Oh my goodness! Could this little boy get any cuter? I love the direct eye contact he gave the photographer.
Here’s what I did to fix up the photo:
1. Adjusted in the RAW editor – mainly adjusted exposure, added yellow in the white balance and upped the clarity
2. Ran Noiseware very lightly within Elements
3. Selected the green on the left, copied it to the right and then used the healing brush to get rid of the seams.
4. Selected the eyes and duplicated into a new layer – Used unsharp mask at 100 – 2.8 – 0. This made the eyes pretty sharp, and I was afraid that any further sharpening I did would make the eyes look fake. I decided to reduce the opacity of the sharpened layer to 60%.
5. Adjusted levels – 5~1.14~249
6. I flattened all the layers and then duplicated the layer. I used the healing brush under the eyes and along the ruddy parts of the cheek. I then reduced the opacity of the top layer to 38%…enough to bring in the bottom layer and keep some of the natural texture of the skin.
7. Many times when I sharpen a photo, the hair gets jagged-looking. To avoid this, I selected only the face (no hair) and sharpened the photo. I used the Unsharp Mask settings 5-250-0 and then used Unsharp Mask again at 50-1.4-0
8. Cropped to a square leaving green space on the right…
(I also converted to B&W using a gradient map.)
9. I then added the “fluff”. The quote used was from Steven Curtis Chapman’s song Fingerprints of God . I used the song recently in a VBS video , so it was fresh in my memory.
10. Fonts used: Handwriting-Dakota (comes with a Mac?) and karabinE . 11. Frame made with an action from GraffiShop.
I used almost the same method to get the green to the right of the photo. (The only difference is my use of the patch tool and some slight clone-stamp to add a little variety to mix it up from the left, but I cropped the left so you can't tell) Excellent tip on sharpening! I love the color edit. (actually both of them are superb!)
He could not get any cuter.
Am I supposed to add an intelligent comment here about editing?
I just learned how to open a picture in camera raw the other day. I think. Then my computer shut down…
Oh well.
Thank you for teaching and sharing.
Your edit is perfection! I haven't done a fix-it Friday in forever but now I want to. Such good work!
What a beautiful fix and you are a super-star editor obviously
I love it!
oh and sorry i haven't been around leaving comments, i've missed you though
life is ridiculous right now!
BEautiful job, chicka!!
Love love this edit!
You are the best! Your edits always look so 'pure' ~ this is no exception
And I love the 'fluff' 
So very cute. You should really teach an editing class, Drew.
I always enjoy looking at your edits (and Elements tutorials). I have a question for you: Do you use Lightroom with Elements? If you do, what is your opinion of it? I use Elements, and you were the first person I thought of to ask their opinion. If you don't mind, would you email me back? I would very much appreciate your opinion.
ohnuttyoneatgmaildotcom
Thanks.