from start to finish

I’ve had many people ask me to share my processing techniques for my images. Funny thing is, I don’t really do the same thing every time, and most of the time, I just play until it looks good. So it’s hard to just say, “Well, I did this and this and this.” But for you … I will try. ;)

Note: I process all of my images in Lightroom and Photoshop Elements 5.0

So we’re going to start with this image …

I know what you’re thinking. Um, dude? That’s blurry. Well, yes. I decided to use a particularly bad image to show you how drastic just a few changes can be. But I actually like the movement in this picture since she’s running around so carefree. I think it adds to the image.

It really does work. You’ll see. (Don’t go scrolling down to see, yet — be patient!)

We also have that horrible blownout light across the top of the image, and it’s just not composed very well AT ALL.

I’ve been a little obsessed with square crops lately, so I did that, purposefully keeping Jessie in the shot, because our dogs rarely get camera time these days, poor things.

Then, I just applied my “in shades of brown” preset.

Without just giving away my “formula” this preset basically warms up the image, adds a little green tint, bumps up the exposure, bumps down the saturation, and then split tones it with some tan highlights and light purple shadows. Among other things.

But. It still isn’t “right.” It looks like it’s just blurry, ya know?

So this is where textures come into play. I love textures. I love how they can totally add a completely different element to an image. It’s a whole other layer, both literally and figuratively.

On this image, I stuck with Florabella Textures, which were recently featured on I ♥ Faces. She has done some amazing things with these textures, and I can almost guarantee I’ll find the texture(s) I want when I open up my Florabella folder.

I used …
antique square in overlay mode @ 100%
champagne square in soft light mode @ 100%

I also copied the background image and put it into multiply mode @ 50% because the 2 textures had lightened it up significantly.

And then I added the creamy white border to add an even more vintage flair, kind of like those old polaroids.

After all the textures are added, and the image meets my approval, I just go to layer -> flatten image, then select -> all.

Image -> Resize -> Canvas Size

With these settings …

By the way, this is also a great way to add a black border without cutting into your image.

And here is the final product …

It’s amazing how much difference a little crop & texture can do to an image!

And here you all thought I was a decent photographer. ;)

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