It is my hope that you come back to the site to learn and grow, even if we’re not still updating — we should have an entire library of articles soon enough! I look to the future with hope, and thank you all for your understanding.

Today I write you with a sincere and heartfelt thank you for all you’ve done to make The Inspired Lens a success. I want to share with you why I will be shutting down the site.

Hosting a blog of inspiration is no small feat. Back in November, we told you we were shutting down before. Sariah had just discovered she was pregnant with number five (!!! eek! So excited!) and I, Sarah, had been tired for weeks. I took a long rest and evaluation period and Sariah and I started to go back to doing TIL on a more limited basis.

Fast forward to last week. I posted about a minor emergency that suddenly, isn’t so minor; an allergic reaction to yet another food that, 24 hours before, was just fine means that something is very, very wrong. To be frank, I’ve been dealing with a swiftly increasing number of food allergies over the last 18 months, and now it looks like it is an indicator that something may be wrong with my immune system. If you’ve ever had issues with your immune system, you know that stress and constant exhaustion doesn’t help. This means I must let TIL go – completely this time, because when I see the fan page or the website, I always feel like I should be working! – and I am crushed.

It’s not an easy task to let go, though I hope this, in some small way, explains the frequent absences and changes in direction as I tried to put as much energy as I could muster into TIL. I love you all so much, all the talent and wise words you’ve shared to the tutorials and freebies we all put so much time and effort into. Janelle, Angela, Amy, Kara and Sariah moved mountains in the work they did to make this site a success in just six short months, and it doesn’t feel good to have to say goodbye to all of this today, whether it’s a mutual decision or not.

I’d like to end by telling you that you, yourself, were the inspiration, always. Your creativity was astounding; coming up with new ideas, poses, processing. You pinned our tutorials and shared your own photos with others, and continue to get better with every shoot, every day. I can’t wait to watch as you grow, to be in awe of the pure talent I have gotten to see from all of you. Thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for everything.

Love and inspiration always,
Sarah

For seniors, they should dress for both the setting and their age while not going too trendy. That’s a tall order! Couple that with the reassurance that you’re going to get great pictures of them (and you can photoshop any blemishes out!), and some suggestions on your website or in your welcome package, and hopefully you’ll find well-dressed, excited seniors the day of the shoot. I’ve posted some current season suggestions below via polyvore in case you’re stuck!

Today marks the start of Senior Week here at TIL – we’re going to be featuring inspired senior sessions in posts throughout the week, along with interviews with senior shooters about posing, props; what to wear guides for this spring season and more.

Ready to share your senior sessions with us? Go up to the submissions tab at the top and follow the instructions! We’ll be doing multiple posts each day this week, so keep checking back for more inspiration – after all, spring (and the last days of senior year) are coming swiftly!

Now… for the challenge winner.  We had some amazing entries and each one was unique and beautiful, but we chose this one by Kristine Freed Photography

Winning edit by Kristine Freed Photography

Make sure you watch next week for another challenge!  Have a wonderful and safe weekend TIL’ers!

I’m excited to share a new twist on our weekly shares. Instead of sharing your faves this week, we’re going to have a photo play competition! Up first is a photo from Sariah:

Isn’t her son a cutie? You can edit this photo any way you like! To enter it into the competition:

1. Edit and save the photo. You can download it by right clicking and selecting save.

2. Note the steps you took and/or actions you used to edit so you can share these.

3. Share in the forums! You can create a free account right now to share with us, and you’ll want to go to the Photo Plays forum (under Sharing our Shots) after joining.

The top three will be published on Friday on the blog, with a special badge for winners. Can’t wait to see what you’ve got!

We’ll take this photo:

and straighten the horizon some to this:

So first of all, I want to say that this photo wasn’t that crooked and this method is best for photos that just need a slight adjustment.  You’ll see why.

First step:  Find your ruler tool as shown below.

With the ruler tool, draw a line on the horizon line (the real horizon).  It doesn’t have to be a long line.

Then go to Image>Image Rotation>Arbitrary and click OK in the box that pops up.  You don’t need to make any adjustments to it at all.

This is what happens after you click OK…  (this is why I said the smaller the adjustment the better. )

After that I crop out the white areas and call it good.  Hope this helps  Happy Monday!!

Scroll down to the bottom to see our announcement after the photos – it’s a BIG one!

Thank you SO much to all our participants!

Now… are you ready to find out the big news? Well, it’s big… and I think I’ve certainly teased you all enough about it!

When I went on hiatus from TIL, I knew I wanted to gather some big improvements as to what to do with the site, and this was the idea that truly came together. We’re launching an easy-to-use forum section to our website – and right now, we’re offering a free 30 day trial of the forums! 

Sign up, introduce yourself and let’s get posting together!

Here is the photo I used  the action on today.  This is my son in the Boston Commons over the summer.

Before and After

With the action you will need to mask the “enhance browns” layer off of the skin using a soft black brush.  Then mask the “creamy skin” layer on to skin using a soft low opacity white brush.   That is it.  You can lower the opacity of the “enhance browns” layer if it is too strong as well.

Here’s couple from some great friends of mine and TIL.

Ali Shyrock Photography

Maddox Photography

And here is the action for you to try… Hope you love it!  (Click on the next line to download)
Enhanced Brown Tones | TIL freebie Photoshop action