It wasn’t until I started I Heart Faces and got into photography that I realized most photos you see are NOT straight out of the camera. I knew there was airbrushing, blurring of the backgrounds and switching of heads involved because I had done that in my graphic design business. It was the actions, overlays and textures that I didn’t know about.

Photographers these days have a lot of tricks to make photos look better. That’s why we started Fix-It Friday, where you take an ordinary photo and give it that WOW factor. It’s fun to see what a bunch of people do to the same photo!

This is the original photo that was submitted this week. It’s a great photo, but a little muddy looking and has a really cool tone to it. 

Here are some edits I made in Photoshop. I won’t go into details, but basically I tilted the photo so his head was straight, gave it a warmer tone, sharpened his eyes and mouth, then added those cool light dots we call “Bokeh” to the background. If you watch movies, you’ll notice them everywhere in the background! 

I recently met Patti Brown who has the coolest textures and overlays. She gave me her Kaleidoscope Collection to try out and I love the Bokeh overlays because I can’t always get that to work in my photos. I think this middle photo is my favorite…

Go visit I Heart Faces to see what our awesome contributing photographers did to this photo, then add your own. It’s so fun!

Have a great weekend! – Amy

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Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!

I’m contributing over at I ? Faces again today.

I turned this photo…

Into this…

Head over there to read about how I did it and to see all the other great contributor’s photos.

FYI, this is my future son-in-law! It’s Angie, my partner at I Heart Faces’s little boy. Isn’t he a doll??

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!

Today is my favorite day over on my other web site I ? Faces!!

Today, I’m a Fix-It Friday contributor. It’s beginner’s week, so I played around with Picnik a free online photo editing application. It’s SUPER easy to use and has a lot of really fun borders, fonts and scrapbook items. I could spend a lot of time playing there!

This is the before photo. Which was taken by one of my favorite photographers, Susan Keller. She’s awesome, so the before shot was still really good. Just needed a few adjustments.

This is my favorite edited version. Using the free online tool Picnik.

Head over to I ? Faces to see my other versions with directions on how to do this yourself. There are eight other AWESOME photographers who contributed their photos with directions. You can also participate yourself by adding your own version to our Mr. Linky. (if you head over there, please Stumble it – Thanks!)

Be sure to check my Free Download page. I’m going to be adding new things soon.

Have a great Friday!

-Amy

P.S.- This post was entered in Hooked on House’s – “Hooked On” Blog Party. I’m REALLY hooked on Photo editing. It’s like crack for me. I could do it all day!! ha. Visit Julia’s site for some fun links or enter your own.

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!