Meggie Moo Portrait

I tried to do a soft portrait of Meggie, to show her daft, soft nature off to it's best.

I am quite pleased with it any help or tips welcomed as normal.

I love the framing, but for me its waaaaaaaaaay to soft, esp over the eyes and mouth area - have you got the original hun??

Yep, shall I try again, I did sharpen the eyes but badly, so went back to this.

How do I soften her overall, but not her eyes???
I am always bugging you for tips

There are a million and one ways to soften - however i always do it on skin, not fur - if you can pass on the original, ill work out the best way to soften the fur and go through it with you

I use Elements and Paintshop Pro8

I have Pmd you the pic. Thank you Sam xx

Right, i boosted the contrast and saturation slightly and sharpened using the high pass filter-on a duplicated layer- set at 1.3 (layer mode set to "hard light")

Merge the layers and duplicate again. On the new layer i used radial blur all over, and deleted the subject on that layer using a soft brush, keeping the background blurred, use the clone tool to even out the background and remove any distracting elements (skirting boards)

Merge the layers and duplicate again, this time use the gaussian blur set at 1.6 all over the image. Delete over they eyes and nose using a soft brush, and change the layer opacity down to around 80%

All done
HTH

Thank you Samxxxx

Going have a go myself and will PM you the results

I think I understood all of that, you are so helpful

OMG Mine looks nothing like yours,

I think I have gone wrong somewhere, I'll be back

Thats good MS - try to dodge the eyes if you to lighten them up a little

Okay attempt three with some light dodging on eyes and the tip of her nose