Edit Me: Wk2 2012

Crikey that came round awful quick didn't it!
Oh well I'm not complaining because I just love seeing what the next image is that has been submitted  for the EditMe challenge.

This weeks guest judge and image owner is Tara of Wild Ginger Photography whose website is full of amazing images ranging from adorable babies to fine art.
Grab a coffee, head on over to Tara's place and prepare to go all googly over the adorable images.

So here is the SOOC submitted by Tara

and this is my edit

I did warn you! Adorable huh?
It's no secret that I panic a tad when it comes to editing images of children, after all, these are someones adored ray of hope and sunshine and I am sooooooo aware of how easy it would be to insult a person with an edit that I interpret as 'different' and others interpret as .... well..... wrong! (I love putting googly eyes on things and turning them into neon glowing objects) sigh!
Can't do that with such gorgeous images as this one though - even I would agree it was just wrong!

So here's how I did it. (yes I do remember almost every step for a change - yay me!)
Opened the image in CS5, created background copy (many mistakes mean I now remember that one!), tight crop keeping image dimensions,  added another new layer and filled this layer with white.
Then I added extra canvas around the image in layer1 and then added a bit of space inside the image on the background copy.
Added a layer mask to the background copy, went into filters, brush strokes  added a sprayed strokes effect and then trimmed the canvas size.
Finally I did a tiny bit of sharpening and then just played with exposure, levels etc until I got the look I wanted.

Thank you to both Tara and the EditMe challenge team for hosting this challenge, judging our edits and submitting such gorgeous photos.
Thank you also to all you faithful followers and looker inners (I've just made that word up). I hope you enjoy this challenge and don't forget to head on over to Taras website and /or the EditMe blogsite to check out the other participants entries or to even have a go yourself.