Someone is speaking to me.

My own experience has taught me this: If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured it may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed, races won or lasting happiness achieved. - Maurice Chevalier

Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like someone is speaking to me...most of the time through Dave.

I have read or heard variations on this same theme for the past 2 weeks, just about daily. Very interesting....very interesting indeed....

see what I mean...

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objects must first be overcome. - Samuel Johnson

Live your life so that your children can tell their children that you not only stand for something wonderful – you acted on it. - Dan Zadra - Okay so this one doesn't quite fit as well as the others...

Wordless Wednesday

Why do bad things happen?

In all my pondering of destiny and fate, I have to think about the bad things. The times when children die. When a mother gets very sick. When a father is killed in an accident. So many bad things happen every day, so many times I ask WHY?!

Like the children who have died a few days after being adopted by their parents. Or when the adopted child dies within a few months of being home. What is the point of that I ask? WHY did that have to happen?

I've learned that I am someone who wants to KNOW that something good has come out of a bad situation, and sometimes I just can not see it.

Just like one of my IVF friends whose 5 years struggle to have a child ended in a full-term still born baby due to a knot in a cord. The baby passed away around 4 hours prior to the scheduled c-section, the decision on the parents and the doctor's part NOT to do a c-section on Thursday caused that child to die. In her case a new "cause" was created, a new "project" so to speak. The Baby James Project *I hope all my friends who are pregnant READ that link*

If you want to the full story, there is a link on there to James' story, and the photo essay of his birth (as a photographer the Mom had another photographer friend schedule to photo the birth)....so be prepared if you view the photo slideshow. It's powerful, and emotional, and very very tastefully done...and yet another reason WHY Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep is such a great organization.

In her case, I was able to SEE the good eventually. I know her, and she has mentioned that some people have emailed her and told her that finding out about kick counting SAVED their child. She has mentioned it's hard to hear, but each time she does it gets easier to deal with Baby James' death.

But what about when it seems senseless? Such as another friend's child born with Trisomy 18? Or my own nephew who was born at 23 weeks and did not survive? What was the point?

I think this is one of those unanswerable questions.

A good weekend

a bit full, but good.

2 baseball games, ice cream treat out with the kids, sprinkler playing weather, swinging on the playset with full belly giggles, bicycle riding, playing made up games with the neighborhood kids, playing games with the family around the breakfast table, watching a television show as a family, and a trip to the zoo.

It was declared a GOOD weekend by all.







zoo photos and such will be posted at a later date...I'm still worn out from the weekend!

I want to go back

WHY? Because I want to see this face again....


The look of pure JOY in the thrill of getting to ride a carousel in Fantasyland with the Castle nearby.

*taken by Dh with the point and shoot, complete with Katie fingerprint smudges on the lens...if you look VERY carefully you will spot ME in the background as well as JM.

Photo Friday - Disney Photos part 1

Taking a break from Photoshop this week to tackle special circumstances of Disney Photos. In particular that "bugaboo" of locations that EVERYONE always takes...a child on the carousel. These first ones are all STRAIGHT OUT OF CAMERA...so please, take it for what it's worth there. ;)

REMEMBER to right click photos to see them larger!!

Does THIS look familiar...and if you notice I was actually TRYING for a good photo here. Yes I goof too.

WHY did this happen? The camera's in camera metering system is what I relied on (and yes I shot manual). The in camera metering mode READ the scene and evaluated the scene and determined what the correct exposure needed to be to bring it to a "neutral grey 18 if all pixels were in black and white"

So, given the first image and knowing this above is Neutral Grey18, well you can SEE how the camera evaluated the scene and made it that. Problem is the FACES are what I wanted.

IN many modern point and shoot digital cameras there is a piece of software, called "Facial Recognition" that would "see" these faces and the in camera meter would evaluate the scene with the faces taken into consideration. I, however, using a dslr must use my own brain for facial recognition....and after a long day at Disney my brain wasn't working so well.

