The working title is ‘How I Photograph my Kids’. Although there are a few kids in it who aren’t my own, it’s very strongly based on my own methods for photographing my own kids. Which is a very different scenario from photographing someone else’s kids or a paid session.

Being so close to the project, I’m really at a loss for a name. Total creativity block. I thought it would be a fun contest to see who could come up with a totally awesome, catchy name. Even a pun or a play on words? Post your ideas below and the winner (if I choose one of the names) will get the first copy when it comes out! Contest expires on 19th August.

So congratulations to Toyha F. who won the fabulous One Willow Fairytale set. {CLICK HERE} to go over and grab the 4-day discount code from One Willow.

Ooh la la One Willow is giving my readers another excellent gift of the NEW Fairytale set of Lightroom presets. Loads of you have downloaded this amazing new set in the past couple weeks. If you already have it, enter to win for a friend!

There are many ways to gain multiple entries for the drawing to take place on the 21st June (only one week this time!):

• Comment below to enter
• Tweet this competition to your friends and mention @ehphotograph so I’ll know. Or you can click the ‘tweet this’ button below (bottom right).
• ‘Like’ my FB page and comment to let us know
• ‘Like’ One Willow’s FB page and comment to let us know
• ‘Share’ the contest with your Facebook friends via the toolbar below (click ‘share’)

Good luck!

{Winner}

The winner, as chosen by random.org was Toyha F! Congrats, Toyha! One Willow are giving everyone else 10% off through the 25th June at midnight so you’ve got only 4 days before that expires. The discount code is EHFAIRYTALE. Check back for the release of the One Willow Light Leak set!

Remember these? Well they’re being born tomorrow and I’m pretty much out of my mind with excitement to be photographing them this week.

Pick the names correctly and win a free edit from me. Comment below to enter and tomorrow when they’re born, we’ll know who won!

My first edit is on the image by Joelle.  I love the angle, the fabulous focus and the adorable but serene expression on the little girl. It was so much fun to edit, here is the Preset recipe I used…

The very first adjustment I made to the image in Lightroom was to crop it.  I wanted to angle it just a bit to the right, helping to get the image closer to the rule of thirds and bring more of the focus to her face and eyes.

Next, I applied one of my new favorite One Willow Presets- ‘Fairytale’  from The Fairytale Set.  This Set is scheduled for release in a few weeks, so you all are getting the first sneak peek!

Then I applied another One Willow Preset, also from the Fairytale Set, called Soft Light.  This preset added a light-leak coming from the same direction as the light source in the picture.  I also added a soft vignette by applying a post called Soft burn.

Finally, I used the adjustment brush on brightness to slightly lighten the shadowed areas under her eyes.  I also used the adjustment brush on contrast throughout her hair to add a bit more detail and depth.  I still felt like I had to much shadow cast under her eyes so to further lighten them, I used the spot tool on very low opacity and pulled in color from just below the shadows to create even toned coverage.

Thank you Joelle for entering this lovely image and for allowing me the privilege to edit it.  Hope you enjoy your new presets!!!

My next edit is on the image by  Natasha Williams Photography.  I loved the composition on this image, the sweet moment and the gorgeous backdrop. It would be a gorgeous edit in color but when I ran the Tatum preset from The Black and White Set, I adored the timeless feel it created.

The recipe on this was super quick and easy… As I mentioned above I used the Tatum preset.  It was almost a one-click edit but because my presets are for raw files I had to made a slight brightness and contrast tweak.  But that’s it!  Love, Love when I can get a fabulous edit straight from the preset!

Thank you Natasha for submitting this gorgeous maternity image, I am sure your clients fell in love with it!  I also hope you enjoy your new presets!   (btw… I will have them for ACR too)  :)

So, since Elizabeth has kindly given me the floor today, I thought I would pass along a few tips about getting the best look out of your preset.

1. If your image looks ‘over-toned’ by a preset, begin by checking your exposure.  Often a little exposure increase will bring the tones into place.  However, sometimes  further tweaking is needed and usually it involves the light and shadows. Don’t be afraid to adjust your tone curve, brightness and contrast.  All of these play a huge role in the look of the preset on your image.
2. Utilize your adjustment brush.  Occasionally, the majority of the image will look fabulous with the Preset but an area on the image may be to dark or to light.  Use your adjustment brush to make an isolated adjustment to that specific area.  For example, if your eyes seem to dark because of the way the preset deepened the shadows. Grab your adjustment brush, choose your desired brush setting (exposure, contrast, clarity, etc…) then decrease the brush density or amount on by pulling the control slider to the positive.  Then brush it onto the specific area you want to fix.  The same is true to darken an area, except you will pull the brush density to the negative. You will have to play with this for a bit to figure it out but once you do, you will love it!
3. One preset will not work for every image.  Yes, you will have a certain faves, but I strongly encourage you to try new ones too.  You can use your Navigation panel image window (located on the upper left side of your screen in the develop module)  You can scroll your cursor over each preset and get a little ‘preview’ in the Navigation window of what the preset will look like on your image.  I use this ALL the time, it’s a fabulous feature.
4. Lastly, have fun!   One Willow Presets let you have total control over your exposure and provide tons of options to finish the Preset looks with Post-looks.  Each Set contains Posts, which are a variety of adjustments that can be applied after the presets to give you different finished ‘looks’.  The Posts allow you to create new looks from one preset putting your creative energy to use and giving you more ownership of your image’s edit.

