I have to confess I have a fetish for children’s eyes. The depth of their colors. The innocence of life. The wonder of the world. And when I saw this image on today’s I Heart Faces blog post, I was moved to participate. Just wanted to see this girls eyes up close and see if I could bring out the magic I saw reflected there.
So here is the Original Image given to us today to play with. I noticed there was a slight blue color cast to the image and it was not as sharp as it could be.
Here is my first edit utilizing Adobe Lightroom 2. I left the composition alone but did several things to bring out the magic in her eyes. First I played with the Saturation and Vibrancy. Then I warmed up the white balance by about 20. Next I made some adjustments to her skin tome to decrease some of the redness. Made some adjustments to the Contrast next. And most definitely had to adjust the color of her eyes to make them Pop right off the screen. Lastly I adjusted the Noise Levels and increased the Clarity and Sharpness of the image. Once I Exported the image to Photoshop CS5 I added the Word Art with a little Inner Bevel to make it stand out and give it some dimension. I have to say I am rather please with how my final image came out.
Once I was satisfied with with those edits, I decided to have a little fun with Photoshop Layered Mask Template I recently purchased. This time I did adjust the composition to focus on this child’s beautiful face. And I love the freckles. My daughter has a face full of freckles so I am partial to them.
Now it’s your turn, tell me what you would creative techniques would you have applied to this photograph? Better yet, hop on over to the I Heart Faces blog and grab this image, edit it, and then come back here and leave me a link to your blog so I can check it out.