FIX-IT-FRIDAY - NO.36 - "SPARKLE BOY"

This weeks little man is so cute and the picture really not in need of a great deal of 'fixing' - that makes life more fun :D

Original.

The first thing I notice is the line on the left and the slight crust under his nose. Then the shadows under his eyes. It's a little dark and flat (lacking in contrast) too. So these are the things I set to work on first :D

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Edit One.

In Picnik I cropped out the line and took the picture into 5x7 proportions. Then I increased the contrast (local contrast +20, exposure +6, Contrast + 6) and unsharped the whole image (radius 1.5, strength about 30%). I also brightened the eyes (whites and irises at different levels). This was a pretty good edit in itself (see edit 4) :D

I then added the 'faded daguerreotype' curve and faded it out a bit - loved it!!

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Edit Two

Same as #2, only I wanted to try a rotation on it - liked this a LOT!

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Edit Three

Took #2 into Gimp, 'healed' out the crusty nose (definitely a better tool in gimp than in Picnik), dodged under his eyes, added a screen layer, a text layer and a frame :D

I think this is my favourite.

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Edit Four

Tweeked the saturation (down a little) and increased the warmth a little.

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Edit Five

I 'gimped' #4 - dodged under his eyes, 'healed' his nose, whitened his teeth (dodge tool again), lightly 'burned' his arms back and coloured his T shirt as it was getting a bit lost (not sure I like that bit though)

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Edit Six

Added a colour vibrance layer to #5 (and reduced the opacity)

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Edit Seven

Added a duo-tone (brown) effect to #6 (oooh - like this!)

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Edit Eight

Back to #7 and fiddled with the layers - changed one of them to 'grain extract' to get a sort of dulled effect.

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So there you go - what do you think of my edits this week. When the starter image is so good there is just so much you can do - I love it - it's such fun!!

And Just because I can (and I forgot I always try to) here is Edit Nine - the B&W.

Taken straight from #3 with some bending of the curves and extra unsharping of his eyes :D