Had a hard time deciding if I should enter this. I really loved it but I knew that others might not see her as a toddler even though she is. Might be the long hair, at any rate she is a half year younger than my little girl who just turned 4 so she is still 3. I purposely didn't use my own little girl because she is 4 and I don't consider 4 to be a toddler.
But I think most people are looking past it and I am getting a really good score so I won't complain.(too much)
[Oct. 25th, 2011 11:19:39 PM]
I'm really excited about this score. I am excited that it has held up so well despite the fact that I have probably had a few points taken off for her age. I know some of you still won't believe me but she really is only 3.
Sofia asked me about the eyes, here is what I did:
Shoot in RAW this is one of those times that shooting in RAW is essential I wouldn't have been able to manipulate the eyes the way I did if I hadn't
In Photoshop RAW converter I took the temp of the photo way down so that I could enhance the blue in her eyes, luckily everything else was so warm I could take it cooler without making her look sickly.
Next I used the vibrancy tool in Photoshop RAW and upped it quite a bit until her eyes were a bright blue
Now I opened it to photoshop, the hat was way too red and the eyes still not blue enough so I opened up the saturation tab, here is where it is tough because in basic you can't just use a new layer and adjust the saturation where you want it, so instead I adjusted my colors separately. First I desaturated the reds, it helped the hat not be so bright but it took some pink out of her skin but I could live with that. Then I went to the blues and upped the saturation in the blues, since nothing but her eyes were blue it didn't affect anything but her eyes.
As far as the rest, well she has beautiful eyes to begin with and I lucked out and got great focus on them. Also I absolutely love Topaz In Focus. I use it on every photo I take.
Here are three steps I use on every single photo I enter:
1. Topaz Denoise(even if the photo isn't noisy it helps make a photo look better, I don't know why it just does)
2. Topaz In Focus
3. Resize to 800 Pixels and Use Topaz In Focus Again (when you resize your photo get a little soft, so a tiny bit of resharpening is almost always necessary)
Statistics
Place: 2 out of 88 Avg (all users): 7.3659 Avg (commenters): 8.5000 Avg (participants): 6.9333 Avg (non-participants): 7.5294 Views since voting: 9527 Views during voting: 375 Votes: 164 Comments: 39 Favorites: 7 (view)
When I browsed the thumbs for this challenge, this one stood out immediately. Surprised you didn't get 1st. I have a 3.5yo boy who can look much older if photographed a certain way.
I think people who don't have or haven't had children think toddlers always are babies, but a toddler can look much more mature as she does. Glad this got the recognition it deserved. Bravo.
It sure helps to have a beauty! The lighting is lovely, DOF is very nicely done with a background that does not compete for attention, very nicely done!
Pretty sure I've seen this red hat before? A sjhuls image? Very nicely composed and lit, so expect this to do well. Only minor issue I have is that she looks to be older than a toddler??
want to arrange a marriage with my little boy in 18 years time lol, joking aside great shot and love the detail in the wool, maybe just a bit more light to the middle left area (hair on back)
Toddler with the Red Hat and Blue Eyes.
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