"Edit Me" Photo Challenge

So I stumbled across a photo challenge blog called "Edit Me". A picture is posted weekly, and the idea is to let everyone take a whack at editing the photo as they see fit. Since I'm trying to teach myself Photoshop (fits and starts), this sounds like a fun activity and an opportunity to learn editing approaches and techniques from other bloggers and photographers. Here's the original photo to be edited. Cute little guy... let's call him "Bubba" (no offense, Mom! He just looks like a little bruiser to me!!).

There were two things about Bubba's image that jumped out at me right away: [1] His face is in the shadows and could use a little light and [2] Bubba is looking left, but the photo is too cramped on the left... no space for Bubba to look. So here's my first edit.

I used Photoshop to lighten the face, add a little saturation for flesh-tone/pink color on the face, and slightly darken the harsh light on the upper left side of the sofa.  The second edit was just a crop to put more space on the left (the direction Bubba is looking). Not bad... I like it better than the original.

Bubba reminds me a little of the Gerber Baby from the '50s, and I like his overalls! This got the creative juices flowing a little, and I decided I wanted to give Bubba an old-time '50s look.  I used a texture edit to try to create an old photo feel.  I excluded the face from the texture. Not 100% happy with this, as it looks a little washed out and perhaps lost some detail.  If I wanted to invest more time, I would go back and try different textures.

I probably should have stopped here, but I thought it might look cool to have mirror images of Bubba, and position them so they are looking at each other (I know, over the top, right?). In Photoshop you can horizontally flip an image, which is a nice feature. Do other programs have this option?  Anyway, here's what Bubba's flipped image looks like.

For my final edit, I used the "place" function to position both images on a picture of a book. The book is the background layer, and the two Bubbas are placed on top.  Lastly, I blended the images using "color burn", and edited the face so the texture didn't discolor it.  I did a final edit in camera raw just to adjust darkness and clarity. It's a little dark, but overall I think I like the effect. You can (hopefully) imagine this being an old post card or magazine add from the '50s. Bubba, thanks for letting me play around with your image. You're a good sport!!

To see how others have edited Bubba, 

please check out Edit Me weekly photo challenge.