Taking a candid portrait from trash to keeper

[kewlpack]

Here's one I kinda like... and here's the way it went.

I shot this candid of my daughter while she was helping a kids' class at church last week. It wasn't "wow" and was just one of those pics you take that you figure you'll toss later on unless it's "magic". I liked the expression so...



Lots of problems in the shot. So I decided to just work with it and find a way to keep it. Here's the way it looks now...



What I did was...
1) Use the healing and cloning brushes to clean up her complexion a bit.
2) Used a High Pass method for sharpening the details and softening the skin.
3) Cropped right in on her little expression.
4) Added a bit of Overlay glow (G.Blur of 20) @ about 50%.
5) Used PS CS3's B/W filter (Green Filter) to convert it to B/W.

Voila... made it a decent keeper shot. For us anyway.

Hopefully you can use the same ideas to make trash photos into keepers!

Here's a second version (bringing down the amount of highlights on the face and boosting the shade of the lips a bit ala burn)...

[Loose_Canon]

Nice save!

[candleman]

well done.

the hair looks wicked.. ! love it.

if you dont mind my saying..my only "beef" is that her face is a little too bright.. the lines between cheek and lips are totaly missing and it sortof looks flat.
if there was more contrast around this area (darken the tones up using burn tool maybe) it would be allot nicer.

in my eyes anyway.

[kewlpack]

No problem. Thanks for the suggestion! I'll see what I can do.

[kewlpack]

I added a second version in the OP with the changes you suggested. I think it works better too. Thanks.

[candleman]

Originally Posted by kewlpack

I added a second version in the OP with the changes you suggested. I think it works better too. Thanks.

sweet. thanks for posting it too,
good to see.
it does look better i think, adds some shape.

i "dig the doo".. the tones in the curley locks are very cool.. i can almost see the colour in the BW version

[Mollman]

i think the second one is a nice improvement on an already nice improvement. She looks less spectral now and much more human. good job!

[Mrs.Anthony337]

Kool stuff. Lovin' the hair too!

[lputman]

kewlpack, your last edit is just awesome!

[kewlpack]

I'm honestly humbled. Thanks very much for the generous words. Made my day!