Before and After - Pt1

I am often asked what I do to images in Photoshop. You would be surprised at how many times I have clients joke "you must have done lots in photoshop to make me look so good" - it makes me smile. That is not why they look good...I just have lovely clients...and now I will prove it :)

I will do my "before and afters" in a series of posts so I don't overwhelm you...although what I do isn't rocket science. I hope that through my posts you can get some handy hints of how to make your photos look a little better as your photographic journey continues...or that you will just find it interesting to know what I do. :)

The world of photoshop is a wonderful amazing place where you can make changes to images to your hearts content - From changes in color, to adding backgrounds... Every photographer develops his/her own style of editing and thus people tend to 'buy in' to their photographers style of photographing and editing.

My style...I guess I would describe it as NATURAL FRESH LIGHT - I like clients to think I didn't do anything at all...even though I did. :) But in saying that, I don't do a lot.

I must also start with saying this post may disappoint some of you. I have mentioned before that good photography starts NOT with the camera, but with the photographer - he/she is in charge of finding the right light, the right setting, adjusting the camera settings (ISO, shutter speed etc), placing the people so they look the best...a photo taken from the wrong angle or where people have not been placed correctly to flatter their body type can not ever be changed in photoshop.

I am not implying for a second that I always get it right...I don't...but I do strive to do the best I can in every session I do.

You will see in my post my SOOC (straight out of camera) shots - this is how it was in RAW. And then you will see the image I provided for the client. With the description of what I did, I will try to include as much information and tutorials so you can try some of these techniques with your own photos.

Oooo, this is probably a good time to let you know that I always shoot in RAW (rather than jpeg). The reason behind this is simple - Jpegs are compressed images and fine details are lost. So when you shoot in jpeg mode, you already lose some of the light/image quality by simply clicking your shutter. By shooting in RAW, if you made a blunder with lighting (over or under exposing) you can adjust it better in RAW without compromising the image quality.

Okay...enough of a plug for RAW images. Try it - you may never go back :)




Okay here goes for my first post - I am a little nervous to show you all what I shot as it is...but here goes anyway.

This was a HS senior. I liked him being against the brick wall but I felt like it was dull (in real life it was dull too). You can see my exposure was pretty spot on and the DOF (depth of field) was done in camera with my single point of focus being on his eyes (see photographer doing her job). This created that lovely blurring in the background.

First if all I added a little light by increasing the overall mid-tones (done in 'adjustment layers').

Next I opened up an extra layer and adjusted the contrast of the layer. By doing so, his face became dark so I masked it off his skin, hat and shirt.

I opened yet another layer and increased the adjustment layer using the blues and opened yet another layer and increased the reds. Again I masked the red/blue off his face so it would stay natural in color.

Then I used the 'burn tool' (at 10% opacity) to darken the wall closest to me to really punch that color.

I used the dodge tool to brighten the midtones of his eyes (10% brush) to give his eyes a tiny sparkle (be careful with this as it can look zombieish if you go too far)

Next I zoomed right in and removed blemishes (which he didn't have many of for a HS guy) using my cloning tool

Last of all I used portraiture to smooth his skin. I use a PS plugin called portraiture to soften skin. BUT - I warn you that it must be used at 20-30% as used at 100% makes people look like a plastic doll. Used at a low capacity it smooths skin only and always mask it off hair (including eyebrows).

Edit time - about 5 mins. :)

So there you go. What do you think?