I really, really, really like this shot. Of course, it is a picture of my kids, with a technique that I really like (first time for me doing it though), and I am obviously biased. That said, I've entered it anyway. :-P
I had forgotten to turn my flash on, and this was the first shot of several, and the only one where my daughter was actually looking at me (of course). As a result, the original is almost totally black. >(
So, Post processing (and there was a lot of it)
Curves -- big ole adjustment. This left alot of noise so
NEATIMAGE adn a lot of it. Yea, the skin is plasticy, but it also helps with the soft focus look I think.
Then, I selected the hat, airbrushed it pink, lowered opacity until it was the "saturation" I wanted, and repeated with the dress. Did the same thing with the shirt, changing the color shade.
Then, I softened up the edges of the colors. The background was really uneven, so I used the clone tool to make it a more even gray instead of a light gray fading into a darker one (or would that be the other way around). Then, because I had sloppy selections again (I'm bad for that), used the soften tool again.
I think that is all.
I truly do not expect to score well with this -- It has a soft focus effect, it is kids, it uses a form of selective desat, it uses a lot of neatimage, and it doesn't have a lot of emotional appeal (except to me). So, why enter it? 'Cause I like it better than the shot of the duck that I made the other day! :-)
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poor use of selective focus /
parts of faces are in and out of focus
and parts of the garments are in focus hich draw your eyes away from the childeren
I found the focus soft. In people shots, I usually look for the eyes and although glinting them may work well, there's just not enough sharpness here for me.
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