PBPhoto

Blue, originally uploaded by paggre.

This was maybe the first shot I have taken with every intention of doctoring it in post-processing (I use the Gimp and Photoshop depending on what computer I am on).

My daughters eyes are blue and if she is wearing blue, they look very intense. But she wasn't wearing blue last night and was eating so Daddy couldn't change her wardrobe.

My other issue is not having a macro lens. So this is cropped quite a bit from the original.

In the Gimp, I started by removing stray hairs and such. Duplicated the layer and started working on the eye color that I was looking for. So I got into color-balance and moved the yellow slider presumably to remove yellow leaving more blue. That interface was not very intuitive for me.

Now that I have the color of the eye, it is just a matter of applying a layer mask filled with black and then using a soft paintbrush with white to uncover the area of the eye that I wanted to change.

To finish, I added a vignette. I don't think I even sharpened this. I meant to but forgot.

Nice Socks, originally uploaded by paggre.

It isn't great processing but definitely a learning step for me. I don't normally process pictures other than maybe a little crop. I really liked this pose and outfit of my little guy so I worked on getting rid of some lame stuff in the foreground (my lightstand) and background (a poorly lit ottoman and couch). I used the clone tool in the gimp. Then added a little sharpening and increased the saturation because I like vivid colors. Also whitened his little snaggly teeth a bit with a lasso select and curves.