I can learn from mistakes (which I did after LOOKING at the image immediately to see if had caught both of them smiling....oops...). As you can see, I had varying levels of success IN CAMERA.



Further proof I was ON VACATION and just a Mom...not a photographer. JM has golden posts growing out of his head...so "perfect" it could be crown? whooops!





What can you do to help keep this from happening?

1-use a fill flash - force your flash on, and the camera will evaluate for the scene and "flash" as well to light up the subjects in the foreground. This will keep your nice pretty blue skies in the background as well.

2- Notice that when I shot back in toward the carousel, as opposed to the open sky, I had less of a problem. ;) Change your angle of shooting to a darker background.

3 - shoot in RAW format and then fix post capture in photoshop as I did HERE:



There is a trade off of course - NOISE when you have to bring up the exposure so very much. Less sharpness to the image when you have to bring it up so very much. But the ones with minor adjustments look pretty good. :)



that "crown" is even brighter now...thank goodness it's not a "great" face shot so it probably won't get printed for the wall. ;)




notice this was the VERY dark Samuel - there is a blue tint that I could not get out, and weird lighting in the hair. Sometimes, well things are just too far gone to try and save!



Here is what the save of the first photo looks like....


and because I can't help it....a basic edited photo of Katie in COLOR and then in B&W. Not sure which I like better!

Hummy? Hungry!

Katie was sitting in the room with me today, when she started "talking to herself" as she is sometimes wont to do. She started off saying "I hungry!"

Then she answered herself, "hummy?"

"NOT hummy, HUNGRY!"

and back and forth complete with giggles. It seems she was debating with herself whether or not hungry was the right word or if hummy was the right word. She settled on hungry of course. ;)

Go forth and SAVE an orphan!

I truly can NOT stand that phrase. Saving a person? I know it's personal choice, much like the use of GOTCHA, but for me..."Saving an orphan" is somewhat offensive. We didn't SAVE Katie. We didn't SAVE an orphan. We adopted a child. We promised to love her and cherish her, but we didn't save her. The phrase "Saving an Orphan" is more what I consider the thought of "I'm going to rescue this poor helpless little child who has no future except to grow up in this awful orphanage never knowing love and growing up to live in this country where the water is bad, the air quality stinks, they can't vacation to Disney, or wear nice clothes...and where they will never be able to know G*d. What a terrible life they would have had if it were not for me doing this wonderful work of adoption."

When I was growing up, we heard "Save the Whales!" and "SAVE the planet!" and "Save the Purple Spotted Beetle Bugs!" (Okay the last isn't real, but it seemed like everything we heard was save this thing or that thing.) I don't think of Katie in those terms. I don't think there was anything particularly terrible about her circumstances in China. I think, had she grown up in China, she would have led a happy life. I truly believe that. Even if she had only lived in the orphanage, who am I to say that her life there would have been worse than the life she has with us? Sure, knowing the love of a family is great. But in the end, will the love we give her be enough in her mind to overcome all that she has lost. I like to think it will, but only Katie will be able to answer that. Do material possessions matter? Do trips to fun places? Do all the opportunities we can give her? Or could it have been a matter of since she knew no other life? Only Katie can answer that question when she is older. I hope she feels like she has had a GOOD life, a HAPPY life despite being adopted, despite being removed from her birth culture, and despite all the wrong things we as her parents will possibly do in the future (like deny her that brand new car for her 16th birthday). So, really, it is only Katie who can possibly answer if our adoption of her was a good thing, or not. While I think it is, that is only from MY viewpoint. Not hers. When I think of all she lost I feel sad for her. I think about the things I take for granted, things that she will not...and I feel saddened by that because I can NOT fix it, or make it better. It is what it is, and I can only support Katie in any feelings she has about it, I can only support her in endeavors to learn things that should have been hers by birthright (and yes, that means we as a family WILL be taking Mandarin in the future).

So, did I SAVE her?

