I ♥ Faces - Week 11

This week's theme: All Bundled Up!

"Mom - why am I out here in a coat that's too small, with gloves that are too big? Is this supposed to be fun for me?"

Love it.

Head over to http://iheartfaces.blogspot.com to check out more "All Bundled Up" photos, or to submit your own!

I ♥ Faces - Week 10

This week's challenge is titled, "Jump For Joy!" I have a bunch of jumping pictures, but I loved this recent photo of G-Man the best:

Have a fun jumping photo? Head on over towww.iheartfaces.com and enter by Tuesday!

I ♥ Faces - Week 6

This week's theme: We Heart Kisses!

I was thinking I didn't have a photo that I could enter in this week's competition. Then I remembered this one:

I love this photo. I love the memory behind making it. I love the people in the background watching the couple. And I love that my bride and groom got so lost in their own little world.

Have a kissing photo? Go enter it at I Heart Faces this week!

I ♥ Faces - Week 3

The theme at I ♥ Faces this week is "We Are Family." I have a lot of fun family shots to choose from, but I thought I'd go with this one:

This was the last shot of our photo shoot. The last shot is usually one of my favorites. After spending the afternoon traipsing through the North End of Boston, we needed a release. And we ended up with a shot that reflects everyone's personality perfectly - even the youngest girl who is running away. *grin*

Have a fun family shot? Click here to go enter it in this week's contest at I ♥ Faces!

I ♥ Faces - Week 2

It's birthday week at i heart faces! (Isn't their new logo fun?) I haven't had the time to enter in a while, but I'm going to do a better job. I really like the challenges and hope I can incorporate them into the Project 365 stuff I'm already working on.

Everyone is to enter their most recent "Best Face Photo." I had a few to choose from, but this one of Diggity and G-Man sledding together right before Christmas last month was my very favorite. It is such a fun reminder of the wonderful morning we had sledding together as a family.

Do you have a favorite face photo? Head on over to i heart faces and enter by Tuesday night!

I ♥ Faces - Pets

I entered my face photo for this week's competition, then remembered I had an animal photo I could enter as well. My sister-in-law and I took all our boys to the National Zoo in Washington DC last week and the lion was putting on quite the show for everyone. This is my favorite of the shots I took.

Do you have a favorite photo of your favorite animal or pet? Head over to I Heart Faces and enter this week's competition.

I ♥ Faces - Week 29

I recently did a photo shoot for my lovely friend LL's family. Her youngest son was giving me some half-hearted smiles until I asked him to pull a crazy face for me. Such great timing for the contest this week! (And the smiles we got after these shots were fantastic.)


Now you have a place to proudly post all the pictures of silly faces your kids make! Head on over to I ♥ Faces (www.iheartfaces.com) and post your own picture or check out some of the other entries!

I ♥ Faces - Week 29

The theme for the week over at I Heart Faces is "At the Beach."

My entry was taken earlier this month while we were visiting our family in the Washington D.C. area. We spent a day at the beach in Maryland and it was such fun watching my son and nephews explore everything. Here's my favorite shot of my little beach bum of a nephew:

I can't wait to see the other entries! Do you have a beach picture? Want to see more beach pictures? Head on over to I Heart Faces and check this out this week's contest!

I ♥ Faces - Sepia

Kids entry - The sweet little flower girl at my stepson's wedding rehearsal last month. The light was coming through the window at a lovely angle as she waited for the rehearsal to end.

Adult Entry - I'm lucky to have a group of wonderful actor friends that are a joy to photograph. I took this shot in Wade's apartment lobby and really like the sepia tone and texture I added in the processing.

Head on over to I ♥ Faces and join in the fun! (www.iheartfaces.com)

I ♥ Faces - Fix it Friday #16

I haven't had a chance to work on a Fix It Friday photo for a few weeks. I had some time today after a busy week and thought I'd take a quick crack at this week's photo. Such an adorable boy!




I didn't do a good job of writing down specific steps on what I did to process these photos, but here's what I remember:

I opened the photo in Lightroom and did the following - Bump in exposure, decrease clarity, make duplicate of photo and apply Sesame Ellis preset "colorless kick" to B&W, Exported both copies to Photoshop. Individual actions for each photo are listed below.

