Howard, who was beginning to decline when I took this photo of him and his DW, Norma, passed away in 2014. This was the last time I saw him at a church event. In a conversation with Norma (at the fellowship hour last Sunday) she said that she was still learning to adjust to being single. It is kind of like starting over--so I thought about that and remembered this photo when I needed one to go with the new kit "A Fresh Start", by HotFlashDesigns. I kind-a like the way it turned out. Hope you do too. TFL

Artistic Notes: (PhotoShop techniques)
The photo needed a little enhancement: I softened the background by blurring it slightly, darkened it slightly, and removed some of the color for a slightly grey effect; and I brightened the faces by putting extra light on them (easy to do by using a soft slow brush to add white directly onto a 50% grey overlay adjustment layer positioned immediately above the photo);
there is a similar striped rectangular frame in the kit, but I wanted a square one and I wanted rounded corners to surround my journal matte, so I made my own;
to add depth and texture to the journal matte I added these layer effects to the aqua blue rounded square: a PS stock parchment pattern overlay at 35% opaque, white inner glow (from center), and black inner shadow (zero distance from edges);
I put a black to white gradient overlay on the BG (just above the mono-color blended photo--reflected style at 45 degree angle) at 50% opacity to add light, shading and a feeling of depth to that layer;
I re-engineered the frame to elongate the sides without making them thicker (and so the opening exactly fits my cropped photo), and I softened the green just a bit;
I wanted more dots to be visible around the edges so I merged four copies together, tilted it 30 degrees, adjusted the sizing and cropped it to fit the page.