A Little Post Processing

I Heart Faces offered a blog post tutorial on a "dreamy edit."  They used Photoshop, and I am at work with only access to http://www.ipiccy.com/, but I think I made it work out.

1) I lowered the exposure because I knew that I would be brightening it up later throughout the tutorial.

2) The tutorial suggested brightening the midtones, but I was happy with my current midtones and made the executive decision to leave them be.

3) I warmed up the picture just a little bit, to give his skin a sun-kissed look.

4) I bumped up the contrast about +3.

5) Added the Vibrance filter, used the paint brush to remove the effect from the child's skin.

6) I went to the Layers section, and dragged the little black arrow to the right a little bit.  I am not sure what this does exactly, but the tutorial suggested that this would make the image "hazy."  I used the paint brush to remove the effect from the child's face so that we wouldn't lose any detail.

7) Double checked my skin tone to be sure that it was what I wanted.

8) The tutorial had a different tool for this, but I used the Soften feature on iPiccy.  I reverted the mask and used the paint brush to paint it all over the child's skin.  Then I lowered the opacity to 10% so that it looked more natural.  I then added the Soften feature over the entire picture, this time using the paint brush to remove the effect from the child altogether.  This supposedly gives the picture a "dreamy" feel.

9) The tutorial suggested that you add a layer of pink to the entire picture, and reduce the opacity to 10%.  I did this and removed it so many times, I now cannot remember if I left it or not.

10) Increased the contrast just a smidge.

11) I chose to add in a slight vingette.

I think that I am finally satisfied with this image.  I maybe found what I felt like I was missing?

                                                                 Before                                                                   After