Shoot and Edit: Yellow edit

I had a lot of fun playing with this little ducky.  I love his worn look and am really happy with how the edit came out.

Here are my steps ...

• Levels - set white and black points.  Adjusted input and output levels until they "looked" right.
• Duplicated background layer and used high pass filter.
• New adjustment layer - curves.  
• Merged all layers.
• Duplicated background layer and applied Gaussian Blur.
• New adjustment layer - levels.  Set white and black points.  Tweaked RGB.
• New adjustment layer - brightness/contrast.
• New adjustment layer - color balance.
• Merged all layers.

Then I followed Ashley's instructions this week for adding sun flare with a few tweaks...

• Created 3 duplicate layers of the background layer and renamed each starting from the bottom: lens flare, lighten and contrast.
• Selected the contrast layer.  Changed the blending mode to soft light and lowered opacity to 70%.
• Selected the lighten layer.  Changed the blending mode to screen and lowered opacity to 50%.
• Selected the lens flare layer.  Filter>Render>Lens Flare.  I tried the different types of lens flare options and ended up with 105mm Prime at 100%.  I lowered the layer opacity to 75%.
• Selected the lighten layer.  Added a new adjustment layer - levels.  Adjusted the input and output levels slightly.  Lowered the layer opacity to 78%.
• Selected the contrast layer.  Added a new adjustment layer - photo filter.  Applied warming filter 81 at 25% density.  Checked preserve luminosity.
• Added a solid fill layer using color #F4F6DF.  Blending mode soft light.  Layer opacity 9%.
• Duplicated the solid fill layer.  Changed the blending mode to screen and lowered the layer opacity to 4%.
• Merged all layers.

Finally I followed Ashley's steps from last week regarding sharpening to improve my image for the web.  Here's the final edit:

Join in the fun with Jill Samter Photography and Ramblings and Photos: