Creative Process Feature

Hi ~ Sherry here...
Fall is one of my favorite times to shoot because of all the gorgeous warm colors! Here's an image from winter where I was able to find some of the fall color lingering.
One of the best things about personal images is having the time to get a little more creative and try different things to see what fits your style. With this image, I just let my mind wander until I came up with something that I liked. I actually could have stopped at several times during the process and had an image that would have been acceptable to me but I wanted to push the image (and myself) a little further.

Original

basic S-curve ~added warmth

darkened background ~ soft light layer

slight gaussian blur

texture

slight desaturation ~ clone

The steps behind the process:
1. A basic S-curve to add some depth
2. Pioneer Woman's warmth action to increase the warm tones
3. Darkened the background using the burn tool on a very low opacity
4. Duplicated the layer and changed blending mode to soft light (decreased opacity as desired)
5. Softened the image slightly to give it a more subtle look with very light use of blur
6. Texture added ~ An image of that I had taken of concrete was added as a new layer (the blending mode was changed to overlay). If you've never used textures, find the method that works for you...This is just one of the methods that I use.
Remember: Erase the texture from the areas that you do not want covered, such as the face!
7. Slight desaturation ~ Since I wanted a more subtle look with the texture, I desaturated the image slightly.
8. Cloned distraction ~ The texture overlay added an area that appeared like a smudge. I simply cloned to remove the undesired portion.

So there you have it...a little look at the wheels which turned in my head during the processing of this image. Having a perfectionist streak, I can always find some way to improve on images (and this one is no exception) but I like it when they make me smile! :)

Keep shooting!
Keep creative!
Keep having fun behind the camera...and in your processing!!
~sb