The other side of the lens

I am not often in pictures, which to be frank, I am not that sad about. Once a year though we take our beloved Christmas photo. This year we had put it off until last night, and boy, we should of given ourselves more time...If it wasn't the lighting not cooperating, it was the dog trying to eat the sign, or one of us had crazy eyes/faces ect...It took us about 2 hours and the full life of charged battery, but I think one of these will do...

I edited these photo's in my photoshop program. I am trying not to lean so much on iPhoto, so I have been doing hours of training trying to figure out how to use the spiderweb of editing software that photoshop is. I'm not sure I can really tell you what I did to achieve these finished products. One thing I did learn though, is that it is very hard to adjust color to match skin tones when you have a very pale person, me, sitting next to a naturally tan person, Brad. After about 3 hours of editing these I am somewhat happy with the outcome although I can visibly see the difference of hue in each picture. Please enjoy them none-the-less, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!