In Photos: A Taste of Summer

Today I wrote a post for the Detroit News MichMomsblog about the magic of summer.  After being cooped up all winter long, it’s great to run outside in a T-shirt and flip flops.  And the summer feels fun now (unlike by mid-July and I feel like an overworked cruise director).

Here’s a photo that totally encapsulates the magic of summer: eating gooey s’mores in the swing set clubhouse.

Here’s the before:

Here’s the after:

I cropped unrestricted.  I adjusted the light and the dark.  I also played around with brightness/contrast along with enhancing colors.

I then adjusted the field of depth and used the Orton Effect to 100% light.  I then put a mask using the soft mechanical brush at 100 pixels and 18% opacity.

I’m not sure if that makes sense, but I thought I’d share the steps so you could tell what I could do better next time.

Because learning this Photoshop Elements is hard, yo.

I personally think it’s a bit too light.  What do you think?