First run at Photoshop.

Original

Credit goes to Rutt at Digital Grin!

Well, I finally took the plunge.  I believe that a photo that is great without any editing, is a great photo.  The more you edit a photo, the less real it is.  While seeking opinions and watching feedback on others, it has always been apparent that some type of editing skills were needed to be considered a decent photographer.  I have taken some photos that needed a little more work than some basic light tweaking or cropping.  I have finally realized that Photoshop could have helped in those situations.

I took a fresh photo of my son while playing in the backyard, and decided that it was a decent candidate.  I fished out a tutorial from the web and found one on my favorite photography forums, Digital Grin.  It was a step by step to “Fix flat looking faces”.  Me being me, I have no idea how to use Photoshop, and I have never read any books, so I followed the steps, which took a while, but I eventually got it.  I think.  The author of the thread noted that this worked primarily for light colored individuals, so my image came out a little darker than I would have wanted, but I THINK I got the picture.  If anything, I learned how to manipulate the software a little.

Check the link for the step by step.  I will post here for the quick fix people.  :)

1. Start in RGB
2. Make a duplicate layer
3. Apply image, green channel to RGB composite of duplicate layer, resulting in a black and white image.
4. Change blending option of duplicate layer to Luminosity.
5. Flatten image
6. Move to LAB
7. Curves, steepen A+B channels, move light endpoint of the L curve a touch toward darkness.
8. Sharpen the L channel.
9. Back to RGB, Done!

Let me know what you got!