Okay, you all are probably sick of us moms, dads, and grandparents posting pictures of our little joys, but I had to submit this one of Cameron. :tongue: ;) I took it about a week or two ago while over at a friends house for a little get-together for all of us cooped-up moms. Cameron was sitting in the yard away from all of the action of the other older kids having a water ballon fight. Just thought it looked like great shot.

Enjoy! :D

Here's my first rendition. Used Lisa's pencil sketch technique, darkened it in curves. Then cloned the original again and ran a dry brush filter on it. Took the pencil sketch layer and used darken in the layer blending.

Second rendition...

Smudged Cameron and the immediate grass in front if him. Separated him out from the rest of the pic and desaturated the color. (Not entirely though; that looked too stark.)

I like this picture!

Your watercolor came out very nice, good outcome starting with the tut and adding onto it!
You smudge girl! --- but how can you go wrong with such a good picture to work with!


Here is one of two. Not sure what to call this effect (?)

Oh! BTW I never get sick of the kid images!!! Keep them comming.
:thumbsup:


Here is the second one -- added color overlay, light Anisotropic

I'm gonna go against the grain on this one. I like it the way it is and don't want to change anything. It's a really nice shot.

E.B.

I agree with E.B. The photo is perfect "as is" and any attempt to make it "arty" won't be an improvement. That said, I still had fun trying.

Thanks everyone. I'm always so unsure of myself when I post one of my own photos. I don't profess to be a photographer at all, so I hate posting "snapshots." Glad you like it though.

Jill -- I don't know whatyou would call that either but I like it -- especially the colored versions.

EB -- Thank you for the compliment, but go ahead and play with it too. ;)

Cheryl -- That has a really soft feel to it without getting too blurry. Great job.

LOL :lol: I love it!!!!

That's great Chuck!. :lmao: :D :lol:

Cheryl - very nice touch on the image. Colors look great and the softness you got did not loose any of the details.

Chuck - great idea and executed wonderfully! I think they look like they are made for each other ! LOL

The image looked so good I didn't feel it needed much so I just added a couple of small touches.

I wanted to take another try at this little cutie. I think I'm starting to figure out how to get rid of the "easter egg" colors that vp gives. Also the base of the tree was bugging me, so it had to go.

Sanda, that's perfect. The funny thing is right before you had posted that, my husband was telling me to put a flower in his hand! How cute!

Cheryl, I like that look too.

Jen....What a beautiful picture of your son. There are so many wonderful submissions. I really like them all.

Chuck posted the VG overlay and that is what I am playing with tonight and wanted to work on Cameron.

Took orig. worked curves. Smudged then added the overlay VG.

Thnx for such a nice shot.

Jean

My first thought was to put one of those , dandelions (I think they are) in his hand with it half bown off and the little pieces floating arounf him but I couldn't find what I wanted do I settled for the flower.

Sandra....I forgot to add that I added the dandelion! I had the same idea of the blown look and found a picture on the web but could not get the detail on the small pieces.

Jean

I know others have added to this picture, and I wanted to give him a friend as well.

Tyeise

Jennifer:

An adorable picture. My son turned 5 today, so this one really tugged at my heartstrings. How quickly the years pass.

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Chuck:

The introduction of Kaiya was inspired. Nice job interlacing the fingers. That really sold it.

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Sanda:

Well placed touches. Again, inspired.

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Jean:

The dandelion was perfect.
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Quick recap of the layers palette (top to bottom).

* BW (copy), Luminosity, 10% - layer masked in a little detail
* Paint and clone - used this layer to paint and clone over some areas that had "gone white" + airbrush a little color into his jumper
* BW (copy) + Find Edges, Darken, 40% - layer masked for selective blending
* BW (copy), Color Dodge, Inverted + GBlur (radius about 8)
* BW=Merge of 2 layers below
* Channel Mixer adjustment layer (monochrome) 50,50,0,4
* Original background

Happy weekend everyone.
~Danny~

Jean : great minds think alike.

Jean, I love the photo. I need to try that VG out myself. The dandelion was a perfect touch. With those bulging cheeks of his, how can you not think he was blowing on the dandelion! :D

Tyiese, that looks so sweet too. Our neighbor has a horse and whenever I take Cameron over to her so that he can see her, he just squeals and giggles -- especially when her whiskers tickle his hand. :lol:

Danny, congrats on your son's birthday. I cannot believe how fast this first year went. It's been a complete blur! I love the B/W version. I tried a couple of ideas, but never could get it quite right. Yours is very nice. :)

PM, thanks for the compliment again on the photo. It's such a hit-and-miss luck with me to get a decent shot. Hopefully, I'll get the hang of it someday! ;)

Sanda: RE great minds -- you got that right! :)

PM: Thanks for the kind words. Much appreciated.

Jennifer:
* The trick. Take LOTS of pics (and video). The years definitely FLY by.

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I was experimenting with a technique I picked up (of all places) on a Wacom tablet promotional CD. It used the Water Paper filter as a basis. Never being one to leave a tutorial alone, I messed with it quite a bit. In case you're curious, the tutorial stopped after layer A.

See the post following this one for a screen shot of the Layers Palette.

Off to Birthday Party II. :)

Danny

Layers palette screenshot for pic in the previous post.