in this picture i smoothed out her complexion, cropped the picture, changed the hue/sat, changed the brightness and contrast and added her new longer lashes...that's about it.....i LOVE the results...i went and had the edited version printed on an 8x10 and it's hanging on my wall now....i guess i need to send a copy to my brother since it's his little girl :P anyway, i would really appreciate ur advice on what could've been done to make this an even better picture or even feel free to do you own version! thanks for taking the time to read this :D
ashley

Yours looks great!

I can't say mines better--just another idea. For faces, I like using a monochrome channel mixer to suppress red and enhance green and blue which gives an interesting tonal range. Then degrunge the skin textures. Then create a levels adj layer and set the blend mode to multiply and adjust the input sliders to further strenthen the contrast. Then added some pincushion distortion (because the shoot looks like a wide angle closeup and might have barrel distortion) and a final USM and noise ninja to clean up the jpeg artifacts.

Bart

Hi Bart....... I really like what you've done with this picture....... the way you've enhanced it causes a play of light against dark and really gives it an energy.

Thank you, too, for posting your steps..... I can tell you actually understand the steps and reasons behind them........I don't much understand the things I do in Photoshop but rather go at them like a trained rat ......

I can't wait to try out your steps for achieving this look!

Beth

thanks bart...i like your take on this one...got contrast between light and dark without looking distorted or something
ashley