Great job, Angela

Angela.. I am so glad you came to play with us.

A couple of suggestions..
I love the texture!

Open your hue/sat. Select the blue and reduce it.
Use your burn tool and burn the background to darken.
Use the lasso tool and make a selection around just the dandelion. Small feather and put on it's own layer. Sharpen that selection.
Use levels to brighten up the face. Mask in just the area around the lips.

Thanks Rusty, Suzi and Kimi

Kimi I did what I could with your suggestions....burning is hard for me because it just puts a grey blah on it, I did it about 10% and kept the texture layer eye on when it burned too dark to accept the texture I backed off..... thoughts on that? I did the best I could with the face, don't know masks so I did a lasso around mostly the lips boosted the red and adjusted levels.... thanks for the great help I appreciate it SO much.

oh.. Now it POPS!!

I tend to burn on a separate layer. I create a new blank layer. go to edit fill and choose 50% gray from the drop down box. Then I change the blend mode to overlay. I do my dodging and burning each on it's own layer this way. I have been shooting a lot of outside shots with grass and have been using the hue/sat trick on the green. And burning my backgrounds. Leaving my person to stand out. I am also using the lasso tool as a selection around my main subject and only sharpening that.

Hope you didn't mind the suggestions?
I love how now the lips and the flower have become your main focal point.

Kimi
I love your suggestions they are welcome ANYTIME I appreciate your describing how you burn on a different layer. I remember the HW last summer about burning but didn't think I really got it, Pioneer woman's tut on burning was a little long and I got lost...but these suggestions are quite helpful thanks again.

I'm going to be the one to disagree - I don't care for the grunge texture. I think a texture was a good idea, I just don't like how that one dirties up your image. I love the picture other than that. If I can think of any useful suggestions, other than saying I don't like the texture, I will post them.

Courtney

we in Seattle love grunge

Actually I agree and was on the fence which is why I asked thanks for the comment.

edit: I hope you didn't mind I grunged up your darling son in Scrap my photos 5

IMG_0391_edited-2.jpg (228.13 KiB) Viewed 1020 times

Can you count them?

Hint: most are in the background...
http://www.prestophoto.com/photos/image/1374724/34004

Ha, great minds and etc

I saw Michel's great image in the rolling gallery and came immediately to this thread to call attention to it.
He was way ahead of me.

Those darned weeds are obviously all over the world.

Rusty

Great image Mitchel.

Those darned weeds are obviously all over the world.

Rusty, we have them dow here too and their roots tea is fantastic for many ilnesses like diabetes and hi blood preassure.