Hue, Saturation and Lens Flare

Serenity oozed out of this photo. It is peaceful, allowing me to reminisce about the farm.
However, I wanted to spruce it up a little.

After making a copy, I wanted to add a little Diffuse Glow.

Under the Filter Tab, I scrolled down to Distort and then over to Diffuse Glow. I adjusted the amount of graininess to 4%, glow to 7% and clear amount to 12%.

I clicked on the Image tab and scrolled down to Adjustments, then over to Brightness/Contrast.

I used the sliders to increase both the Brightness and the Contrast.

I wanted the grass to pop a little more. Clicking on the Image tab again, I scrolled down to Adjustments and then over to Hue/Saturation.

I used the sliders to increase the saturation and decrease the hue. This brought out a depth in the green grass that made me happy. I smiled from ear to ear, that’s how happy I was.

I wanted the photo to have a little something special, however.
Opening the Filter tab, I scrolled down to Render and then over to Lens Flare.
I tried all of the different ‘Lens Types’, choosing to go with the 50-300 mm Zoom. I chose a brightness of 56% which wouldn’t allow the Lens Flare to overpower the photo.

Here’s the final photo all spruced up. And below is what I started with.

Unconventional Photos

Making your subject at ease can be tough. I like to put the client in a familiar setting or position to help them relax. My subject was most at ease doing this-blowing a bubble.
Isn’t he just the cutest?

I liked the photo, but there were a few things that needed a fixin’. (That’s Okie talk…)

I didn’t like the chair sticking into the frame. I made a copy of the background and then cropped out the offender.

His skin looked a little flat, so I used the ‘diffuse glow’ function. It’s very flattering to skin tones-boys and girls alike.

He looks so darn purty now. But don’t tell him. He is very macho.

The overall color was too brown for me. I adjusted the levels using ‘color balance’ (found under the tab ‘Image’ and scrolling down to ‘adjustments’).

His eyes needed to pop a little more, so I lassoed both of those cute little suckers and clicked on the ‘Filter’ tab. Scroll down to ‘Sharpen’ and then choose ‘unsharp mask’ and adjust the amount, the radius and the threshold to your liking.
I learned this from Pioneer Woman. I like her. And her photo tricks.

Next, I wanted the bubble gum to stand out a bit more. I lassoed it and then clicked on the ‘Image’ tab and scrolled down to ‘Hue and Saturation’. I brought out the pink in the gum a little more.

Here is the cute finished product. I just love this little guy. However, he is my nephew after all, and I am a little biased.

Flattering Portrait Effects-Lens Flare & Smoothing

This little angel was a downright blessing to shoot this past drizzly Saturday morning.
She was compliant, quiet and naturally beautiful.

The rain drew out of the vibrant greens in the English garden. I was in photography heaven.

I wanted to add a little visual interest to the photo with a lens flare. Under the filter tab, scroll down to render, then over to lens flare.

Move this cross to where you want the focus of the lens flare to be. Increase/decrease the brightness to what your little heart desires.

Here’s what the lens flare looks like once it’s applied to your picture. The flare inspired me to push the image to a more dreamy look. Let’s play with the ‘diffuse glow’ function again.

You’ll find this function under ‘filter’, scrolling down to ‘distort’ and then over to ‘diffuse glow’.

This will pull up a preview screen. You can adjust the graininess, the glow and the clear amount. The preview will adjust a portion of you image as you move the sliders around.

On the right hand side, where your layers are visible, you can adjust both the opacity and the fill of the diffuse glow. Move your sliders up & down until you are happy with your image.

This is how the diffuse glow looked once it was applied to my image. Isn’t she precious?

I wanted to smooth out the fly-aways in her hair. Using my magic lasso, I drew around both sections of her hair. You can lasso more than one area by holding down the shift key as you draw.
To blur her hair, click on the ‘filter’ tab, scroll down to ‘blur’ and then over to ‘gaussian blur’.

I chose a radius of 7.0 to ‘blur’ her hair. Goodbye fly-aways.

Here’s the final product that I sent off to the client.
Below is the ‘before’ photo for your comparing pleasures.

Using the Diffuse Glow Function

I love taking ordinary objects, such as this couch below, and adding a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to make
you want to hang it on your wall.
I liked the composition of the photo and decided to play around with it a little using ‘diffuse glow’.

This was shot in Reynosa, Mexico in a little neighborhood nestled in between a landfill and a sewage facility.
First things first, I made a layer of the photo. You can read how to do that here.

After making a layer, I chose the ‘burn tool’, (the little hand on the left column of the page), to tone down the bright spots in the foreground of the picture.

The dirt, parts of the bike and the bright section on the right side of the couch have been burned in with a hardness of 37% using a 200 diameter burn circle.

Now, this is when I got crazy. I hate using the ‘diffuse’ function typically. It tends to make people look way too angelic. But, what the hey…I decided today was the day.
Under the ‘filter’ tab, go down to ‘distort’ and choose ‘diffuse glow’, and then click on it.

I chose a ‘graininess’ of 2, a ‘glow amount’ of 5, and a ‘clear amount’ of 13. I tried several different settings until I came to like these settings.

Rebekah likey. It made the couch really pop. But, remembering my photo teacher from the 9th grade, the brightest spot on the photo was leading my eye off of the photo and into the right bottom corner. Teacher no likey. Bad Rebekah.
So, what did I do?

I cropped that sucker is what I did. The grey bar along the bottom is what I am going to crop out by using the ‘crop tool’.

This is what the photo looks like cropped. And don’t worry, if you ever crop something and hate it, just use the undo function (on a mac hold the apple button and the ‘z’ button down at the same time.)
I still wasn’t happy with how bright the bottom of the photo was. So, back to the burn tool.

I burned in the bottom of the photo, and some of the highlighted sections of the bike.

And here’s the final photo. I think it turned out pretty swanky. Have you used the diffuse glow and liked it? Send me some examples, and I’ll post them!