Help with PP on some portraits

[theantiquetiger]

I took some outdoor portraits of these kids yesterday and I am very happy with my captures, but my limited PP skills have me at a loss. I am looking for a soft light, dreamy look. Nothing too extreme, just softer.

This is just an example of the shots (not the best of the bunch).

Can some of show me a good video or set by step PP on achieving this. All images are set here. The ones I like, the kids are sittin further back, on the ground, no brick in for ground and mostly brick in BG.

I have CS5

[=https://flic.kr/p/q8y8C4][/url]shelly8 by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

[Marko]

Well done.
to me it's extremely cute as is.... I wouldn't touch it.

[edbayani11]

Not sure if this is what you meant.
Dupe layer and apply gaussian blur, reduce opacity. add another layer and fill with very light pink and change blend mode to soft light. adjust opacity. I like the expression of the boy in the bg.

[theantiquetiger]

Thanks Ed, that's what I had in mind. Granted she went ahead and had me print them the way I edited them, but I have some individual and pairs she haven't printed yet.

[theantiquetiger]

Here is one I did using some of your directions above. I didn't do the pink fill, i couldn't get it right.

Here it is before the edit

cc2b by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

Here is the soft edit

cc2f by Theantiquetiger, on Flickr

[Runmonty]

I am probably a bit late here, but personally I find Edbayani's edit a little strong. (unusual for me as personally I think Ed's processing is normally outstanding).

I think I have mentioned Nik software to you in the past for B & W processing (silver efex), but the color efex module has a "glamour glow" preset that you may like. The image below was a single click adjustment (although it can be fine-tuned or made stronger etc as required). The colour may need some tweaking though.