This is my own photo, scanned. It's very old and damaged.
step 2 of 11
I used the clone stamp tool to fix the tears and cracks in the photo.
step 3 of 11
I turned it to black and white because the rules said it needed to be black and white and I wasn't sure about the sepia tone.
(I'm not even sure that's 'sepia' I think it's just a mixture of age and the fact that my grandparents were smokers...)
step 4 of 11
I don't have the option in my editing program to adjust colors with color balance.
So I painted two different skin tones on two different layers. One was set to screen and the other was set to multiply. They were both lowered to about 30-35% opacity. Adjusted as needed
step 5 of 11
Eyes and mouth are painted in on a new layer, set to overlay and opacity lowered very low.
step 6 of 11
Painted the dress blue on a new layer and set the layer color.
step 7 of 11
Painted the sky and trees in the background and set them to color, lowered the opacity to about 25%
step 8 of 11
Colored in her hair with a dark brown, set the layer to color and lowered the opacity to 30%
step 9 of 11
Colored in the water and lower half of background. It's actually on 4 or 5 different layers, all set to various things like overlay, multiply or soft light.
Her arms were not visible in the original photo due to dark shadows and damage to the photo. So, I painted a little bit of skin tone in the general area of where her arms should be.
This is a personal family photo, not a stock photo. I wish I had a larger copy, unfortunitly one does not exist. I left the white boarder around the photo to add a bit of size, although it really serves no purpose. I know it's a very small image, please don't disqualify me because of the size.
step 10 of 11
Added Contrast, darkened some facial features like bridge of nose and eyebrows.
step 11 of 11
Added contrast to B&W layer, edited skin tone a bit for depth, highlighted (blushed) cheeks.