i have taken some head shots of my daughter and would like to try that white washed out look that you see in some of the magazines where the eyes, eyebrows, some of the nose, and lips are the prominent features i have tried various things but with little success. thanks in advance

Okay, here's a way to cheat. Create a canvas the same size as your image. Give it a white background. Copy and paste two copies of your image on top of it. You'll have three layers. Make the top layer invisible for the moment. activate the layer that shows. Go to layer style/blending options and adjust the opacity until you get it as washed out looking as you like. Make your top layer visible again, select and delete everything you don't want to have the saturation you want (eyes, lips, etc.) then adjust the transparency layer on that one until it looks right to you.

Talent is God's gift to you. Using it is your gift to God.

can you post an example?

well, I don't use it very often, but this is something like

Talent is God's gift to you. Using it is your gift to God.

Not sure what "washed out" means...could mean a lot of different things, like the one I did of my wife.

In this one, I made sure the photo was over exposed (but not too much) and then worked on contrast and saturation till I got what I wanted. If you have a photo done with a "normal" exposure, you should be able to do something similar.

Of course, as I said, not sure what you meant by washed out.

One other thought...if I may be so bold...post one of the images and let someone "tinker" with it and then if you like what you have seen, then they can tell you how they did it. Then you can use that info and "tinker" with it just the way you like.

great idea
;)
retrocity

thanks for your replys i will give them a try, derek

I guess I whould do it this way: If you have already an image you want to "confirm", make a new layer, apply white gradient and use on it filter-blur-motion_blur. Then merge down layers with satisfactionable opacity :-)