No. I changed the course of her life. I believe, after choices were made by her parents in China through their own free will (and well, governmental pressures as well), that she was then placed on a course for US to be able to adopt her and change HER life. Do I think it was for the better? I like to think we are able to give her a better life, but it is not necessarily true and again only Katie can answer that question for herself. Only Katie can answer whether or not her life was bettered by being adopted into an American family.

I think that there is a reason she was chosen to be OUR daughter, just like I believe that our sons were given to us to be our sons. I believe that our children have a "destiny" to fulfill, but I believe at this point in time there are several paths, several destinies ahead. Each has a purpose. Perhaps all are not wonderful, but I believe each path has a purpose. I try very hard NOT to put any pressure on my kids to be anything but HAPPY. If becoming a rocket scientist or an astronaut will make them happy, then great. But if they'll be happy becoming a gardener at the botanical gardens, then great too. However, they will all know that if being happy in their lives means still living with parents when they are 30, not working, and just playing video games or something...then...well...that is so not okay. ;)

I believe that G*d has a purpose for our lives, and He knows all the possible paths those lives will take. But I also believe that He has given us FREE WILL to choose those paths. It was through the CHOICES we made, CHOICES Katie's parents in China made, and CHOICES that were made on her behalf in China that led us to become family. I believe that had other choices been made, our daughter might not be the Katie we know and love today...but rather someone else equally special. I believe that we as her parents were chosen to be her parents because we are able to give/do/be something to her that she will need in the future (just the same as I believe for our boys).

I stumble across so many people who vehemently deny that they "Saved an Orphan" but in reading and talking to them, it is apparent to me that perhaps they actually think in those terms. They make comments about how much better their lives are here with them, how much of a brighter future they have now, how lucky the child is that the parents decided to ADOPT...and it all leaves me feeling kind of sick inside. They talk in front of their daughters (and sons!) about how wonderful of people they are because they went to China and adopted those poor unfortunate souls who live in orphanages. Their negativity toward China in front of their children astounds me. I truly think, that had Katie stayed in China that she probably would have had a wonderful life as well. There is a reason she became our daughter, and I am looking forward to living life with her and watching her become the person she will become.

Easter Photos - 1 week late...of course!

3 things I think of when I see these...

1 - wow that's some BRIGHT sunshine
2 - new sod has not grown together yet...and I so can not wait for the grass to 'green' up
3 - Look at all that dirt! (BTW Kia, that's the dirt the worms do NOT like...and I finally saw one this week when I moves some of that sod around to create a flower bed on top of that hard as a rock reddish-orange dirt)

That thing beside the road that says Moo...

If you have been reading my blog, or heard stories about my family, for any length of time you probably remember Katie's first viewing of Finding Nemo. That should have given you a clue that 1) Katie does lots of cute things in the van, and 2) she can be a wee bit stubborn (no clue WHERE she got that trait!). ;)

As we drive down the road, Katie notices things outside quite frequently. One is water.

"Wook Momma...Wah-der!!"

If I do not respond appropriately, then she repeats that phrase only louder until I respond, "Yes, Katie that's water." This happens everytime she sees water. Every. Time.

Living where we do, we have lots of cows near the roads. I am sure that we pass one cow field at least every trip out of the house. Katie is also in love with horses.

So, we're driving down the road when I hear...

"Wook Momma, horsh-es."

"No, Katie those are cows. Cows say MOOOO!"

"Mooooo."

"Yes Katie cows say MOOO."

I thought we were good. I really did. Until I heard this.


"Wook Momma, horsh-es. MOOOOOOOO"

"No, Katie. Those are COWS. Cows say MOOO. Horses say neigh."

"Horsh-es. MOOOOOO. Neh-ah"

"No Katie, Cows say Moo. Horses say niegh."

and it repeats until we pass by water at which point we exclaim over the fact that there is a pond, or a puddle of water, or heck even a billboard with a swimming pool on it.

