Happiness...

[jchantelau]

My four year old daughter Gracie. Not the best shot but its her eyes in this photo that I like. The first I played around with the balance quite a bit, ok too much, and the second is zero editing.

 

[ScottS]

The first one is better by far! and you didnt go too far with the editing BTW.

 

[AncientSnapper]

How about going the other way - like this?

Also you could afford to sharpen, or focus, the eyes quite a bit - draw an ellipse around one, feather the selection by say 5 pixels and then sharpen it using the UnSharp Mask. If you do this on a new layer, then you can adjust the opacity to suit. Ditto with the eyebrows and teeth - they are the points we look at.

I applied MagicFocus on the eyes and it said they were out of focus by 5 pixels - that's a lot, but it might have something to do with downsizing for the web.

If you like the above, then I've put it as an action on my web site.

All the best - lovely picture by the way!

 

[jchantelau]

How about going the other way - like this?

Also you could afford to sharpen, or focus, the eyes quite a bit - draw an ellipse around one, feather the selection by say 5 pixels and then sharpen it using the UnSharp Mask. If you do this on a new layer, then you can adjust the opacity to suit. Ditto with the eyebrows and teeth - they are the points we look at.

I applied MagicFocus on the eyes and it said they were out of focus by 5 pixels - that's a lot, but it might have something to do with downsizing for the web.

If you like the above, then I've put it as an action on my web site.

All the best - lovely picture by the way!

Thanks and I like what you did. I went both ways with it as well. I had a hard time deciding which I liked better. I do like my first one the best. Thanks for the suggestions.