So I am back from the land of migraines.  Remember when I said I wanted to curl up in the corner sucking my thumb and calling for my mommy?  Well, I should have actually called my mom.  She came over yesterday and was like - oh you have a migraine?  Well, have you tried X medicine?  I, of course, was completely clueless.  Off we went to the pharmacy, my mom holding my hand all the way (just kidding on the hand part but she did take me to the pharmacy!) and we got said magic pills.  One pill immediately and one before bed and I am a new woman!  I no longer feel as if I have a 2000 lb helmet on my head that is slowly squeezing, tighter and tighter.

Ahhh, got to love moms!!!  No matter how long I have been a mom, my mom always know a little more "mom info" than me.  Man, I love that woman! And not just for the magic pills....:)

So by now you might have read the Drab to Fab color boosting tutorial I have posted.  As with any tutorial it cannot possibly cover every sitution but I want to offer a solution to two hang ups that I have been getting feedback on.

The first hangup?  Not having Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  If you did not have one of these programs or something similar you felt out of luck, didn't you?  Maybe you only have the software that came with your camera.  I would love to say that you could do the same with the free program you received but those programs are not set up in the same way.  They are meant for one click solutions and if the programing behind it isn't programmed to read you mind then it probably isn't going to do what you want.  :)  So what to do?  Well, if you want you can download this program.  Version 6 is a free image editing software program that works in levels (the same way PS does) and I am pretty sure would give you some more options.  I can, of course, make no guarantees about the program but I can tell you I downloaded it in the past and it didn't mess with my computer.  So the choice is yours.  :)  Now why do I use PS?  Well, simply cause it works really, really well. There is a reason it is so popular.  If you are thinking of getting it and you don't have it - just get the Elements.  It is still really powerful and will do everything the average person wants to do. (and it is way cheaper then the full version!)

So the other hangup?  Not having pasty white kidlets like me.  You may have found that when you followed the tutorial and used my suggested settings on your gorgeous skin tones you might have ended up with a strange look.  Obviously, not everyone glows-in-the-dark like my family and if you are not familiar with PS you might not have found settings that worked for you.  So I played around with this photo and came up with settings that worked with it.

Now this little chicklet's skin tone is still pretty light but hopefully it will help you with the understanding of the adjustments if your skin is darker.

The first change I made was on the opacity of the "screen" layer (step 7).  I found the opacity needed to be much lower than the 50%.  On this particular photo it is set to 24% so I would start around this mark and move it back and forth until you get the look you like.  Now why is it lower?  It is because the screen setting adds a sort of whitish filmy thingy over the whole photo causing everything to lighten.  With it set too high the skin gets washed out too much and makes the whole picture look wonky.  (do you like my technical terms??  lol)  So you must always play with the settings.  The ones I listed worked for my photo but each photo is different (even if I am working with the same subject matter I adjust) so you need to play.  It will come easier once you have edited a few photos (or ten or fifty...lol).

(Oh and on this photo I have the opacity of the soft light layer set at 60%.)

And the other change I made to the settings in the tutorial was on the hue/saturation adjustment level (steps 9-11).  I found that even though on my photos I don't generally edit the reds & magentas (step 11) the skin tones looked better if I adjusted the red here.  In this photo I pumped up the red to +10 and like the results much better.  So if you are not so white you are blue (yes, we as a family "might" have that creepy blue white skin especially in the leg area!) then you will want to adjust the reds (and maybe the magentas) until your skin looks more natural.  Again, you must play around with your photo.  PS is powerful and meant to have human interaction so it will not decide anything for you.  You have to play and learn and get comfortable.

Of course the ultimate test of your editing skills will be when you print the photos.  So before you get too many done, print some adjusted ones and see what you like and don't like about your edits.  Might seem like you are wasting a bit at first but I think in the long run you will be happier with your edits/photos and waste less.

That's it for today.  Any more major hang ups?  Let me know and I will see what I can figure out for you. :)