Every single time we pass by cows, she calls them horses and they say Mooo. So, imagine my excitement when I finally passed by some horses! I said, "Look Katie, there are HORSES in that field." I even slowed down so she could see. Katie said, "Ooh COWS! Neeeeeigh!!!"

Long discussion about them being horses ensued until we drove past some water.

She's been doing this for at least 3 months now. She keeps insisting that Cows say Neigh and Horses say Moo. She has the right sound for the right animal...just the wrong names. She insists she is correct (it's like trying to convince her the sky is blue when she thinks it's green).

So, if you are with our family and Katie says "Wook! Horsh-es!!!! MOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Just please, go with it. Or else you'll be in a discussion with her until you happen to pass by water. ;)

oh...and in case you were wondering, 9 months later Nemo is still her favorite movie, we watch at least 2 times a week. Samuel is quoting entire sections now without the movie on, we can all say the lines WITH the movie as well. We no longer have to exclaim over the fish...thankfully. Oh, and it IS possible to wear a DVD out. Just saying....

Photography & Photoshop Friday

I'm showing you 100% straight out of the camera here....oh please don't run and hide.


Okay, this image was shot in Katie's bedroom with her in her crib (she had just woken up, and this is actually NOT a pout, but a "sniffing" of her nose which was slightly runny). Her bedroom window by the crib has sunlight streaming in it, but it's not hitting her directly. Notice the reflection in her eyes.

WHY is it pink? Well, the lights were off in her room and she has pink curtains hanging up that a lot of the sunlight was filtering through. I could have custom white balanced this and shot in jpg mode. It takes a few seconds to do, but as I shoot in raw I chose to not do that. If you open it up in a new window (right click on it), you will see that it's fairly in focus in the eyes but the crib behind her is out of focus (and really her ears are out of focus as well). It was shot slightly underexposed, but not too bad off (again in RAW format I can correct that).

So, I open in Adobe Camera RAW (Lightroom does similar, but I'm more familiar with ACR).


I adjust the color balance (the top two sliders on the right). I do this by playing with them until I get something that looks correct and "real life" to me. Then I adjust the exposure using the sliders below those top 2 - yes ALL those sliders fine tune the exposure for me. RIGHT CLICK and open in a new window/tab for closer viewing. :)

Isn't that MUCH better than "pink" pouty face girl?

closer photo of the ending sliders.


When I'm happy with those adjustments I open the image into Photoshop...

I look at the image at 100% - to see how much "noise" I am dealing with.


This one had more than I like, so I ran a filter I purchased - Noiseware.


Then I run a few actions I have bought or created or gathered. One is called "defog" and it's easy to create yourself. Open up the Unsharp Mask Filter, the settings are Amount 20%, Radius 60 pixels, Threshold 0. I use it on EVERY SINGLE PHOTO, thus I created an action that runs that setting. It basically removes the "fog" that is an artifact of every digital image, slightly sharpens the image. This image I also ran a 2nd action that gives layers for eye enhancement - on this one I sharpened and brightened her eyes bringing out the reflection of the window light.


Next I add a CURVES layer and a LEVELS layer - the Curves layer I play with the curve to get a slight S type curve (this one was backwards S. Levels layer I just play with it. Pay close attention so that you do not blow out the highlights and do not lose the details in the shadows. I give almost every single image both of these layers as well - with varying degrees of "opacity" applied.


I then go in and burn and dodge different areas to get the final effect I want...again it's a "playing" kind of thing. Both my burn and dodge tools are set to no more than 21% exposure on the midtones - thus I'm making TINY corrections. The key to great photoshop is tiny corrections that build on each other with very very "feathered" brushes.


My final editing step is to get to 200% magnification and fix all those little "blemishes" I see...such as nose issues, sleepy things in the face, or snot smears on the face.


Final product - with square crop because I felt it just called for it.

