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Today’s Step by Step uses the sets, Picture Perfectand Fresh (a few of the actions are in Fresh Wonderland … the others are coming to PSE as Fresh Wonderland II within the next week or two). This particular processing session took me about 3 minutes to complete (including a quick cloning job to remove the distracting raffia on the suitcase).

This image was taken right around sunset, and you can just see a hint of the golden color peeking over the trees in the back. I wanted to bring out some fresh, golden colors and enhance the overall spring-y, happy mood of the photo. The perfect set to do this is the Fresh action set. For Elements users looking for Zippy Soft Pop (and the very popular Pop My Flare! and faux sun flare actions), be sure to look out for Fresh Wonderland II, releasing in the next couple weeks. I also use a couple tools from the Picture Perfect Mega Set.

I start with the whimsical Candy Light Pop action from Fresh (can be found in Fresh Wonderland for PSE). This action gives you a fresh and whimsical color and pop. I don’t need to do a thing to it except adjust the opacity down to about 55%.

Also from the Fresh set (and coming to Fresh Wonderland II for PSE), I use the Zippy Soft Pop action to add a little more drama to the image. This makes my highlights almost blown out, so I turn off the Make It Lighter layer and the Brighten & Contrast layer. Then I turn on the Make It Darker layer and raise the opacity to 10%.

Action tip: Note that most of the PTM artistic actions include a Make It Darker and Make It Lighter layer to help adjust your exposure as needed. Most of the time the Make It Lighter layer is turned on at the end of the action, with the Make It Darker layer having an opacity set at 0%. If an action makes your image too bright, simply turn off the Make It Lighter layer (or adjust the opacity down) … and if still too bright, turn up the opacity on the Make It Darker layer until you see the results you like.

Next I run the Let’s Be Clear action from Picture Perfect to bring out edge details. The opacity is turned up to 33%. To brighten up the shadows which have gotten a little muddy with the contrast added I run Instant Reflector at 25% from Picture Perfect. And also from the Picture Perfect set I run Bring Back Highlights to fill back in some details in the chair and her shirt sleeves, turning the opacity to 20%.

Finally, to add just a little soft sweetness I run Sweet Prairie from Picture Perfect. I love this action for bringing a hint of vintage and sunshine to an image. I turn the opacity down to 40% to just leave a little hint of honeyed warmth and strawberry sunset haze. Yummy!

And that’s it … here are the before and after images:

I can’t believe we’re already into our fifteenth week of the project … oh my, how time flies! This is actually the wrap up for last week (week thirteen – connected and tools) … family duties called and with the husband out of town for a week I got a little behind. You’ll find the featured picks for this week (week fourteen – chaos and softness) up on Monday.

The group just continues to grow and has become such a supportive community of talent, inspiration and kindness. Look for another fun photo challenge coming up in the next week or so! And this week a special feature on studio photography will begin – so don’t miss it! Also, a brand new Exclusive freebie is up on Facebook as a sneak peek to something I’m working on if you haven’t checked it out yet!

Below is my Week Thirteen photo … for the theme Connected. Just a couple snapshots I took of my girls, but I loved the look of love on their faces … watching the immense love and adoration they have for one another blossom is just awesome. Processed using actions from Blessings and Picture Perfect

The little extra bit of polish you see with that photo with the color branding blocks is from a little something special I’m working on, coming soon. :)

This coming week’s themes (Week Fifteen – April 9th through April 16th) are Unexpected and the alternate theme is April Showers.
In case you missed it, last week’s theme (Week Fourteen – April 2nd through April 8th) was Chaos and Softness – the featured picks will be up tomorrow for week fourteen.

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

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 thirteen 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)!

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