Color Balance and Levels to make your images POP!!

At the salon the other day, one of the stylist did a beautiful balayage and curled the clients hair into jaw dropping ringlets. I was in awe and couldn't stop staring as her hair was transformed from beautiful to breathtaking. When the last curl was set and the last mist of hair spray settled, I asked if I could snap a picture.

Unfortunately the lighting in the salon is lousy and even though I set the white balance on the camera, the picture; taken in front of a cream colored wall, just didn't do justice to what the naked eye could see. I offered to edit it in Photoshop and got permission to use the before and after in this post.

Here is the before and after as well as a quick Photoshop tutorial so you can make your photographs pop too.

Tutorial:
If you think that the colors are off you can start by adding a color balance adjustment layer. Follow the arrows in the image below to help you find and add the color balance adjustment layer.

You will get a pop up window that looks like the following (Depending on what Photoshop version you're running. I'm working with CS6)

You can see that I adjusted the levels to the following +22, -3, +19. Play around with it and find the best setting for the image your working with. If the colors don't look to yellow or green or purple, you can skip this step and move on to the levels adjustment layer. Find it the same way, just click on levels instead of color balance.

You will get a pop up window like the following:

You will have a graph in the center of the pop up with a black arrow, gray arrow and white arrow. (Note that this is not what my red arrows are pointing to, we will get to that.) If the black arrow isn't followed by a spike, drag it to the right until it is just touching the beginning of the first spike. Do the same with the white arrow, except drag it left until it touches the beginning of the first spike. You will be able to see the adjustments in your photo while your making them, so don't worry. Now, if your think your photo needs farther adjustments, you can click on the black dropper, note the top red arrow, and click in your photo on something that is black or should be a true black. You can also adjust for white, note the bottom red arrow. You can see in the before/after below that I used the white dropper and clicked on the cream colored wall to make it white. It's ok to play because there is always the undo button.

Follow these easy steps to make your pictures pop and follow my blog for more mini Photoshop tutorials.

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Making Spinach Bullets for Smoothies

My daughter and I have a smoothie almost every morning for breakfast. I am always looking for ways to make morning easier and spinach bullets are one of those things.

Smoothies are pretty quick to make and are packed with tons of vitamins and essential nutrients. Even though smoothies only take a couple of minutes to make, spinach bullets assure that I always have fresh spinach and make my smoothies cool and delicious.

We use the baby bullet to make our spinach bullets (hence the name), but you could use a ice cube tray to get the same result.

First, you'll need spinach that is washed and ready to eat.

Next, pack each cavity as full as you can with spinach. Each bullet cavity holds approximately 30 spinach leaves.   (Yes, I counted because I was curious.)

We discovered that with each bullet hole crammed with  spinach the over doesn't snap on, so we use several binder clips to hold it on. Next freeze your bullets over night.

The result? Frozen spinach "bullets" that are the perfect size for popping in your morning smoothie. Just toss one or two in with your other smoothie ingredients and blend. (We pop our bullets our and have them in a Ziploc bag in the freezer.) It couldn't be easier.

I would love to know if you try spinach bullets and if they make your smoothie experience a better one.