My son is going to be in a pageant in April. I have read about how alot of people don't agree with the look... well me either. It is a little creepy but its only one division of the pageant. If you want to place, you NEED these photos. Me personally, since I have a son and not a little girl. I don't have to worry about the "fake doll" look so much. The only reason I'm making a new thread about more pageant photos is because I can only find information about making the photos girly.

I have Paint Shop Pro 8. I have no idea how to enhance his photo. This is what I want done. My camera is Kodak Easy Share.

Enhance his eyes, not as fake as most pageant photos and a few eye lashes since he doesn't have many but NOT girly!

Smooth out his skin

Change the background

Boys I'm sure are much easier than girls but I'm still VERY VERY new to all of this.

Even if someone on here would like to retouch for me in a high enough resolution that I can get a very good quality print (8x10) for a small price, that would be GREAT!

Remember, I'm new so I would need step by step instructions... more or less, talk to me like I'm a child... LOL!

I believe it would be helpful if you posted the picture that you wanted retouched. You can always send a hi-res copy to the individual that will be doing the final work.

dc

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l176/Mommy2Carston/carstonpageant.jpg

Sorry, I don't know how to put a picture on here any way but this one.

This is the picture I took yesterday outside on a cloudy day. I didn't have my flash on and it was the first picture I took... go figure the one I love is the only one I did without my flash on.

Is there any way to fix it?

Melea

I had a little go at this... but I'm a Brit, so I'm not really au fait with what's required for pageant photos.

Removed background
Adjusted levels and saturation (I may have overdone the saturation part!)
smoothed skin slightly
enhanced eyelashes slightly

I'm wanting to learn pageant retouching to
still have along way to go

but here my try

LOVE IT! I've spent around 8 hours total trying to retouch another picture that seemed easier. Ill post that so you can see the before and after, still working on it but I have no idea how to change the background....

Is there any way to get the skin tone and eyes from the first retouched one and the clothes, background from the second one?? Or even if you could use the blue background instead of the black... LOVE the blue.... lol!

GREAT JOB both of you! How did you do it?

Here is my attempt, I had NO IDEA how to change the tone of the picture, I had just been working on clone to retouch the spots that were perfect.


http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l176/Mommy2Carston/PAGEANTENHANCED.jpg

http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l176/Mommy2Carston/100_1178-1.jpg

I used PS CS to work on the photo

I cut it out with GML Matting

made the back ground by taking colors of off the shirt (light/dark areas) then making an empty layer and filled it with MuRa's Meister Cloud Fliter


didn't do much to his skin just cloned out a little place on his chin

then upped the color of the eyes

add a levels adj. layer and curves adj. layer

and filtered with neat image

then flatened the image and saved for web

still playing around with this pic
I incressed the saturation on the clothes
and did a tighter crop

Hi Mommy2Carston.

Welcome to Retouch Pro

I (like John) know nothing about Pageant photos but the image did need some corrections

Levels Adjusted
Replaced Background
Curves to adjust colour
I also used a heavy dose of Neat Image which may help towards a pageant photo

Hope this Helps.

Ken.

Do you have any idea how to enhance the eyes with paint shop pro 8?

Also, is their an easier way to smooth out the skin besides using the clone feature?

Levels Adjustment
background replacement
color correction
"Portraiture" plug in

I also know nothing about what is required for pageant photos, but figured I'd give it a go also.

1. Did a curves adjustment layer to brighten the image.
2. Created a new background by sampling colors from the original photo and using render clouds. Then added cross-hatch brush strokes, blurred, added a bit of noise.
3. Extracted the baby onto his own layer above the new background using a layer mask.
4. Used a blank layer to clone and heal as needed.
5. Used ByRo's skin degrunging technique to smooth skin (check out tutorial section of this site).
6. To enhance the eyes I just hand-painted new pupils, added catch lights, and a highlight of the eye color.
7. Dodged & burned to highlight eyes and face, darken eyelashes & eyebrows, etc.
8. Added a color balance layer to play with the overall tone of the image.
9. Sharpened as last step.

Wanted to give this a try too.

Did levels adj., masked out background, added a fill layer with difference clouds and crosshatch; dodged skin, copied eyelashes from his right eye onto his left eye. Think that's it.

These threads will help you attach your images instead of linking to them:

Resizing images for RetouchPRO (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-retouching/4398-resizing-images-retouchpro.html)

Attaching images to threads and posts (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/image-help/7933-attaching-files-images-threads-posts.html)

Hi, gave this a try.
I used the blur/surface blur a try on the skin.
Used Liquify to change shape of the mouth and eye brows.

Gave this a try.

Replaced background--render clouds
Smoothed skin
Liquify filter to lift corners of the mouth
Color adjustment -LAB


dc

I looked at some online pageant photos and decided to add a second photo with the skin more processed. Can't say that I really like this type of look.

dc

Decided to go a little more over the top than most
Smart Blur at 50% opacity
Background Change to Clouds
Bit of Dodge and Burn on eyes and eyebrows
Levels and colour adjustment

I just love all the pictures! It's amazing how you can change it that much.

I kind of figured out how to enhance the eyes with the red eye removal but I'm having a problem with it, his eye lids are covering up part of his eyes so when I go to enhance the color, blue gets all over the top and bottom of his eye lids... what am I doing wrong? I also really like the doll looking eyes with a small pupil, how do I change the pupil size?

Another question, I still change figure out how to smooth the skin. How do you do it, you have to spell it out for me or I won't understand... LOL!

Melea

I would like to share my thoughts on your previous questions in your last post. I am not a retoucher--which translates--my work flow--solution may not be the most efficient.
I noted that you use Paint Shop Pro. I use either Photoshop CS2 or CS3. Usually I use CS2 as I have never installed my pulgins on CS3.

-One solution would be to use the search feature on this web site and see if any Paint Shop Pro users have responded to the topic questions.

-You mentioned the eye color going on to the skin. I believe a soft brush can make things bleed if you are near the edge. Also, the best thing would be to make the area you are working on a selection by using a mask --marquee selection. The color would stop at the edge of the selection.

-I am attaching an eye that has had the pupil reduced and enlarged. To reduce I selected the pupil size I wanted and then inverted the selection and cloned up to the selection. To enlarge I set my brush size to the pupil size I wanted and painted in with black. I used a reduced opacity and then by clicking I could darken it as much as I wanted.

-For skin smoothing I would suggest you enter the topic in the search feature and you should find ample information. I like the degrunge tutorial on this web site.

How much of this will work with Paint Shop Pro, I'm sorry, but I don't know.

dc

Here is a link to a PSP8 file (http://rapidshare.com/files/21731076/carstonpagean_psp8t.pspimage.html) that shows one option for skin smoothing.
1. Histogram + hue/saturation/lightness adjustment
2. Gaussian blur
3. Mask layer painted w/black brush (opacity 15%)

Ohh a boy don't get many of them, and he is such a cutie.
I do a lot of retouching on ebay and have had head taken off for my photos here. but it is what it is. I can't wait to play with it.

here a link to my my page to see some of my work.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=012&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&viewitem=&item=220093468481&rd=1&rd=1

I post a pic in the moring, off to bed now.

ailey

ps here is a tip, most pageant photo's are tilted to the side just a little.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f54/boutiquelady/454.jpg