Recently, Cass has gotten into the habit of putting together an outfit and props for Cami, grabbing my camera, and heading outside. The two of them can spend hours outdoors like this, taking photos, talking, laughing, goofing off. Chris and I will peek through the windows at them, but we stay inside, letting them have this time together to just be sisters, and even better, friends. I love watching them like this, and I love what ends up on my camera's memory card when they are finished. This photo of Cami is one that I particularly love, since it captures so much of what she is like right now.
It wasn't hard to scrapbook at all -- my Candyland papers and She Is elements were the perfect fit. Less perfect were the cool blues and purples in the photo with the warm pinks and reds of the kit. So I did what any scrapper would do -- converted the photo to black and white.
Still, the tones in the photo weren't quite what I wanted so I added a slight color cast to the photo. I do this quite a bit when I'd like a black and white (or sepia-toned) photo to match my layout colors just a little better. It's a simple 5-step technique (I'm using Photoshop Elements 5.0, but I'm sure the steps are similar in a variety of programs).
Step 1: Convert your photograph to black and white (you can use an action, your own workflow -- whatever you want to make this initital conversion).
Step 2: Use the eye dropper tool to select a color from your layout. I chose the light gray in the main stripe on my background paper. Make sure this color is set as your foreground color.
Step 3: With the photo layer as your selected layer, go to Layer> New Fill Layer> Solid Color and click OK twice.
Step 4: Click Ctrl+G to "clip" this color to your photo layer. Then, in the layers palette in the bottom right of your screen, change the blend mode of the fill layer to Soft Light. I don't always use Soft Light -- sometimes I'll use Overlay and make some opacity adjustments to the fill layer as well. This is a good time to experiment with a couple of different options before merging your layers.
Step 5: Once you have your blend mode selected, click Ctrl+E to merge the fill layer with your photo layer.
At this point, you can make any additional adjustments that you'd like -- contrast, brightness, etc. Here's a look at the two photos side-by-side. The one on the left is just my initial conversion. The one on the right is with the color cast added from the papers in the background.
It's a really subtle difference, but it does have an impact when you look at the layout as a whole. The photo just seems to fit better into the overall design when the color is closer to what's being used in the kit.
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