Photoshop Color - increased blacks in levels layer, Pro Retouch & Eye Bump (Totally Rad), desaturated the red to get rid of some of the pink cast in the lips, ran Dfine 2.0 to decrease noise (I think I love this plug in. Still working with the demo version, but it is great.)

Photoshop B&W - Eye Bump, Bitchin B&W (70%), Cinnamon Toast (20%), Dfine 2.0 to decrease noise.

Do you love editing photos? Go over to I ♥ Faces to download and edit this week's photo. Or, check out the other submissions to get inspired with ideas.

I ♥ Faces - Happy Birthday & Pets

I wasn't planning to enter this week because I didn't think I had any photos that fit the categories. But Diggity is gone this week, and I had some time to kill and looked through my photo archives and found I do have photos to enter! Not only for the birthday category, but for the pet category as well!

Pets Entry:

Meet Mr. Toby. He belongs to my stepson and daughter-in-law. (Step-daughter-in-law? Wait - I have a daughter-in-law?!? :) She's fabulous. We're glad she's officially family now.) But, I digress. Here's Mr. Toby. He's part Chihuahua, part weenie dog. His ears kill me.

Happy Birthday Entry:

From G-Man's recent celebration. He was excited about the Elmo balloons, not so much about the hat. Or the cake. I'm not sure why he was so upset about the cake. He's a cake addict. We're staging an intervention soon. Maybe it is the hat that is the problem. We'll never know...

Dig through your pictures and join in the fun! Go over to iHeart Faces and participate in this week's contest. Or enter their giveaway for an awesome camera bag. Just go check them out!

I ♥ Faces - Blurb Book Photo Contest

Friends, thanks for your opinions and help. Here's the photo I ended up going with*:

I am submitting this photo into the www.iheartfaces.com Blurb Book photo contest. I am granting I ♥ Faces permission to use my photo in a printed version of a book for commercial use and possibly advertising of a photo book on both the Blurb and I ♥ Faces web sites.

Go check out the rest of the entries (or enter a photo of your own! The contest closes at 9:00 p.m. Central time tonight) at I ♥ Faces!



*Many friends and family did pick this photo as a favorite - but photo #1 technically had the most votes. As I was reading the blog entry requirements for the contest this afternoon, I realized that #2 was my only choice - close-ups of the face were requested for this contest. Noticing that detail earlier would have made my choice MUCH easier. But thank you for your opinions and comments. It was so fun to see which photo was each person's favorite.

Opinions?

If you have time, I could use a bit of help. They're having a little book contest over at I Heart Faces this week and I've had a terrible time deciding which photo I want to enter. I've narrowed it down to three:

#1:
(I received an honorable mention for this photo, but you can re-enter photos for this week's competition.)




#2:



#3:
(This is Diggity's favorite. I'm leaning toward this one right now.)



Leave me a little note in the comments if you have time. I appreciate your input. I have to enter the photo sometime tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

I ♥ Faces - Fix it Friday #11

I had fun with this last week, so I'm back again. Here's the original picture everyone is working on:

I did some basic editing (all editing done in Photoshop CS3) first to get it to get it to this point:

After rotating the picture, I took these steps:
1. Pro Retouch (Totally Rad Actions)
2. Used the patch tool to get rid of the tiny little white bumps that Pro Retouch can't take care of. (Not because Pro Retouch isn't AWESOME, but because the bumps were too big.)
3. the eyes (Sesame Ellis)
4. just a tiny kick (Sesame Ellis)
5. basic midtones bump (Sesame Ellis)
6. Cropped some of the blanket out.

