Baby Jonah! - Edit Me Challenge 9

A warm welcome and a big thank you to Stephanie (and baby Jonah), the new co-host at the Edit Me Challenge.  Here's a short bio:

Hi, I’m Stephanie. I am an almost thirty full-time working new mommy with a photography habit…okay addiction. I blog over at Behind the Camera and Dreaming, try to support my addiction with Gray Mornings Photography and enjoy my offline life in Jackson, Mississippi.

This week's challenge photo is her little Jonah.... 

Below is my favorite edit... after trying a few different approaches.

I chose this one because the colors look clear and fresh, and Jonah looks absolutely squeezable.

I'm posting the other attempts... because Jonah is just too cute.

The following picture is posterized; I do like the outlining that brings out some contrast.  This edited photo of Jonah looks almost exactly like my baby doll from my childhood.  The doll even had a pretty light blue cotton outfit - very similar to Jonah's. So this one makes me smile.

Next, after seeing my different edit attempts lined up in a row, I noticed how Jonah was leaning.  

• I transformed and turned the original to straighten, but then the background horizon was tilted.
• I copied the original a couple of times; cropping the right half on one, the left half on the other.
• I put the copped layers under the original. Each half I tilted until the horizon looked... well, horizontal.
• Then I put a layer mask on the original - the top layer, brushing away the tilted-looking horizon, revealing the straightened horizon from the layers underneath. I nudged to move the horizon layers until it looked about right. 
• I also cropped out the tree line on the left; then cloned some of the right-side horizon to the left side of Jonah to match.  Brushed in some sky and blended.
• Then I thought it looked a bit plain, so I had fun again with the frame and embellishments.

And there we have it  - Week Nine of photo editing!