Thankful

So thankful Spring is HERE!!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Making assumptions

Assumptions are the death of possibilities. - James Mapes

We are a Christian family. We attend church on Sunday AND Wednesday for most of the year. We've even been known to attend on Sunday nights and special event nights on other nights of the week. The kids have all grown up attending church, and it's easy to assume that they will be Christian. That they will live a Christian life.

But you know, they might not be. I hope they are, but it's THEIR decision. It's not an easy decision either, to choose that path. I happen to believe it's an easy way of life, I enjoy it. But my children may feel differently.

Will I love them any less if they choose differently? Will I think of them differently if they turn from their roots in Christianity?

I can tell you, with having a child on the cusp of making a profession of faith, that not interfering...not pushing that profession has been one of the hardest things I have done as a Christian. I want him to make the choice I did, but if I push it then it might not be HIS choice, and that would truly be the worst thing to have happen.

All I can do is LOVE my child. No matter what choices he or she makes.

If I assume that my child will be a Christian, then what does that assumption do to them...what pressure does that place on them? Will they think, perhaps, if I don't make this choice then Mom won't love me. The choice to become a Christian then, isn't defined by anything but whether or not they are going to keep Mom's love. That is so not right, so I'm trying NOT to assume that my children will become Christians....but it's so hard because I want them to so badly.

Just like I ASSUME my children will attend college. They may not. I assume they will most likely become Enginerds like their father, or at least have something to do in the science fields...but what IF they don't? What pressure does it put on them to choose a career if I've told them all their lives that they should be an Enginerd? What if their true "calling" is to be more...oh...less "geeky" or something? Will I embrace that as much? Will they feel comfortable enough exploring THOSE possibilities?

What if I assume they will do something GREAT, and they define greatness differently than I'm defining it? What if they do not live up to their own definition of what it means to be something great? What then?

What exactly do I WANT for my children? I want for them to be HAPPY. I want for them to be PRODUCTIVE CITIZENS (meaning that while I think they'd be happy doing nothing but play video games, I want them to actually do something more productive). I want them LOVE others, especially their siblings. I want them to know that we LOVE them, unconditionally and completely....even if they only want to play video games all day long.

"I could never homeschool my kids!"

Why do I find this question, well, frankly abhorrent?

I'm not doing anything grand, which the "I could never homeschool my kids" sounds like. Nor am I some kind of weirdo (the other way it could be taken). Nor am I hero. I'm just a Mom. Doing what she feels is best for HER kids. To me, it's much like being praised for adopting Katie, I didn't do anything special.

If it's because the person says they don't have the patience. Well, if you've known me at all, you KNOW I'm not a patient person. Not ONE single bit. In fact it's a trait I'm working on, and working on, and working on, and working....

If it's because the person is not sure they could teach their children (and said children are oh 4 and 6), then I have to wonder if they can read. ;) Well, not really, but teaching your own children for the early Elementary is VASTLY different than teaching a roomful of kids for early Elementary grades. It's more an extension of what you are doing already as a parent. Now, if their children are older and you are getting into some of that complicated math, or hitting the part of science where you are having to dissect things, or you are in the part of language arts where you having to oh..."dissect" a sentence (what was that called again?). Yeah, I worry about that too. But honestly, every single place I'm worried about being "deficient" there is another family in our cover school who has that covered in a BIG way.

If it's because the person is not sure they could stand being around their kids all the time. I will probably look at them a little funny. It's an honest answer, but if their kids are considered mostly normal...it's also a little sad if you really think about what they are saying. But trust me, the "no break from the kids" is one of the negatives I list.

If it's because the parent is not organized, then yeah...they probably could not homeschool very well in a state that requires LOTS of records. I struggle with that aspect a lot.

How we fell into homeschooling...

When I was pg with JM, way back over a decade ago, I had never heard of homeschooling...but well, really I had. See there were 2 kids who were "taught by Mom at home" during my high school years. But, they were kind of "weird." Then, right after JM was born, someone on the parenting forum I was on mentioned homeschooling.