Then, I had some fun with the picture.
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Edit 1 - Blur the Edges:

Steps:
1. Beer Goggles (Totally Rad Actions) with brush set at 50% Opacity and 59% Flow to bring back sharpness in face.
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Edit 2 - Seventies:

Steps:
1. Seventies from Pioneer Woman Action Set 2
2. Snap (MCP)
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Edit 3 - Boost & Smooth:

Steps:
1. Boost from Pioneer Woman Action Set 1
2. simple smoothing (Sesame Ellis)
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Edit 4 - B&W

Steps:
1. Desaturate image
2. Fix levels to increase blacks and lighten photo a bit
3. Bitchin B&W (Totally Rad Actions)
4. Boutwell Magic Glasses at 30% (Totally Rad Actions)
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And finally, Edit 5 - Cinnamon Toast

Steps:
Took B&W photo and added Cinnamon Toast (Totally Rad Actions) at 50%

If I'd had more time, I would have loved to make a birth announcement or something like that. If you have time, let me know which edit you like best in the comments, then go check out the other edits for ideas and inspiration at I ♥ Faces

I ♥ Faces - Self-Portrait

I'm not gonna lie - this week's assignment was tricky for me. My first inclination was to skip this week because I didn't want to take a self-portrait. On top of that, the rule that you had to hold the camera and couldn't use a tripod was even more reason skip this week.

But, I'm trying to do things that are hard for me, so I wrote "Take Self-Portrait" on my list of things to do today.

As I was watching G-Man play (destroy) in his room this morning, I knew I found my self-portrait opportunity:

I also took a cute one of the two of us cuddling, but it didn't accurately represent the reality of our lives today. :)

Head on over to I ♥ Faces to see the rest of the self-portraits this week. You might be inspired to take your own!

P.S. Do kids know when they turn two? I feel as though a little switch has been flipped in his brain and the need to destroy and cry and scream and laugh loudly are the most important things for him to do. It's hilarious most of the time...

I ♥ Faces - Fix it Friday #10

I decided to try something new at the I ♥ Faces blog today. Almost every Friday, Amy and Angie post a photo that needs some processing love. They have a group of contributors that take a swipe at the photo and then they provide the photo in their Flickr group so that anyone who wants to can try to edit it. So, I took a shot today.

Here's the original:

I did two edits, a color and a B&W. Everything is done in Photoshop with actions that I have acquired. It was pretty fun to take a few minutes and edit like this again. When I started using Lightroom to process my photo shoots, I stopped using actions as much. I only use a few that I have downloaded and some that I have written to process stuff for display on the web. Going back to using actions exclusively - which is how I learned Photoshop - was fun. Here is the color version and the recipe (the actions I used and at what opacity levels) for creating it -

Edited in Photoshop CS3
1. Heavy Fog Fixer (MCP Actions) 100% opacity
2. Just a Tiny Kick (Sesame Ellis) 100% opacity
3. Contrast Bump (Sesame Ellis) 100% opacity
4. Yin & Yang (TRA) used to burn down the rocks and the trees behind the boy and some dodging to the boy's face and clothing.
5. Boutwell Magic Glasses (TRA) 75% opacity
6. Bring on the Eyes (Pioneer Woman Set 2) Brush set to 50% Opacity/48% Flow

Here's a color before & after:



I was planning just to do a color edit, but I couldn't help myself and did a B&W too. I also cropped the photo a bit, following the Rule of Thirds.



Edited in Photoshop CS3
1. Heavy Fog Fixer (MCP Actions) 100% opacity
2. + Contrast (TRA) 100% opacity
3. Bitchin' B&W (TRA) 100% opacity
4. + Contrast (TRA) 20% opacity
5. Burn Out (TRA) 60% opacity
6. EZ Burn (TRA) 20% opacity
7. Boutwell Magic Glasses (TRA) 60% opacity
8. Bring on the Eyes (Pioneer Woman Set 2) Brush set to 50% Opacity/48% Flow

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I'm not sure if I prefer color or B&W. Any preferences? If you have any questions about what I did or why I did it or what actions I use, I'd be happy to answer them. Just leave me a comment below. Have a great weekend!

I ♥ Faces - Easter/Spring

I call this one, "Easter Overload."



He was loving the M&M's on Easter Morning. A little too much, maybe. Those pajamas will never be the same.

Do you ♥ faces too? Go enter this week's contest. You can enter the regular Kids category, or enter the special Amateur category this week.

Button, Button...

...I received another button! I took 7th in the I ♥ Faces photo contest this week in the kids division. I think it's such a fun website. Angie and Amy are really doing great things and it is fun watching the website grow every week. I was quite excited to have placed this week. There were over 300 entries in my division and I adore the work of this week's guest judge, Amy Wentzel. She's an amazing portrait photographer and graphic designer. Check out her work if you have some time.