SOOC Saturday ~ Sunshine At Last!!

Around here you would be struggling to have called it Spring just lately, but today, AT LAST, the sun has come out!!


I took my small boys to feed the horses, meet this year's calfs and feel the sun on their skin ~ and of course I took my camera! :)

All SOOC ~ the light was beautiful!

Now for more Slurping Life head on over to Melody's! :)

5 Faves Friday ~ 9

FIX-IT-FRIDAY - NO.54- "Over-Exposure"

Original

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Edit One

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Edit Two

This week's fix was a challenge!


The photo was submitted to iheartfaces by Christina from 3 Sweet P's. She wrote: "This is a photo of my 2 year-old Parker. I am bothered by the harsh shadow on his face and the washed out colors of the photo. His eyes are a beautiful blue and you just can't see that. I would love to see what you guys can come up with!"


It took some work to soften that area of over exposure on the right of his face and then I wanted to bring back the blue of his eyes a bit too. The colours needed to punch more, without accentuating the harsh lines of sunlight on his face ~ wow ~ tall order!


Firstly I opened the photo in PSE7 camera raw and fiddled a little with overall exposure and contrast and then opened the image.
Always duplicating layers before I worked this is what I did (I think!)

• Selected the over exposed area of his face and layered as a cut
• colour picked from a good skin tone and then bucket filled the selection
• Decreased the opacity of the selection to blend it down.
• (It looked a little better)
• applied Coffeeshop Johnna's Tea Party and reduced the opacity of the layers
• flattened and duplicated the image
• I transformed the duplicated image to BW and then layered it back on top of the original ~ setting to Soft light and decreasing opacity to taste ~ this punches the colours nicely!
• I then used Coffeeshop Perfect Portrait action and worked with appropriate layers ~ especially the dodge layer to further soften the harshness of the line on his face.
• I reapplied Johnna's Tea Party, deleted the middle layer and reduced opacity of top layer (I liked the tones this gave) ~ flattened
• Created a new layer and flooded with a light beige tone ~ this improved the skin tones ~ flattened
• Lassoed his eyes and created a seperate layer for them, then played with the hue enhancement to make them blue again.
• faded the layer down until they looked natural.
• Saved for the web.  ~ Voila Edit One

For Edit two I worked straight of Edit one and applied 'Nelly Nero Grunge BW' and just fiddled with the layers until I liked the look!

I think I prefer Edit one overall, although it is a little more yellow than I would really like it to be.

For more fantastic edits of this picture head on over to Fix-It-Friday :)

You Capture - Yellow

This week's You Capture theme is 'yellow' ~ thankfully today I spotted our garden's first Buttercup :D It doesn't get much more yellow than that!


To join in nip over to Beth's blog :)

I ♥ Faces - Week 19 - “Celebrating Mum” !

I didn't think I was going to get an entry in this week. Then tonight, on the way to taking the children to their weekly drama group, they discovered that 'stickle weed' stuck very well to my coat and hence forth attacked me with copious quantities!! I handed the camera to my 9yo daughter and she shot this! I love it ~ even TP pulling a silly face behind me ~ all about motherhood ~ silly faces, silly moments and children capturing them :)


It's not mother's day in May in the UK ~ that happened in March, when the daffodils start blooming, but every day is a good day to celebrate my position as mother of 7 :).


To join in with this week's celebration over at iheartfaces, click on the button and the top and add your link ...

Communal Global ~ "My Scent"

I've had this perfume a long while ~ I hardly ever wear any, but this IS lovely!
(Can you see my bed reflected in the bottle?)


Time for you to join in with Tuesday Around the World ~ just link up below :)

5 FAVES FRIDAY ~ 8

I'm not sure what's with my camera, but too many of these seem to be out of focus. The shutter speed was high enough, but it just seemed to miss too many.

Despite that, I love the shots ~ I just wish they were crisper!

Time for you to join in with 5FavesFriday ~ go on you know you want to!! :D

Best Shot - Bluebells & Ball Games

I find it hard define what is 'best' but below are possibly my best shots this week.

But my 'favourites' can be seen in my 5FavesFriday post (please feel free to join in!)

Then when you're done, hop on over to Melissa's Best Shot and join in there too! :D

Fix-It Friday #53- Big Brown Eyed Boy!

Original

First three edits done on Laptop (which gives different colour saturations) and in Picnik Premium today ~ Paul had the PC with PSE7 & LR3 ;)

Next three edits done in Gimp.

Sorry ~ I didn't keep a record of what I did today, I just played whilst watching the progress of our election on the telly. It's been a restful day, but I'm sorry I can't really tell you what I did!! :D I knew I was going for a soft look in the first three and a bit of vintage.  Less softness in the next three and more vintage. The cardy the little lad was wearing shouted vintage at me, so I went with that.


For more lovely fixes of this brown-eyed boy, head on over to Fix-it-Friday ...

You Capture - Spring II

Spring ran away this week and more-like-winter returned!

But we played out a bit, despite the chill factor...

'Teens' arrived at our house (counting candles) ~ Uh Oh!

And we played 'Rounders' in the park for some (chilly) Bank Holiday fun with a crowd of friends!

For some more pictures of Spring head on over to Beth's ...

Communal Global ~ "Today"

On Tuesday's Communal Global opens up for links around the world ~ time for YOU to join in! :D

The theme is 'TODAY' and although it was not actually today, but Sunday, my eldest, handsome son hit his teen years ~ so now I'm really for it!! :D

SOOC Saturday/Sunday ~ Welcome Teen-hood!

This really isn't the best shot of him, but possible the funniest :D. Today my eldest hit his teens! 


For Something prettier...

And for more Slurps of Lovely Life nip over to Melody's :D