Okay, I could make a huge list of tips but I better not ramble to long on Elizabeth’s blog. :)  You can visit the One Willow Studios site for examples of all of the presets and for more tutorials on how to use them.

Best!

Jessica Paige

This competition is closed. View the winner’s made-over photos here.

O.M.G. Jessica Paige aka ‘One Willow’ aka ‘Retro Candy Presets’ is going to write a guest post here on my blog. And what’s more, she’s giving away a both Retro Candy & Black & White sets of Lightroom presets! If you don’t already know the absolute heaven that is One Willow presets, go to the ‘search’ spot in my sidebar and type ‘one willow’ or ‘retro candy’ to see all the love I send her way.

Leading up to the guest post where Jessica will give us beautiful pearls of editing wisdom, enter your photo in our competition to win.

It’s much like the Flypaper competition we did recently. In the comments below, submit an image you would like madeover by Jessica. Check back in two weeks to see the winner, their freshly edited photo and Jessica’s sure-to-be-fabulous guest post.

Looking forward to your submissions!

Thank you to everyone who entered the most recent Flypaper competition to win the fabulous new Fly Edges textures pack. And congratulations to Louise Q. who won the pack of these totally rockin’ new edges! Here’s one of my edits using these cool new edges. I used #11 on top of a vintified image from my upcoming DVD.

Flypaper have just released their new ‘Fly Edges’ texture pack. Here’s what they say about it:

“Ever needed the original Alice in Wonderland photographic look?
Did you yearn for a natural large plate format photographic feel?
Have you ever wanted natural un-contrived edges that are not the everyday humdrum TTV retro, but something a little bit special?
Then this is the product for you!:-)

At long last, we launch our new one-off, cool toned, metallised glass texture pack! Its made with all those people in mind who over the past months have requested edges from us. However this isn’t any old edges pack! This is a connoisseurs edges pack that includes all over iridescent grunge goodness!

These edges derive from 100 year + antique French glass silvered plates, lovingly scanned in TIF, then cleaned and processed in a secret way we have developed ourselves, to show only grunge, without the original image. These were produced to be as widely used as possible, both in their original format, or cut and pulled square.

As with all our products we have a minimum sized side of 4000 pixels by 5000. The length being around 30% wider than our previous textures @ 13″ x 17″ approx inches in 300 dpi for perfect printing and happily usable with your landscape formats.”

This competition ends on 26th April. Simply comment below to enter to win your very own Fly Edges pack from Flypaper! Double your chances by Tweeting this competition to your friends! (right here —>)

Thank you, Paul from Flypaper for this totally rockin’ tutorial for how you edited the winning photo in the Flypaper Textures contest last week.

Don’t forget that Flypaper have created a discount code just for you good until 30th March 2010. Enter EHFlypaper at checkout for $5 off!

This week a texture contest came to an end over at our friends site Elizabeth Halford.com. We’d like to thank all who entered and add that picking a winner was very difficult.
I think, finally it was the mist we liked in this winning farm scene byChristopher Miller featuring his own farmhouse/barn in the US.
Simply mouse-over to view his raw entry.

Processing blown-out skies is always a problem, what do you do?
This image is also very bottom heavy, so we tried to bring some balance, pulling it together with heavy texturing.

Normally texturing isn’t as complicated as we’re showing here, and also, we don’t usually use as many textures, perhaps up to three is normal?
But I wasn’t happy with my first attempt (see below) So I tried again, the result is the second yellow image below.
Finally, we decided we liked the atmosphere of the first, but loved the yellow glow of the second, so I simply merged to two images together!
The final result is the mouse-over image at the header.

I always process using Photoshop CS4, though any previous Photoshop would work just as well as the Elements edition.

First stage
Here is the recipe for the first base image:
Background copy 2 – Luminosity @ 28%
Background copy 3 (grass brushed away) – Color @ 100%
Apple Blush (center only) – Darker Color @ 30%
Dangerous Liaisons – Overlay @ 66%
Orient Express (blurred) – Soft Light @ 100%
Ming (desaturated) – Overlay @ 100%
Background copy 5 (grass brushed away) – Hue @ 100%
Background copy 4 (grass brushed away) – Color @ 45%
Labyrinth (hedge brushed away) Linear Burn @ 82%
Labyrinth (Desaturated, blurred, all darker base part of picture brushed away) Color @ 81%

first layers

The result, a washed out dark version:

It needed more light so I did another version…

Here is the recipe for the second lighter version.
Background copy – Normal @ 100%
Background copy 2 – Luminosity @ 28%
Apple Blush (desaturated) – Multiply @ 33%
Dangerous Liaisons (full blur) – Hard Light @ 58%
Muscatel – Soft Light @ 31%
Labyrinth (Blurred, edges pulled away from the picture, using the pale inside part only) – Vivid Light @ 40%

2nd set:

This is the result, a pale yellow version:

In this third, final stage I simply merged to two previous versions together as shown..
First base image – Normal @ 100%
2nd lighter version – Overlay @ 31 %

3rd set:

And the finished product:

Don’t forget that Flypaper have created a discount code just for you good until 30th March 2010. Enter EHFlypaper at checkout for $5 off!

As his prize, Flypaper have given his image a makeover using Flypaper Textures and he won BOTH of Flypaper’s amazing sets for his very own.

And for all you who entered a big amazing thank you! Flypaper have created a discount code just for you good until 30th March 2010. Enter EHFlypaper at checkout for $5 off!