Fun Before and After Pictures

So, I have been doing a lot of reading about photography and a lot of Photoshop tutorials. It seems like every one has a cool different way to make pictures pop, smooth skin, lighten dark exposure, or just sharpen your image. There are actions out there everywhere. And it's hard to choose between them all. I have tried many different ones. A lot of them are great, because they take a lot of time out of your work flow.

But I found a really cool plug-in for CS4 that I am so very excited about. It look about 20 minutes off my editing time! I just wanted to show a quick before and after picture of a Senior portrait shoot I did the other day. Here is my before picture. It is straight out of the camera. It's dull and her skin is a bit splotchy. And the angle I had her hat made her cheeks look a bit full. I should have asked her to push her chin out a bit. I am a beginner and I do make a lot of mistakes. But anyway, enough about all my mistakes. So, I ran a plug-in in Photoshop and this is what I came out with. I am so excited! Do you wanna know why? Because my after picture took all of four minutes to create!! When before I got my plug-in it would have taken me a good 25 minutes to brush her skin, then sharpen her eyes, then do a color boost. Now, I click about three buttons and I am done!! I am so very excited I just had to tell everyone!! Plus before and after pictures are fun to look at! It always amazes me how different they look. Oh, and I also made her cheeks a bit smaller in the After picture, which is a trick I am LOVING!!