Need Advice: Wedding Photo "Frosted" Look

[dphoto]

Hello everyone,

I've been trying to add a "frosted", "dreamy" look to a wedding photo I took, and it just isn't working out. As I was playing around, I did get some effects I like, but I wanted to get some other opinions as well. I can't decide between the two crops, so I've included both. If anyone wants to see the original, I can post a link to that as well. Any suggestions for the effect I was trying to get is appreciated as well!

Here are the two different crops:
http://www.capitalcityphoto.com/tmp/wedding/52UX-2730d_8x10.jpg

http://www.capitalcityphoto.com/tmp/wedding/52UX-2730f_8x10.jpg

In case anyone wants to know, the image was shot with a 20D Tamron 28-75mm at f/2.8 1/250 sec ISO 400 using a 550EX for fill.

Thanks for any help/input!
-Deva

[Aethyr]

The easiest way for me to do the "dreamy" look is to adjust the opacity. I'm not sure if that's what you've already done here though.

I think they look good as they are.

[Wendy Lilygreen]

Hi
I like the second one better and I'm sure your client would be happy with it. For nice lighting effects there is Auto FX Mystical you can do all sorts with that.

[dphoto]

Thanks for the input!

Aethyr, so are you saying that you have white as a layer underneath the image, and then you adjust the opacity of the image so that the white shows through a little? And since you use opacity, it's even across the whole image, correct? I tried that, but it just made my image look a bit faded. I did use opacity, but I used a brush with a mask as well so that the edges and corners would be more white than everything else. It's more or less the same idea, but when I did it evenly across the image it didn't really turn out. Oh well, I'll look around for some more ideas.

Wendy, thanks for the reference. I'll look into that. Thanks also for the second set of eyes. I did this kind of late last night, and I couldn't tell if I was just overdoing the whole effect. But now that I see it again, I do like it. :D

Thanks again!
-Deva

[cmM]

"dreamy look" can also be accomplished with some "high key" post processing. This can be done in various ways, but it mainly consists by making the lighter tones lighter than they are while keeping the neutrals and darker tones intact.

[Skitzy]

Second one is the best just gives it more space to fade out.

[dphoto]

Thanks Skitzy for the opinion! cmM, care to share any Photoshop tools that might be helpful in doing this? While I was playing around converting to black and white, I noticed that combinations that rendered more light than dark did produce a more "dreamy" look. Also, do you have any samples that you can point to?

Thanks again!
-Deva

[cmM]

here's one :
http://www.ephotozine.com/techniques/viewtechnique.cfm?recid=361

If you want, post the original and I'll give it a try in PS later

[dphoto]

Thanks for the link cmM! The end result is not exactly what I was looking for, but the techniques in the tutorial are helpful and can be used with what I'm doing, so thanks!

-Deva