A Friend Who Sticks

What an encouragement.... thanks Edit Me!

Belle's SOOC photo

Hello!  Thanks for dropping by.  I've had such a busy couple of weeks...  and I've snuck some editing fun in between the happy bustle of college kids home for Spring break.  Love having them and the passel of friends around again :>)

And speaking of a passel of kids...  Belle Hess has perpetual fun at her home of ten kids!  May I assume these are your little brothers?  There is so much joy in family life :>) See her at
 http://livineachday4him.blogspot.com/

"Hi, my name is Belle! I am a teenage photographer... I am from a family of 10 kids! loving it! Jesus is my biggest passion, living each day to his Glory! Photography is my favorite hobby!"

I love her photo and its composition...  with the long stretch of road, the boys look like they are embarking on some adventure.  I decided on no crop, because the photo looks like the beginning chapter of their exploration. Yet their cuteness portrays this following verse so well... "There is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother."  So the design solution was to combine the two, and putting the verse to the side still alludes to the long stretch of road.

I use Photoshop CS4...

I wanted a clean and brightened edit; here goes:

• Levels adjustment - helped to lighten and balance the exposure. Push the outer two arrows until they meet the histogram "mountain" (or lack of mountain) edges, and adjusted the middle slider for the mid tones.
• Brightness/contrast adjustment - more contrast helped to sharpen and clarify; adjusted brightness 
• Vibrance/saturation adjustment - higher vibrance enhanced colors without over saturating skin tones (to a point anyway).  Saturation boosted color.
• Curves adjustment - pulled curve near upper half to help lighten and brighten - pulled on lower half to darken the shadows  
• Exposure adjustment - adjusted to brighten
• Also masked each adjustment layer as needed - to limit where I wanted the color adjustment.
• Stamped the above layers, then used dodge tool to lighten the cast shadows from the hats on their faces
• Used dodge tool on white of eyes to brighten; used saturation tool on irises
• Another Brightness/contrast adjustment
• Used mcp actions to make a burnt edge - masked off the upper left edge.
• For the side bar with the photo credit and verse:  Used a rectangle shape filled with the brown color sampled from the hats. New layer:  used round brushes at different opacities. Text layers with different fonts and opacities, moved around until the spacing was right
• Used mcp action to do the final web resize and sharpening

The mcp actions that I used are free downloads, btw :>)