Turning a snap to Art...

[xxpinballxx]

Okay im throwing another one of these before and afters up for those interested.

Here is the original.....



this was just a plain old shot before they went out for a party.

The first thing I did was unlock the original and add a fill layer that matched the background of the shot by simply clicking the background layer icon in the layers pallet and then selecting the color tool to sample the background.
I put this layer on the bottom.
I then selected the eraser and a debris brush and chose the same background color that I filled the bottom layer with. I proceeded to take bits and pieces away from the edges of the two to get the scattered fading away look.
Once i had this looking the way I wanted i then went into my texture layers and selected a couple of them.
The first was the scratched texture which I blended with overlay and lowered opacity till it was barely visible.
the second was the Victorian wallpaper texture that after being laid down the same way I took a soft eraser and took the texture away from the subjects.
Then lowered the opacity here too.
Once the two textures where on how i liked I flattened the image and duplicated it.
I took the top image into B&W and checked the tone box and used a light sepia tone.
grabbed the eraser again and erased the subjects to get the color back just around the subjects.
Then I added my always present vignette and my signature.....

here is the after shot.......



it does need a bit more saturation and some more contrast but im hungry and going to get some food so that will have to wait. LOL!

Have a great day all!

[CGK]

i could see that as a cover for a wedding anniversary album nice work.