Touch of Light/Touch of Darkness

Don't you hate when the flash wrecks your photos? People the front are too exposed and people in the back are too dark. I also find it annoying when some people are so pale and others tan...it can make a photograph contrast too much. MCP Actions has a great solution to this. They offer a free action called "Touch of Light/Touch of Darkness." You can see in the bottom photo that the groom was a little dark being in the back. The father and bride skin color was pretty good, so what I wanted to do was try and even the others out to their levels. Mom was a little pale/washed out compared to the groom or her face makeup was attracted to the flash (this can happen a lot as well). I ran MCP's action on my pre-edited photo. I took my brush (with white selected as the color - although I think it may do this automatically for you), and brushed over the groom's face, hair and neck and did not touch his shirt. Then I selected the Touch of Darkness layer and painted over the mother's neck, face and hair to give her more contrast. You will find that most times this is TOO abrupt of a change, but that's the beauty of layers...you can adjust the levels. So I took the grooms "light" layer from 100% to about 80%. Mom actually didn't need as much adjusting, but I this can depend on the opacity setting of your brush as well, so don't go by my levels...go by how it looks to you. Then I flattened all my layers (3) and ran my favorite action/filter on top and it looks much better! Did I mention that action is FREE? What are you waiting for...go grab it!