My Photo Edit Experiment

BEFORE
I took this picture in my room on my bed

AFTER

In Photoshop Elements 5.0: I cropped the photo (8x10 with 300 resolution). Because I didn't have a professional back drop I had to fake it with blankets. I used the clone stamp to get rid of the distracting background (that the blankets didn't hide) and to blend & smooth the white blankets.

Here's the aging part (my favorite): I copied a new layer of the photo in Sepia and changed the opacity to 70%, so a little bit of color from underneath would show through. I used the eraser tool on the top sepia layer just over the flowers to make the pinks & blues more vibrant. Then as the final touch, I made a new top layer in 'Overlay' mode. With the brush tool at 291px and adjusted to 31% hardness, I colored white around the edges of the photo to give it some more light. This layer was set between 30-40% opacity. Not too difficult, and a good way to fake it without the full (expensive)version of Photoshop!

DISTRESSED OVERLAY
Inspired by the vintage Temple pictures (by Raymond Designs). I created a distressed overlay using grungy brushes in black, brown, cream, & white at varying opacity in Overlay mode. The fun thing about overlays is you can't mess up really. You just scribble here and there and play with the eraser until it looks good.