I looked into it, and thought it sounded interesting. I mentioned it to Dh, and he thought it was weird. I shelved the idea for 3 years, but I would read anything that I came across online when I stumbled upon it. When JM was finally ready for pre-school, I mentioned it to Dh again because I could see that JM was not going to exactly thrive in a traditional school environment. Dh had a "compromise" for me.

I enroll JM in a 3 day a week Mother's Day out preschool program (or did I do the two day a week?), and I "homeschooled" the other days. The catch was that I had to homeschool a Kindergarten curriculum because I would need to keep him 1 year ahead in case we sent him back to a public school, so he'd have a year to "acclimate" without having to learn new subjects. He THRIVED with the academics, didn't do so well with the preschool program due to the things I was worried about (he didn't want to sit still at all).

So, we took the leap for Kindergarten, and I picked up a 1st grade curriculum (he was there academically). It was Sonlight Core1 with Singapore Math and A Reason for Writing. I think that was all I did that year. Anyway, we liked it okay and continued with the same plan for his 1st grade year (except everything was for 2nd grade level). We were really enjoying homeschooling, and JM took his first standardized test. I had noticed something...but I attempted to play it off because I loved Singapore Math so well due to my background in Math.

But it showed in testing. While JM KNEW the mental math from Singapore Math and he could figure out how to arrive at an answer, he did NOT know the facts at all. He was struggling with things in math because he'd learn something for the time it was shown in Singapore Math, then it would not be touched on again for quite awhile (like months)...and we'd struggle to re-learn something I knew he'd known previously. It was frustrating to us both, and caused many tears on both our parts.

I loved Singapore Math, and it was so hard to admit that it was NOT working for JM. Not at all. I did some more research, and thought we should try Horizons Math. I was appalled at where JM tested on their preliminary tests. While he was okay in some areas, he was behind in others. It was a struggle for us, but we chose to go with a 3rd grade curriculum for the next year and we did LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of Math catchup work.

I also found out about a lack of knowledge in Language Arts, the Sonlight curriculum was just not working for us in their Language arts. That one was probably more my doing than the math as I had not concentrated as hard on making him learn phonics rules, grammar rules, and I did not make him write 8 sentences a day as a 1st grader!

It was so hard playing this "catch-up" for his 2nd grade year. But the test scores showed our hard work had paid off. Luckily. We were moving on to 3rd grade for JM and Samuel was entering Pre-K.

JM got a 4th grade curriculum, with supplemental stuff here and there...it was all through Alpha Omega and some we liked and some we didn't like. Samuel we picked up Alpha Omega's Horizon's program for Kindergarten. It was more "workbook" than I had done with JM, but I was more distracted too with Katie's referral, traveling to China and then settling in....we finished that year somehow...and made the decision for this year.

JM was using 5th grade curriculum for LA, science, Bible, and History. Math was Horizons 4b/5a (we have still been plagued by the Singapore Math non-cyclical learning pattern and have had to work very hard on a few things), and Handwriting was 4th grade.

Samuel used the Horizon's 1st grade curriculum this year.

Both have done fairly well. JM has struggled here and there with things, and we are finally seeing his writing skills catch up to where we would like them to be. His math is improving greatly...and Samuel, well, he is definitely ready for that 2nd grade curriculum.

Next year...I think we're returning to Sonlight. I've just missed the history too much. Bible for JM will be the same curriculum he is using now. Bible for Samuel will be from Sonlight. LA for both will continue with what we are using now. Math will continue with what we are using now (JM will be 5b/6a while Samuel will be 2a/2b). The only thing I'm trying to figure out is Science. Samuel might do Sonlight while JM does his current curriculum but for 6th grade.

Over the next couple of weeks though I will re-explore all the possibilities available to us for curriculum. I will research and see if there is anything that might possibly be a better fit for our kids.

Friday Photoshop Fun!

