Stop, Crop, Edit #2!

Sarah has sent me 2 images of her girls to work on, both of which are so cute.  I have chosen one of her younger daughter simply because when I opened it I knew exactly what I wanted to do to it.

Here's the original image....

Some images are just begging to be turned to black and white (for me anyway) and this was one of them.  Whilst I like the red jumper, the background of the toys was distracting and competing with her eyes.



I opened the image in lightroom 3 and played with the exposure, contrast and also applied a preset called NKYF Subdued from Abby's Presets which I cannot find a source for at the moment.  I also cropped the image in tight.

I then opened the image in some new software I recently acquired called Nik - Silver Efex Pro 2. This is the first time I have used this program so I played away until I was happy with the results. My main aim was to reduce the brightness in the background so the focus was on her eyes and cute smile.

A quick tidy up in Photoshop of her skin, eyes and a few blemishes and here is the end result.

I probably played a little more than I usually do as I really need to spend some time with the Nik Software and get to know my way around - but first glimpses are good if not excellent!

If you want to try some presets for Lightroom or Photoshop then here are a few sources:

Pretty Presets

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Killer Tips

One Willow Presets

Please note I do not get paid for endorsing these products (it'd be nice though :-) LOL) but have used or still use them and think they are pretty good!

Hope you like Sarah!