Norman Rockwell + Dave Hill = ???

I shot a wedding on Saturday for a coworker of my wife. Present at the ceremony were 3 kids, all from different families and whose parents also work at the same place.

My wife asked me to get shots of the kids and then to do something different to the pictures, something to make them pop. She wanted to surprise her co-workers.

This is what I came up with. C&C welcome, of course.

I'm liking those! They would make great Christmas gifts to set on their desks.

Very cool. They definitely "pop".

Thanks... I'll see how they react in a little while. I am going to pick up and deliver prints from the wedding and the prints to the parents.

coooooooooooooll

I am liking these a lot, very well done

You should try this on a group shot, very "The Waltons"

nice job! very creative

Well the mothers all flipped over them, so I guess that is what matters, eh?

I have 3 other mothers who want to pay me to do the same thing to their little darlings. Could be the beginning of a cottage industry for me...

The images look great. Would you mine explaining some of your PP technique?

Well....You use a high-pass filter on Hard Light, then adjust the contrast. Next you add noise (Median) and create a mask so you can clean the eyes, lips, jewelry etc so they don't get blurred.

Next you do some skin smoothing to get rid of the pixellation created by the High-pass and contrast steps, use the skin smoothing mask to create a new layer set to Hard Light and 50% gray. On the gray lair, add a tiny bit of gaussian noise, then use the artistic/emboss set low, just to bring up details.

Next you create a new layer, set to soft light, a small soft brush and use white to paint in the highlighted areas (bridge of nose, eyebrows, anyplace where light was shining on the original.) Blur the white and adjust layer opacity to taste.

The background is a layer of white, a color layer with mask, and a grunge brush to create texture.

Last, you create a new layer up top, fill it with white and set the opactity to about 40%. Create a quick mask, then use a grungh brush in black to clear away the white around the person.

I know, lots of areas to think about but it really is about trial and error.