friday photoshop

Man, I've really been in a photography slump lately!  I even have a brand new camera to work with and I still can't get motivated!  Every day TJ comes home and asks if I've used it and I sadly have to say no!  My kids aren't too excited to be my guinea pigs but I did snag one of Ian this week with the new camera.

I was pretty happy with the SOOC shot, but thought I'd share a few things about it and what I did in photoshop to slightly enhance it.  I'm not too big on extreme photoshop looks - I prefer something a little more subtle by just adding some contrast and sharpening.  I was happy with the light, the composition, and the expression he gave me, but I wasn't too thrilled about the focus - you can see that it landed right on the inside of his eye brow causing his eye to be a little softer than I'd like.  The camera was set at ISO 400, f2.8, 1/60, 58 mm with window light from the sliding glass door.

In photoshop I ran a few quick actions.  "Classic Color," "Basic Color Boost," (reduced opacity), and "Contrast/Dehaze," (reduced opacity) all from the Florabella Classic Workflow Action Set.  This is my absolute favorite set of actions for the perfect amount of photoshop for me.  Then I sharpened his eye with MCP Actions "Eye Doctor" (reduced opacity).  This took all of about 1 minute to get the look I wanted.  Even though I was happy with the composition, I thought a slight crop would enhance the overall look of the image!

Luckily we have a few fun birthdays in the family coming up soon that will all require some photographs! My adorable niece is turning one soon and Aryn will be THIRTEEN next week!  UGH!!!