Lotus is fun, as this photo shows. Went a little crazy with the Totally Rad Actions, using both Bullet Tooth and some texture--after all, when else do I get to use texture?!

Ok, the title is cheesy, I almost take it back.  I’ve come across a few interesting articles lately on editing eyes in portraits using photoshop.  With just a tiny bit of work, the changes are just eye-popping.  Sorry!  I can’t help myself.

Here is a before and after photo of my handsome husband looking into the mirror.

Image went from soft and a little tired to rugged and little bad ass =)

I’ll only go through the steps that I used on the eyes, but if you’re interested in checking out what other steps I take in portraits, you can check this out here. These portraits were taken in a hotel bathroom, after a few rounds of beer and gummy bear – jolly rancher poker when I realized I had (had!) to get some portraits of people capturing the amazing catchlights created by the rectangular light outlined bathroom mirror.

First, use the dodge tool (14 icons down on the toolbar on the left, click on it, select the black lollipop) and take a pass over the entire eye.  If you still can’t tell the difference between the pupil and the iris, take another pass with the dodge tool over the iris.  If there is a bit of redness in the whites of her eyes, use the patch tool (7 icons down on the left, click on it, then select the patch tool), select the redness, and drag over to a whiter part of the eye.

Then darken the pupil of the eye using the burn tool (14 icons down, click on it, select the hand making an o).

Finally, and this is the tip that just really creates the magic, use the burn tool, using a very small sized brush, size 17, to darken just the rim of the iris.  In the picture below, I’ve only rimmed the iris halfway on the left side to demonstrate–it’s very subtle.

Here is the final before and after. While the changes were really small and subtle, the difference is pretty huge.

Here are two other great articles on retouching eyes. One from the fantastic photographer Lawrence Kim is here, and another one from CoffeeShop, which has tons of free photshop and photoshop elements actions is here, and focuses on making brown eyes pop.

It’s a totally different experience photographing a friend’s wedding when you’re not the wedding photographer.  For starters, there’s no lugging around the two giant cameras, lenses, flashes, etc., but even more than that it totally changes the dynamic.  There’s no setting up the lighting, there are a ton of people with point and shoot cameras clamoring (and sometimes nudging) in front of you, and if you’re traveling light with one lens, you just work with what you’ve got.

We recently attended our friends, Ramya and Mark’s wedding in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in a traditional Indian wedding ceremony.  There was tons and tons of fantastic Indian food, some seriously great warm weather (well, warm compared to DC, the native Floridians were all in some serious coats when we were there) and lots of great catching up with other friends who attended, much of it over some Texas Hold’em using gummy bears and jolly ranchers.  The wedding was so vivid, just full of unbelievably rich colors.

ISO 500, 28mm, F/6.3, 1/200 sec

When my friend Melanie asked me to take some professional portraits of her, I jumped at the chance to go walking around the Capitol with my camera, a ridiculously-photogenic subject, and with the freedom to bring a light stand with me (if you’ve ever gotten confronted by the national park service while photographing at the monuments, you know what I mean). We were even lucky enough to have Mike, her boyfriend, come along to do the actual light stand lugging (thanks Mike!).

All of the photos were taken using just one flash, attached with a TTL cord. Somehow my remotes started having problems right before we were supposed to meet up for the shoot, thank goodness I had the TTL cord around as a back up plan.  The flash was mounted on a stand and an umbrella.  It was definitely a little more difficult using the TTL cord (akin to stretching the phone cord as much as I possibly could when I was in high school so I could get out of parental earshot), but Mike was nice enough to hold the umbrella every which way, even when it probably seemed a little ridiculous (“left please, oh wait, not that much left, maybe to the right, ok, maybe if you could stretch a foot taller and then left?”)

Anyways, all in all, it was totally fun– thanks Mel and Mike!

ISO 400, 85mm, f/8.0, 1/200 sec

ISO 800, 38mm, f/7.1, 1/100 sec

So, I did it.  I didn’t think I would ever do it, but as the snow piles high outside and the metro accessible bars are just a tad too far away, there’s nothing good on tv and on top of that I picked some really crappy netflix movies (although if asked, I’ll swear that my husband picked them), I gave in.  I am officially on twitter.  Much to my dismay, squarerootofred has already been taken, so I’m squarerootored….like the Irish version, square root o’ red.  Not a clue how someone else out there in the world came up with the very much made up square root of red, but heck, I should probably follow his twitter feed since it’s possible we have some sort of brain share thing going on.

Oh and if you’re wondering where I got the adorable but slightly cracked out looking twitter bird from above, it and other fantastic freebies are available at Smashing Magazine, one of my favorite design/photography resources.  The generous designer is Mirjami Mennenin.

If you’re an east-coaster getting buried in the snow, hope you’re enjoying it!   Follow my new twitter feed by clicking on the bird above.  Slàinte!

