I absolutely love your picture. So much so in fact - that I thought that I would see how it looked with a bit of further processing using the a couple of the PS Actions in the Action Set that I provided for download on the forum the other day.
I know that everyone sees photographs differently - - - and so as before I am not saying that what I have done is better than your original - just broadening the possibilities in a visual form. Some people love the innocence of unprocessed images. Some like me enjoy the potential that can be exploited with a small amount of processing. Let me know how you feel.
This is your beautiful image after I have run some processing on it - with your original right under for comparison of the subtle changes that I feel draw the eye more to the front of the image and to the girls and what they are doing with their hands - as opposed to the brighter upper left side
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I thought that you might value seeing the steps that I took to get to the finished portait:
The first step was applying my Amazing Details PS action to bring out extra grit and contrast in the wood desks and background elements. A layer mask on the Group Layer, wasused to take all of the effect off of the children as well as a lowered opacity brush was used to soften the effect on the background
Next I duplicated the Amazing Details Group for more intensity - then played with the Opacity on both Groups to get a look that was visible - but not overly so
Lastly was to run the Dodge and Burn Layer action - and use both a white brush at around 7% Flow to Dodge different areas, and a black brush at around 7% Flow to Burn different areas
Rob
