The Green Family was on our way to celebrate Grandma Barko's 80th birthday at Leo's in Mt Pleasant. Victoria looked so pretty in her polka-dot dress. Mommy even accented her dress with a matching hair band. Don't be fooled by her demure look, a few moments later we were blowing gum bubbles bigger than our face!


I am not sure what style you call this but it reminds me of a recolorized 1950's photo. I reduced the noise (shot at 800ISO because we were travelling in the car and I wanted a fast shutter speed to avoid motion) using Noise Ninja and then another plug-in called Grain Surgery. I created a layer and used the highest setting to create a nice soft look. I then erased through on the eyes to regain some of the sharpness and a little on the eyelashes, brows and nose. I flattened these layers and then created another. I made the top layer black and white. I set a custom black and white look adjusting each of the colors to get the look that I wanted. Then I erased through the eyes very carefully at 100%. I also erased through the cheeks and lips. I only used about a 15-20% opacity on the eraser for that part though. I flattened the image and did an adjusted additional contrast for the final look.

The original specs from the camera were 1/125s - f/5.0 - ISO800 - no flash. Also, I used a D40. lightweight and easy to carry!