Organizing your Workspace in Photoshop with these 6 Toolbars

Are you new to Photoshop or does Photoshop frighten you?  C'mon, you can tell me.  It frightened me terribly when I first opened it so trust me when I say I understand completely!  Can I tell you a little secret though?  It’s not as scary as it looks.  That’s right.  In fact, with a little workspace organization, you will be up and running in no time!  Promise!

Recovering exposure in CS6 & LR4!

I took some pictures of Alivia on Friday night and as I was checking the play back feature on my camera I noticed they were a little under exposed.  I had forgotten that I set my ISO to a maximum of 800 which means that even if the ISO needed to be increased to create proper exposure, it wouldn’t.  Although I had adjusted the ISO for the remainder of my images that night, I was disappointed thinking the images I had taken of her already would require more editing time that I actually had. 

Let’s try this again shall we?

Guess what?  I’ll be having a guest blogger posting this Friday from Two Shades of Lovely and I’m so excited!  She’s going to be sharing some great links with you!  If you don’t already know Jeni, I’d recommend hopping over to her site!  Take a load off and have a look around!  Oh, and in case you have been following my The Missing Link posts (on Fridays), I’ll be posting Week 22 over at Two Shades of Lovely so I hope to see you there!

Brightening Eyes

I’ve been using a pretty awesome action from Paint the Moon to brighten eyes in my photos but have since found a great little tutorial online to create the effect myself.  Of course, wouldn’t you know, I can’t find it.  I could have sworn that I pinned it to a board on my Pinterest page but apparently not so much.  Thinking back, I don’t think I pinned it because it was so easy for me to remember.  If I’d a known I was going to do a post on it, I would have saved it especially so that I could give credit.

Are you using actions?

Since I got a new laptop I also made the switch from Photoshop Elements (PSE) to Photoshop CS6 (PS).  I was a little hesitant to make the transition because 1) Photoshop was very expensive and 2) I’d grown to love some actions that I had purchased strictly for PSE.  Actions that I hadn’t yet learned how to create manually.  I recently repurchased them on Paint the Moon and am so happy I did.  They work so much better in PS (or I think so anyway).  Not to mention the action selection has changed since I last purchased them and the bundles included actions like remove color cast and remove the wonky colors (love that word “wonky”)!  Today, I thought I’d share some before and after images.  I like to do this every now and then as I know it can be useful (or fun at the very least) to see how others are editing their images. 

Fix-It Friday over at IHF

I'm excited!  I joined the ihf Community on I Heart Faces and this will be the first time participating in their Fix-It Friday photo challenge.  In a nutshell, they provide a photograph to be fixed/edited.  This week's photograph was provided by Angie Arthur Photography.  It's difficult to fix a photograph that is already gorgeous straight out of the camera.  Gorgeous picture!  Gorgeous girl!  My editing efforts are below.  I hope you like them!

New Pics (Week 9)... Just 5

...Cause I only have 5 pictures to share today. 

So can you believe that all this time, at least for months now, I had the ability to maintain the quality of my images while still being able to resize for blog posts?  When I purchased the Miracle Makeover actions from Paint the Moon awhile back, it came with two web resize actions.  One converts an image to 500 px and the other to 900 px.  There is a VERY noticeable difference between using these actions to resize and just letting Blogger do it.  It's amazing!  I wanted to share the differences with you below.  My first picture was resized using the action, the second one was resized by Blogger (yuck).  The ones that were automatically resized became a little blurry and, more annoyingly, pixelated.  It's horrible!  Thanks again Pain the Moon!  Seriously, you made my year!

New Pics (Week 8)... Thank You Paint the Moon!

I had another photo shoot with Livvy yesterday.  Although we found some spots of shade, it was a bit more challenging for me to find the proper camera settings with the sun being out and bright!  I feel like some were blown out a little but I was able to adjust the exposure.  I don't even know if "blown out" is the correct term but let's see if I can explain.  Sometimes her face almost looked neon if that makes sense.  Because I purchased some more VERY cool actions from Paint the Moon, I wanted to attach my before and afters to mark my SOOC, clean edit, and action applications.  In some cases, I actually like my clean edit better.  I am, however, VERY excited to work more with these new actions some more!  Paint the Moon makes it so easy to download and install into whatever editing software you are using.  I love that!  Not to mention the affordable prices! 

Scavenger Hunt Sunday!

Woo Hoo, I've been dying to participate in Scavenger Hunt Sunday over at Ramblings and Photos but I never have pictures to fit all 5 themes!  This week, however, I did and am excited to share them with you!  I've had this email drafted since the 14th!

My Show {off}

This is my submission for the photo challenge at and then, she {Snapped}.  It's one of my favorite pictures!   I took it later in the day so the light wasn't at its brightest.  With that being said, and in order to avoid using a flash, I had to up my ISO to let in more light.  My shutter speed was only at 60 which was super low for trying to capture a moving baby with ants in her pants :o)  When I tried to up it, the picture got too dark.  The aperture was set at 3.5.   This is my edited version since my SOOC shot was still a tad dark.  My original composition, although still good, was completely changed in this edited version.  Her face was so beautiful I decided to crop it and make it a close-up.  After I adjusted the exposure and colors, I softened her hair a bit and added a bokehlicious dancing light action that I purchased at Paint the Moon.  I could get lost in my baby's eyes!  I never get sick of looking at this one!  Hope you all like it!

New for the 4th

Here is my submission for the Simplicity photo challenge.  The theme is NEW.  I just took this picture yesterday of Alivia's new 4th of July dress that her Auntie Lola bought her.  Though I didn't get a picture, there is a hat that goes with it.  Can't wait to see my cutie in it!  It is hanging from the hardware on my staircase.  Hey whatever works right?  I have some great light in this spot and am always trying to avoid using a flash.  I just love using natural light!  I added the texture in PhotoShop Elements but it was purchased from Paint the Moon if anyone is interested.

MAC-A-DOODLE-DOO!

I had one of my best friends over today and she has a 2 year old little girl named Mackenzie.  Well she'll be 2 years in another month!  She is the cutest little red head you ever did see.  She has beautiful pale angelic-like skin and her eyes, well, speak for themselves!  Thanks to Auntie Nancy Pants and Uncle Erik for letting me post these on my site!