC shot and then try to recreate what my Picasa edit looked like. It was very similar, thank goodness.

Then I decided to open the original file in GIMP and play with textures :)
Not crazy about the texture I used. I think it adds lines more than grain. Oh well, gotta keep trying! :)

Comments

  1. cute photo! i love that you cropped out the caterpillar (even though he's cute!). and i think the first b&w is my fave, but i'm not a big texture-user anyway. :) nice job!!

    krista @ kristalucasphotography.wordpress.com

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  2. Love the B&W and what a beautiful family!!! Great job!

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  3. Anonymous1:52 PM

    She has beautiful eyes! I think the black and white helps keep the focus on her. Pretty edit!
    By the way, I'm from SC too. I think a couple of friends I went to High school with live in your city. Small world!

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  4. she is so sweet. the sunglasses on the stuffed animal is SO something my girls would do! :)

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  5. Does gimp allow you to use an adjustment brush to scale back the texture on the skin? If so, maybe that would give you the look you wanted.

    The edits (and the original) are really wonderful. She's beautiful. I love your new blog header, btw!

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  6. The photo is so cute!! The cropping and black and white definitely helps. :)
    Thanks for visiting my blog.
    ~Heather

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  7. Cute pic! :) I like the first B&W best, but they're both great!

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  8. I love this picture (even with the distracting caterpillar!), but I think the first black and white edit really puts the focus on her beautiful face. Great job!

    Michelle
    http://www.justanotherbloggingmommy.com

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  9. I think you did a great job. What a sweet photo. Did you know that if you add a layer mask to your texture layer and use a black, low opacity brush, you can paint some of the texture off the skin?
    What a sweet girl!

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  10. What a cute shot! I love the black and white! I'm not too familiar with gimp. Does it have an eraser to be able to erase lines from the face?

    That's what I have to do when using texture.

    Beautiful! Thanks for sharing and thank you for your kind words!!

    Monica

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  11. Perfect crop. What a cute photo!

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  12. I think you did a great job...the crop is perfect! *I do think that caterpillar is hilarious though. :)*

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