Flower Girl

[kevq]

Just added this to my gallery. An exercise in softening the girl's photo, blending with a mask. Hope the effect works. Comments welcome.
Kev.

[Netnut]

Kev- That is great. She is adorable and the technique is right on. Would you mind letting me know how you did this?

[karen donnybrook]

Kev,

Beautiful blending and softening. what it look like the eyes were not so "fuzzy"? Love the edging around the carnations.

Karen :)

[kevq]

Garry,
pleased you like it.
It's not to hard to do just a little fiddly.
First I sized both photos to the same size.
Then I dragged the girl over the flowers.
This hides the flowers, then using Grant's mask tool, which I opened on the girl layer, clicked on gradient tool. Make sure your colours are the default black and white, then in the gradient selection, picked foreground to transparent, Then I went round all four sides of the image applying the gradient until I nearly had the effect I wanted. Then clicked on brush tool, lowered the opacity to 60%, making sure the mask is selected, painted with black to bring the flowers back in where I wanted, if it didn't look right, change the colour to white and took the flower out.
as I said not hard but fiddly.
Hope you can understand my explanation.
Kev.

[kevq]

Karen,
glad you like it.
I did bring the eyes out a little but had to be careful not to do too much as it looked wrong for the dreamy effect I was after.
Kev.

[ronstelzy]

Kev,
Love the technique; generates a whole bunch of ideas for me. What do you think of removing the color from the flowers and using a spotlight on her face. The possibilities are endless and it is beautiful just the way you did it.

[annc]

Really effective. The colour of the carnations really sets off the picture of the girl. Great.

[kevq]

Ron,
glad you like it. As you say the ways of treating it are many, I did try a couple of variations but settled for this.
Kev.

[kevq]

Ann,
pleased you like it.
Kev:)

[lindylou50]

Very soft floaty dreamy effect I really like it she looks just like a flower faerie!
(No good for photos of my 2 teenage boys though)!!!!!!!

[kevq]

Lin,
pleased you like it.
Kev:):)