Fix it up!

So I decided to start this thing called: "Fix it up!" on my blog that I'll do every now and again. It's basically when I go through the previous pictures I've taken and find pictures that I really love, but I hate the way I've edited it the first time and decide to reedit the picture. I have this thing where I love the edit I do when I'm first correcting it, and then a couple of week or even a year later I hate it. haha, but thankfully I keep the original pictures straight from the camera so I can reedit the ones I don't like anymore at anytime. 

So today, I'm fixin' up some pictures I shot of my cousin, Lauren, last December while I was in Texas. Whenever I go down there, I end up taking pictures of Lauren and my other cousin Rachel. It's almost like a tradition, and I love it because they are so beautiful and are great to work with. I was going through this shoot last night and found this original picture of Lauren that I loved: 

As you can see the original is very dark, and doesn't show her features very well since it's all in shadows. And your eyes are pulled to the left of the picture where there is a bright white line in the upper corner. So I went on a small adventure to find the final edit I did of this picture to see if I made the corrections I noticed and this is what I found: 

It's a little better, but the reason I don't like it is her face is really blue! I think I tried to brighten her face because it was so dark, but it resulted in something blue aba de aba dye. Shadows are usually composed of cooler colors such as blues and purples that's why I believe while I was changing the exposure on her face I tinted it blue. So, I decided to fix in up! I took the original picture first shown above and reedited it to make a warmer, brighter, and prettier version:

See the difference?! I think it's so much better! It looks more natural and I helps her stand out more than the background. I know the eye still finds that big white splotch behind her head, but I don't really mind it too much though my professors would have a cow. 

Anyway here are the three pictures all shown together side by side:

Well I hope you enjoyed seeing a little of how I work. There are a lot of steps, and techniques involved while fixing just one picture, imagine doing twenty or thirty! It takes a lot of time and love :) If you have any questions feel free to ask!

-leanna