Blog hopping...

Trying something new today, mostly because of the timing...I'm joining in a "before and after" blog hop over at Pixel Perfect. I shot a senior session on Saturday, and I got, like, a bazillion fabulous shots. But I also learned a little something. As I was going through the shots, I found a couple of overexposed images. I'd taken them in haste before checking my settings for close-ups I wanted to shoot. For some reason, I just couldn't delete them and decided to play around a little. Man, am I glad I did.

Here's the SOOC:


And here's the finished product:

I shoot with a D700 (just got it a few months ago, and we're still bonding) and an 85mm 1.8 portrait lens. I used PSE 8.0 to do a quick clone edit to get rid of the hangar strap sticking out (in my defense, this was about two hours into the shoot...apparently I was off my game a bit) and to adjust the levels a bit. It was still a bit too bright, so I used Pioneer Woman's Soft and Faded action and pulled the levels down a bit more. I cropped it in just a smidge to get rid of the cleavage line, added an edge burn, pulled that back a little, too, and....WOW. I loved it because her eyes are framed by her dark hair and draw me into the photo, and the flowers in the background give it just a little color and texture.

Head on over to Pixel Perfect and vote for your favorite "before and after"...