Another Composite

A friend asked me to if there was anything I could do with two photos that she had taken of her boys. She had set them in the sun when she took the photo so it took a bit of fooling to bring the color back to their sweet faces but I rather like the results once complete. I ran the Photoshop water color filter on them once completed. I think most of her relatives now have a copy of this picture.

Sun Glasses

In one of my many photoshop books it explained how to make a high contrast black and white photo. This is one of my favorites and sits on my desk at work. I started with this photo taken on vacation.

I cropped it from horizontal to vertical and zoomed in on his face. I removed all of the background noise and substituted a black background. Working in layers, I switched the mode to black and white and increased the contrast on one layer decreased it on another. After erasing from one layer to show the one underneath I ended up with this photo.

50th Anniversary

Mom and Dad celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2006. I took this last photo of them together and it desperately needed help.

My camera settings were way off, mom and dad were too far apart because of his wheelchair and I wanted to be able to flatter them both with this photo. After adjusting the color and contrast I removed mom from where she was sitting and moved her over closer to dad. At the time I did not have the Nik Efexs filters so I softened her face by copying into another layer her entire face, adding gausian blur and reducing the opacity. I removed marks from where dad had bumped his head and softened him a bit too. With them cuddled up closer together I was able to crop the photo into a vertical instead of horizontal. The wallpaper in the background was darkened and blurred to help it become less distracting. The background behind mom needed to be repaiered and blended once she was moved.

Beach Wedding

When you have a wedding at the beach the world tends to get invited to share it all. Three years ago this couple tied the knot in front of large crashing waves. I had a viewpoint from the roadside above them. All of their photographers were on the beach level below me, so I took some shots that I am pretty sure they didn't have the vantage point to get. This shot was directly after the wedding, the young couple embraced, they had made it through it all and were husband and wife.


The photo begged to be made into an oval, which I did with softened edges. The Nik darken/lighten center filter helped finish off the effect.

Cropped Creation

When I first snapped this photo I knew it was a disaster. One person leaning backward and too close, the other listing in the opposite direction. Although when I studied the photo I noticed that there still was something there to save.

I cropped the photo down to one person. I removed the shine from her face, added a skin softener and glamour glow and darkened the edges. Keeping her face sharp and bluring the background edges draws the eyes to the center of the photo and her pretty face. Just for fun I added an artistic filter to give the image a painterly quality.

From disaster to delightful! Happy Easter!

Busy to Beautiful

Sometimes you have to look closely at an image to see the hidden image within. I have wanted a professional photo of this little angel for some time and decided to create one myself. After digging through photos that I had taken over various visits I settled on this one taken this past Christmas.

She was studying her great-grandmother's face intently. I started by removing the background noise and softening the edges so that she didn't look like she had been cut out. The glamour glow filter enhanced her coloring and the high key filter dropped out some of the color. Soft focus enhanced the sweetness of her face. I added a very soft pink to the background to keep it from contrasting to starkly and then used a vignette blur.

I did not have to enhance the color of her clear blue eyes, that color came directly from her grandfather. Placed in simple silver frames, the resulting image will make a nice Easter gift to both her mother and her great-grandmother.

Before and After

This photo is from a Florida vacation to Eden State Gardens. The beautiful old house is one that you would imagine being in the south, surrounded by old trees draped in long streams of moss. From the picture you can't tell it was also swarming with mosquitoes and nats.


I decided to play a bit with this photo with my newly purchased Nik Efex program. I added several different filters to come up with this version.

The sunlight filter gives the image a nice glow and the polorization filter pumps up the darks, adds a hit of lavender randomly and decorates the edges. I liked the dreamy quality that it created.