Here are some pics of the newest member of the family, Honey the Dog. She is a six year old pit bull, and totally amazing. She’s kind of a big deal =) Honey was at the D.C. Humane Society on Georgia Avenue for three months after her owner moved to DC from California and gave her up when the apartment building they moved to wouldn’t let him/her have dogs. In those three months, she has done all sorts of stuff…she has her AKC Good Citizen Certification, and she was in the Wounded Warriors program where injured solders learn skills, like dog training. More info about Honey’s amazingness is here.

So far life with dog has been interesting and totally unexpected. The biggest fear was that she wouldn’t get along with cats, but Honey doesn’t seem to care about the cats at all, they just sort of hang out. She can sit, stay, sit pretty, lay down, and give hugs, but for some strange reason she won’t chase a ball.  At all.  Or a bone.  Or anything I throw unless it’s a treat. When I throw a ball, the cats go running after it. And the cats keep trying to go after the dog’s food, which is hilarious since the dog is five times the size of each cat.

Sup. What you lookin' at?

Man and dog in coat.

Milk & Cookies: 90% Increase Contrast by 10

Unlike many things (um, Jersey Shore), the hype surrounding the Totally Rad Photoshop Actions are completely justified. They do amazing things in photoshop, and really all it takes is pushing the play button for your computer to go off and running. All you have to do at the end of running an action is decide whether you like it and also decide whether you want it as is, or whether you want to tone down the effect by decreasing the percentage opacity of the effect in the layers pane. It’s too much fun, and you can definitely go a bit overboard, like the leopard looking striped cat version below, but if you use a light hand and remember that less is more, the actions definitely add to your images while saving a ton of time.

Here are some versions of the same photograph (any excuse to post a Kashi the cat picture!) with the Actions Recipe below it.  Even more recipes are located on the Totally Rad Actions located here.  If you’ve never used actions before, they have a great, easy to understand tutorial on how to use and install the actions located here.

Here is the original:

Here are the photos with some actions applied, the recipe is below the photo:

60% bullet tooth. 40% fade winter

bullet tooth: 60%. Pool Party: 60%. Can of whoopass 8 (over the cat): 80%. Red channel fix: 50%

POS Lens: 100%. Dirty and Used Up Texture: 100%. Get Faded: 40%.

The last photo has texture applied, which is an interesting effect.  It’s definitely not right for every photo, but textures seem to add an interesting artsy effect.  In doing some textures research, I found a site by ShadowHouse Creations which provides really great textures…for free!

One of my favorite wedding photographer bloggers, Punam Bean, recently blogged that great photo editing is like great makeup — that it shouldn’t be too obvious. Small touches typically are enough to really transform an image. The following photo is a quick before and after with some small photo edits. First, I went to Image –> Adjustment –> curves and lifted the curve from the center up. Then I went to Layer –> Duplicate Layer so that there is a duplicate layer of the background. In this new layer, I went up to Filter –> Blur –> Gaussian Blur and set a slight blur of .5.

Now the whole image is a bit softer, but there were certain parts of the photo that I want to keep sharp, mainly the hair, the eyes, and the eyebrows. To make sure these parts aren’t blurry, I added a Vector Mask, and from here, used a black paintbrush to paint over the areas that I want to keep sharp. To do this, go to Layer –> Vector Mask –> Reveal All. Select the paintbrush tool, select black paint, and then paint over the parts that you want to be sharp.

Finally, fix any skin imperfections. Click on the 7th icon down in your toolbar on the left and hold down until you see the Patch Tool show. Using the patch tool, encircle the area that you want repaired, select the Source button on the top bar, and then drag the encircled area to clean patch of skin. This tool is amazing.

Here is the below and after. No huge changes, but enough to make her look her best and draw attention straight to her amazing eyelashes.

Square Root of Red Photography is hosting a contest with District Weddings- – tell us your proposal story for a chance to win a free engagement photo session!  We want to hear all the heart-felt details!

Post your story at the District Weddings blog in the comments, direct link located here.

When I was young, my mom showed me her wedding album and told me all about her wedding.  The thing that totally caught my attention was the fact that she wore four dresses!  One wedding dress and then three dress changes at the reception.  She said that at Chinese weddings the practice of changing into a bunch of dresses is quite common, and that often people can rent dresses since the dresses are pretty ornate and likely to be worn only once.  

I loved this concept of renting fabulous dresses but when I got married a year and a half ago, I couldn’t find a place that would do this.  Recently, I was reading a magazine somewhere that talked about Rent the Runway–the process is amazing.  You pick a dress online, specify the date you need it by, and they even do next day delivery, and they send you a back up size for free just in case (love it!), and then you return it, no dry cleaning necessary.  

This would be perfect if you’re looking for something amazing for a rehearsal dinner. 

Rent the Runway, Yigal Azrouël

Rent the Runway, Mark & James by Badgley Mischka

 Another fab idea would be to go here for bridesmaid’s dresses–your friends would definitely appreciate not having to buy a dress that they might only wear once and some of the dress rentals are only $50, like this one, which is adorable. 

Rent the Runway, Diane Von Furstenberg

 The website is located here:  http://renttherunway.com/.  If you’re not a current member of Rent the Runway, you can add your name to the waiting list.  It didn’t take too long to get approved for it, only a few weeks.