Hi all,

I am new here and I shot this photo of my daughter and grandson. I would like to know what I can do to it in PSE 2 to make it stand out more.

Thank You very much in advance.

Hi, welcome to RetouchPro.

I did a levels adjustment and got a much crisper image.

1. copied the image into Photoshop Elements

2. duplicated the original layer

3. made a levels adjustment layer and used the 3 eyedroppers on white, mid and black points

You can fiddle with the sliders until you get what you're looking for.

Hope this helps,
Margaret

I decided to adjust the middle slider back to cut down the harsh look. Then used unsharp mask -- first high radius/low amount, then low radius/middle amount -- to sharpen. Then blurred the background and kept mother & child sharp...

Scott

Another version -- duplicate layer, do Levels adjustment to duplicate layer, duplicate new layer (adjusted for Levels) and run Gaussian Blur to new duped layer -- set layer blend to Overlay -- gives a nice soft touch to skin. Add a layer above all layers and fill with sepia tones with layer blend set to Color. I also added some red tones to their cheeks and added color to the boy's shirt -- (ignore any masking goofs ;) )then desaturated it because I liked that effect better -- want to keep the attention on mom and son. Cropped tightly -- again to emphasize the subjects.

Ask us any questions that you need to, and have fun!

I adjusted the levels as shown in next thread .
I also cropped the image.

Here's the levels adjustment.
You can see the end sliders were brought in, and the middle slider was adjusted as well.

I wanna thank you all very much for your inputs and suggestions. They all look very nice. I hope I can learn this PSE 2 stuff so I don't have to bug anyone for suggestions. I know this other photo is not B/W but this is what I have learned so far with PSE2. Please give me your inputs please.