PHEW! This turned out to be a lot harder than I thought!! I have a new appreciation for Raw files, and Photoshop recipes that I’ve created. I  definitely love my camera a little more than before. But with that being said, this really was a lot of fun~ I love a challenge and being pushed to learn and grow in skills I wouldn’t normally develop.

Thank you to EVERYONE who submitted a photo. I’m going to begin by posting the 4 most difficult ones I received, with their recipes. I will post all the other ‘Before and Afters’ in a separate post. But these were ones that were over/under exposed, flash filled, not completely but slightly blurry, dark. These were so hard to try to fix without being able to tweak this or that in Lightroom while  not completely ruining the picture. Seriously, I got stuck on these. I tried to not make anything black and white, because EVERYTHING looks good in BW : ) But I might have cheated a little. Also, as always, all my recipes are done with Totally Rad Actions.

(insert drumroll here) NOW, ONTO THE RESULTS!

#1 Submitted by Laurie Mowen

This was quite difficult because I wanted to make the details more vibrant. But it’s hard to just create those out of thin air! It’s also hard to lighten up black without the option of using RAW tweaks.

 Recipe: Oh, Snap, Select-O-Pop, Yin/Yang, Lux, Flare Up, Boutwell Magic Glasses, Smooth-O-Matic, Contrast, Select-O-Pop, Dirt Bag

#2 Submitted by Jamie Selin

This was probably my most challenging picture of the bunch. As you can see in the ‘Before’ The background was much lighter than the subject, and that was super hard to switch with a jpeg. Her face was dark and the picture was way too ‘cool’ for my liking. I couldn’t get around the unsharpness of her face, that’s just something you can’t fix in post. I spent a long time tweaking this picture, and am still not completely satisfied. I wish I would have taken this with my DSLR.

 Recipe: ProRetouch, Yin/Yang, Cinnamon Toast, Lux, Crush, Oh Snap, Warm It Up Kris, Highlight and Shadow Separator, Burn Out, Boutwell Magic Glasses

#3 Submitted by Jason Dangle

Wait wait wait, THIS one might have been the most difficult one to edit. Look at her face! It’s completely washed out by the flash, you can’t see any detail at all! I tried alot of different things with this one. And I tried really hard not to do any B&W, but I cheated on this one. I brought most of the color back into it, but I had to use some B&W tints in it. This recipe was long, and even if I tried to explain it, you wouldn’t understand what I was saying if you didn’t know what masking was. So I’ll just say, I made it B&W, tweaked the B&W to how I wanted, then brought back in more color with a layer mask. THEN, added coloring adjustments on top of that.  Phew! I’m tired from just remembering this one.

Recipe: BAMF, Boutwell Magic Glasses, Contrast, Pross Crossessed #1, Oh Snap, Red Channel Fix, Get Faded Autumn, Boutwell Magic Glasses, Burn Out, Highlight Seperator X2

#4 Submitted by Andrea Miller

 I am including this one not because I am in love with the final edit, but because I had to use the clone stamp. And THAT IS SOOOOOOOOOOO DIFFICULT FOR ME! I have not yet mastered cloning things in Photoshop, or taking this or that out of a picture. So with that being said, it is being included in the group of most challenging. It’s not perfection; actually it’s pretty sloppy in the Photoshop world~ I’m still such a beginner with this tool, but I at least took something out the picture I didn’t want in it. Besides, I  really need the practice! : )

Recipe: Clone Stamp, Oh Snap, Cinnamon Toast, Smooth-O-Matic, Pool Party, Select-O-Pop, Shadow Seperator, Dirt Lip, Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana

Thanks again for everybody who participated. Now I need to know your thoughts! What did you think of this challenge? What did you think of my results? Please share your thoughts/questions/concerns in the comment section below!

And make sure you check back in the next day or two for all the other ‘Before and After’ entries!!