My baby

[erl]

Hi--
I just bought a DSLR for mother's day and this is my first time using DSLR. I would like to be able to touch up portraits, and this is my first attempt, using GIMP.
Any feedback would really be appreciated.

Duplicated the layer
Applied some Gaussian Blur 9%
Adjusted the Color Curves to make the image very bright
Set the Layer Mode to Screen
Reduced the opacity (forgot how much, sorry)
Adjusted luminosity and contrast just a touch.

Before:
liamBathSponge.jpg

After:

[krenka]

Hi Erl! Great to see you're enjoying your dslr! I got my first one a couple of years ago and have found it such fantastic fun, especially when taking photos of the kids. I'd recommend investing in photoshop elements which is the simple version of photoshop but does a great job of letting you touch up your pics. There are stacks of tutorials on how to use it, and actions can be freely downloaded and applied. As far as this pic is concerned, I reckon a little sharpening around the eyes would help. I'd also be inclined to touch the saturation down a little and apply a bit of a vignette. Not sure if that's much help but it looks like you're on the right track. Just keep snapping and experimenting.

[erl]

Thank you Kendra--
Yes, this helps a lot!