We went this past week to visit the botanical garden, and the big dogwood tree that is blooming. I love dogwoods, and the reason why is there was a HUGE dogwood tree next to the house I basically grew up in. I would say it was close to the size of this one. I remember seeing it bloom every spring, getting my photo taken with it, etc. EVERY SPRING. Good memories. Anyway I had heard the trees were in "peak bloom" and I knew a BIG STORM was coming that night and it had been raining or cool most of the week. I took a chance and ran the kids out to the gardens to try and do just snapshots of them. When I post the boys you'll see what I mean. One day I'll go back with the reflector and other equipment and concentrate on "portrait" quality photos. Although I got a few of them that I like. :)



Knowing how slowly dogwoods grow, and how fragile in those early years, this one (and the one from my childhood) have to be VERY old.

But back to the photoshop portion of this post. I took a series of photos of Katie, close up. Here are 2 of them. To see any of these larger, right click and open in a new tab or window. Your photoshop may not look like mine. I use Adobe CS4, but if you use Adobe products many of the tools "look" similar, and I think all photoshop products have layers capabilities. If you are using something else, then your tools may look different but you should have the same ones.




Basic edits done to them, but both adorable...just not "quite right" to me. The one with the better "face" is missing one of the pigtails due to the wind. The one with both pigtails showing, the face while cute isn't "just right" either. What to do? Well...here's what I'm going to show you on this post. I first open both in photoshop.

Then I copy and paste the one with BOTH pigtails over the photo of the one missing one. I also copy the background layer of the photo with the one missing the pigtail. I have 3 layers now - background, background copy, and Layer1 (which is the photo of both pigtails). If you don't know how to copy the background, one way is to copy and paste it on itself.



YES, there are 3 layers there. I never make "permanent" changes to the original layer so that I can always go back to it and start over. :)



On the top layer (which is the one with the 2nd pigtail) I change the layer mode to DIFFERENCE to see what is "different" between the two. When things are aligned properly the image is all black. Using the move/change size tool (mine looks like and arrow/pointer with a plus sign beside it...it's at the TOP of the far left tool bar in this photo), I rotate and MOVE the photo until I get the nose and eyes aligned. Then I change the layer mode back to normal (and sometimes lower opacity) until I tweak what I want into "perfect" alignment.





On the top layer that is now properly aligned, I add a LAYER MASK. What is WHITE in the layer mask shows the layer it is on. What is black on the layer mask blocks what is on that layer and shows what is beneath it. (Don't worry, more to come on layer masks I promise.)



Then, to "hide" all of that top layer, I use the paint bucket tool and paint the entire layer mask BLACK. If you make a mistake and paint the entire "photo" area black then just undo and click on the WHITE layer mask box to make it the active portion of the layer.


Then, I select the brush tool with the layer box active, and "paint" white over the black where the missing pigtail is located until I have it all the way "back" in the photo but the rest of that layer is still "blocked"...

I typically will work on areas that I'm "bringing back" (also known as "moving") zoomed in, usually close to 100%. I've been known to go to 200% or 300% depending on the blending that needs to be done. This was easy as the background around it was "blurred" due to bokeh. I had a bit of trouble around the face, and I had to make sure the face lines in the photo matched up.

After I had the "pigtail" in the photo as I wanted, and didn't see any harsh lines or uneven "face lines" anywhere. I made sure I was still on the top layer, then I merged it down into the 2nd layer.

Notice, there is no more layer mask.

I'm now ready to do the edits I would do to "fix" it up for printing. This includes - sharpening, a curves layer, a levels layer, then I enhance the eyes (sharpen those a bit more, brighten them), and then I fix the "spots" on the photo that are distracting...such as the leftover food mess. ;) Then I crop how I want it printed (or leave it and crop in the ordering program).





Could I have done this in Lightroom? Not that I know of. Lightroom IS powerful though, and does some really cool things. However it is more of a "proofing solution" not a full editing program. Lightroom is where I do the basic edits - exposure corrections, color corrections, etc. Honestly, I do many of those in Adobe Bridge. Then I do the full edits in Photoshop. :)