Gracie is going to be a year old

[polarsusd81]

So my cousin Kari and her husband James had a little girl almost a year ago. With her birthday party coming up, they wanted to do some pictures to display at the party and give to Gracie's grandparents. My cousin asked me to try something I hadn't done before, and that was an attempt at a vintage style processing on one of the photos. The whole family is way into baseball and the Twins and Gracie has been to several games already. They wanted a baseball theme for the party so we shot at an empty field close to my house.

I just messed around with the red, green and blue curves, then dropped the contrast just a bit, added a vignette, and copied the birthday ball text from another shot into this one.

Original

Processed

Anything else you think I could do with my somewhat limited skills? I know a little bit, but not enough to be dangerous. Always trying to learn a new technique every time I open ps. I know it probably isn't the greatest job, but they were absolutely thrilled with the result and want to blow it up and make a wrap to put in the family room.

[polarsusd81]

Looking at it here, I think the first thing I will do differently for the wrap is crop out the distraction at the back edge of the field in the top of the frame. That or I could clone that out to keep the aspect ratio the same. Which would you do?

[dockothebay]

Very nice shots and a beautiful little girl.

I think cropping or cloning the distraction is a good idea. The only other thing I would try is to get it a little brighter? (Maybe that's just my monitor too) These kind of images are certainly personal preference and maybe you already tried that.

I don't do much for portrait images, but have seen a number of free photoshop "actions" that are used a lot in this kind of image. If you google "free ps actions" you get lots of options. MCP Actions, Texas Chicks are two that I have played with a bit. Again, these changes are very personal, and you have created a beautiful shot here.