Here is a before and after picture. Do you notice any differences?
The first thing that catches my eye is the wrinkles in the backdrop. Who wants wrinkles in their image? I know this is one of things that just gets under my skin and I hate how it looks. To smooth the wrinkles I use the eye dropper tool to find the right black and then take a brush and paint over the background or back drop. I zoom in to about 300% to be precise on this technique. You do not want to see mistakes on this becasue it would show very easily. This not only smooths the backdrop, it gives the image a much better look and more drama and imagination to the picture. Is she on stage? Which ballet is she in?
The second thing I notice is the tutu has creeped up onto her leotard. Those darn static cling things! They are so cute, but always creep! To correct this I used a tool called a healing brush. The healing brush finds what is underneath what you want to get rid of. It can also add onto something like her tutu. Near the left side by her waist you can see a hole there. I just used the healing brush to cover that hole. Sometimes you may have to clone a part of the image to get the precise look you want but the healing brush does do a good job. You should be careful because it is easy to over do and this make things look not real. For example, if I used the healing brush on all of her tutu and filled in all the gaps or holes, it would be overwhelming and not look real. But you are the artist...if you are going for a look of fullness that may be the way you want to go.
The last thing I really wanted to do was make her eyes pop. I glance there first and they just seemed to be lacking that pop I wanted. I decided to color the whites of her eyes white white. I know some of you may think-what? Your going to color the whites of her eyes even more white. I added a new layer, zoomed in about 500% and with a very small brush I colored the whites white! I adjusted the opacity level to about 25% and wowza! This is what I wanted. I now see her eyes first. A quick crop to make things even and done. Convert to JPEG and save.
So a couple edits to this image really made it 100% better in my eyes. I love this image. Not only because of how it looks but because of the girl in it. She is my daughter. She loves to dance! She loves to wear dresses and tutus although I have a feeling those days are coming to an end soon. The tutus have been sitting in the same basket in her closet in her room for a good nine months now untouched. I asked her last week if she wanted to wear a tutu to dance class and she just nodded her no. I will miss the tutu days.
