My girlfriend. C&C please!

You guys have no idea how much your positive comments mean to her. I posted a picture yesterday and it was nothing but positive comments and it really made her feel great. So she suggest I work on this picture and post it, to see what everybody thought and once again, you guys help her realize how I see her. I see her as the most beautiful woman in the world. Thank you for proving it to her.

Wow, the first thing I am drawn to is her eyes... you captured them brilliantly... you can really see the intelligence and kindness behind them...

I would love to see one with a smile too because I think it would really give life to that picture...

Keep up the great work....

Now that I've come out of my hypnotic state caused by looking into her eyes, I can say that I like what you've done here for the most part. Maureen did an excellent job lightening the image and making those baby blues really pop.

Your gf has a natural beauty that really doesn't need too much post processing IMHO. The only aspect that needed attention was pointed out by Forkball.

Hope to see more posts featuring your own personal model

Hmmm, I tried again to lighten the shadows around the chin but it just took away from the eyes, IMHO. Having the forehead to mouth lightened and keeping the shadows caused by her hair makes for a more dramatic effect with the eyes.

John, let's see what you can do with it......I'm curious to see your interpretation.

Lovely photo that may perhaps be a bit over softened in the original post. When you lose too much shadow you lose definition of features. I think your post work smoothed her forehead out too much. She is a beautiful young lady and the original photo isn't too bad at all. I think Maureen's highlights add a lot too it but the shadow remains. Great concept though. Perhaps a reflector on the table in front of her would help?

Here's a try at that shadow - I wouldn't even attempt the work Maureen did - it's beyond me.

And again, she's a beauty!

Wow, Maureen. you took a nice pic and made a fantastic pic! How did you get the light on the forehead and the eyes to pop like that? Please explain

Keiffer wrote:
Wow, Maureen. you took a nice pic and made a fantastic pic! How did you get the light on the forehead and the eyes to pop like that? Please explain

It wasn't much of a tweak at all. First I went into shadows and highlights and increased the shadows just a little. Then I went into curves and lightend the facea bit and thenI added some contrast. That was it. I am no pro...still trying to learn my CS2.... mostly I slide the little buttons back and forth until I am happy with the photo.

I'm apologizing in advance in case this is out of line, but I couldn't help myself... She's a very beautiful girl and on one of the other forums I participate in, I do these types of edits a lot. I just think this is a very good example of what changes can be made to enhance a picture. I hope you and your girlfriend like this. If I've stepped on toes, please tell me and I'll take this down immediately.

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John, I really like how you've evened out the light on her face (how did you do that?) Wow!

The color is off a little... too reddish-gold, I think but that can be fixed easily.

Here's one more go I had at it.... worked with the lighting a little more.....

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Actually, the reddish gold was intended. :P I was having fun with it and it was the result of a gausian blurred overlay layer and a white and black point balancing. But I see what you mean. I may have overdone it a tad. It was intended to give the image more impact.

Evening out the light on the face is pretty straight forward... I just lasso'd around the area I wanted to change... then feathered the selection by 50 pixels. Then I added a curves adjustment layer and bumped up the RGB curve until the face blended evenly. Then the jawline kind of vanished on me so I burned the shadow around the jaw and bridge of the nose to give her face more dimension.

Here is another version without the brassy touches.

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Scraggles: thanks for letting us play with your photo. I got some good practice in from using my CS2 and I learned a lot too. Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions.

Thanx scraggles
Here I have two alternatives

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Here's a question. How do you take a copy of that photo and get it into PS in the first place? I mean copy it from the post

Right click on the photo, Save Picture As , and specify where to save it on your PC.

Thank you.