Since you asked.
And since I was too lazy to pick up my camera today (poor wording, not lazy, too busy, I should say... the water park is very important as is barbecuing with friends--good time with you guys, Autumn!)
The photos below... I'm not going to comment on the two under the collage of Kid, because they are poor lighting and/or quality, but I will respond to obtaining the editing of what you saw with Kid.
Pretty much all I do with most of my photos... adding contrast! I didn't save the unedited version of this photo, but for the full color photo, all I had to do was adjust the contrast a bit higher (which was done in Photoshop Elements).
And since I was too lazy to pick up my camera today (poor wording, not lazy, too busy, I should say... the water park is very important as is barbecuing with friends--good time with you guys, Autumn!)
The photos below... I'm not going to comment on the two under the collage of Kid, because they are poor lighting and/or quality, but I will respond to obtaining the editing of what you saw with Kid.
Pretty much all I do with most of my photos... adding contrast! I didn't save the unedited version of this photo, but for the full color photo, all I had to do was adjust the contrast a bit higher (which was done in Photoshop Elements).
I always shoot in color as you can always turn something black and white! However, I have shot in black and white before and most DSLRs have the capability of setting your black and white at high contrast... which gives you a more dimensional feel, if you ask me...
For the fact that most of you don't have Elements but rather have Picasa (hello, it's free and it's a great beginner editing program!)... I'll teach on that.
I took the above photo of Kid, clicked on Effects and clicked on Black and White.
This is what I got:
Cute, but to me, it's a bit "soft" and you lose some dimension in his eyes and mouth.
Simply, after that, I head to Tuning and adjust the fill light, slightly... play with this as it depends on how bright your photo is... this photo happened to have pretty good lighting, so little adjustment was needed. Sometimes I adjust Highlights too, depending on the look I'm going for.
After slightly moving the fill light up, adjust Shadows. This really controls the contrast. I moved Shadows up about one-quarter the way, and Bam! Just like that, Kid's eyes and mouth were given instant dimension...
