I Heart Photoshop

I absolutely love photographing my little girl. A) She's a total ham and loves being in pictures, and B) I get to have a tangible record of memories that I can look at forever. I usually can't wait to load up my memory card in the reader so I can see how everything turned out. And then I get to work. Since I have Photoshop, I love to tweak my images so I can make them even just a little bit better.

I know, I know... Photoshop is a crazy expensive program. I have a pretty old version, CS2, that I got from a friend back in photojournalism class in college. If you can get it, it's so worth it. I must warn you, it will suck up your time (once you figure out what all the buttons do!).

Here's an example of an image before and after:

Subtle changes, but I feel like it makes a big difference, no? If you happen to have Photoshop or even Elements, I highly recommend downloading some actions. They're basically one-click enhancements to your pictures that are so fun to play around with. Pioneer Woman has some great ones, and MCP Actions has a few awesome freebies as well.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share how I like to edit my pictures. I hope someone can find this useful, since I've loved playing around with these! Here are some more pictures from yesterday, playing in the backyard.