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I can’t believe we’re already into our tenth week of the project! The group just continues to grow and is becoming such a supportive community of talent, inspiration and kind support! Look for another fun photo challenge coming up in the next week or so!

Below is my Week Nine photo … for the theme Play. Miss Eliza June eats her first food (that would be avocado you see everywhere). <3 Processed with Twitterpated from Blessings. The little series of photo from this exciting event here. All processed with Twitterpated from Blessings.

You may have noticed the site has been a little bumpy lately … we’ve been getting so much traffic (a great thing!) that our server has been unable to keep up (a not at all great thing). I’m waiting until we’re smoothly transitioned to a new, dedicated server that can make the site faster for you all before I post all the new features and goodies I’ve been working so hard on. So be sure to keep an eye on the site and our Facebook page! Lots of exciting new things will be happening, including the first in a series on studio photography and props, a “what’s in my bag” page and more … and a new Facebook Exclusive freebie! Those using Elements, the long awaited day when Picture Perfect will be available for PSE is coming April 1st!!

Join our group, Let’s Do 52. Anyone is welcome, join anytime.

Our themes for week ten are fear … and feet.

I would like to ask you to pretty please share this with your friends and readers (original post here). I would love to get as many people playing along as we can. The more who play, the more inspiration, support and potential learning experience we’ll all have … and the more fun!! So, please blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and invite others to join the fun! We have new members joining every day and I am so excited about the wonderful community we are a part of.

And finally here are this week’s picks from all the amazing posts for week nine of Let’s Do 52 … click on image for photographer’s Flickr listing and credits.It is always hard to choose just a few photos with so many beautiful and inspiring photos posted! Your photo could be in next week’s picks (use Paint the Moon products on your edit and say so in your post for a better chance of being featured)!

UPDATE … winners announced! Congrats to the winners of the Lil Blue Boo giveaway … Gayle of Gayle Vehar Photography and Jennifer Wiggins of Forty Toes.

The fabulous Lil Blue Boo is offering up two amazing prizes this week! Two winners will receive a set of one adult and one child’s vintage camera print tees PLUS a $25 gift card to Paint the Moon. These shirts are just SO cool! You can see my little girl rocking hers in the photos below, and I am on pins and needles waiting for my order to arrive for myself. I can’t wait to throw this on with some jeans and Converse. The oh-so-hip artwork is by the amazing Stephani Corfeee. All you need to do is be a “liker” of Paint the Moon and Lil Blue Boo on Facebook and leave a comment HERE for your entry! Easy peasy! Earn an extra entry for Tweeting about the contest (post an extra comment here for Tweets)! Contest ends Friday at noon and the winners will be announced after the holiday weekend.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

“This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You are providing your information (in your entry post here) to Paint the Moon and not to Facebook. The information you provide will only be used for contacting you if you win.”

One of the things I take in pride in is creating actions that are highly customizable and “tweakable” for different looks. One action, tweaked different ways can take on several unique looks for your image. For this example, I’m using one of my current favorites, Velvet Retro, from the Picture Perfect Mega Portrait Set. I also placed a Dancing Light – Bokehlicious overlay on the top set to soft light, just to enhance the bokeh that was already there (nothing like the carousel for great bokeh!!). Paint the Moon actions can be ran with one click and left as is, or you can explore your own creativity and style by adjusting the results to your own desires.

If you want more tips on how to “tweak” your action results and really customize your look, see the article “How can actions rock my world?”

The before, straight out of camera shot …

I’ve been asked frequently about what my workflow for babies is, so I thought I’d share a step by step with you on this lovely image by my dear friend, Robin Long. I’ll be using only actions from the new mega set, Picture Perfect, from start to finish. This particular edit took me about 4 minutes to complete. Once you have gotten to know your actions and find what works best for you it’s easy to speed through edits in no time at all. This set has all the actions you need to achieve that creamy, dreamy and pure skin in baby portraits that we all love.

I like to start out my processing by brightening up the image if it’s needed. I run the Creamy Skin Brightener to give it a little brightness and added creaminess to the skin. I leave it at 100% and select the Extra Warm Lightening and mask off the skin areas since this little girl is nice and warm already, which comes with great custom white balancing in camera.

Next, I’m going to tone down a common problem in newborns, the red blotchies. :) The Get Rid of the Red Blotchies was created with just this purpose in mind, although it’s also wonderful for removing red areas in skin from all types of portraits. I leave this at 70% and mask only her face and around the red spots on her body in order to keep from desaturating the blanket. If there were any color casts needing to be fixed I would do my color corrections here using the “Banish” color correctors in Picture Perfect or the different color correctors in Miracle Makeover (also available for PSE). I usually leave babies a little pinker than most subjects because they are naturally so, especially in their little precious faces. I would also make those eyes pop if needed if we had open eyes in an older baby using Miracle Makeover‘s Sparkle Eyes action.

To get that beautiful, pure and naturally smooth skin I next run the Creamy and Smooth Skin action and paint over her body and face, leaving the opacity at 55%.

She has a little shiny spot on her nose that I quickly dab at using Baby Powder at 45%.

To create an even more dramatic drop off in focus I run the Selective Focus (Faux Shallow DOF Blur) action. After running I simply mask back the areas I wish to keep in sharp focus (all of baby girl and at a 50% opacity the blanket in front of her).

For a crisp and clean look I run Let’s Be Clear (Lighter Clarity) at 25%.

I love to create a little drama with hand painted vignettes using the Paint With Light action. I just use the Paint Darkness layer and paint with a giant, soft brush around the edges and background of the image at 35%. It creates a spotlight on baby without looking too much like a standard vignette you can see a mile away.

I finish up with the beautiful artistic action Velvet Retro at a low opacity of 40% and then run Sharpen Perfection.

There you have it … Picture Perfect in less than five minutes. :)

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