Just another quick little “how to” blog using some screen shots.

A couple of people have asked for a more in-depth blog about fast ways to edit a portrait. This is my “quick” way.  Its not meant to be a high-end beauty retouch, but a nice pleasing way to finish a photo in an interesting way.  Screen shots of the editing steps,  so maybe it might be a little easier to keep track of the process for newbie people.

My stunning model is Verena from Zurich.

Make up was done by Simone Zbinden @ www.bperfect.ch/

This was shot @  Bryon Paul McCartne’ s Viewfinder Studio.

Step One | Stamp and Clone.

Start to tidy up the skin, hair lines.

As always, Step one is to get your photo. The shot I am using for this shoot is of Verena from Zurich. She has the most amazing eyes and lips. These are my key elements and we shall try and highlight them in the development process. Once again, we shall make use of the Duotone method and a simple plug in.

The first thing that you wont notice, is that at no stage is this photo going to be cropped in the development stage. Crop in camera, every time. Digital development is not there to rescue broken photos, its for finishing good ones.

I have started this step by duplicating the background layer, placing above, then selecting the stamp tool, (key-cut – s ). Zoom nice and close and just do some tidying work to the larger distracting elements, hair lines and perfect the makeup. Use your own artist view to decide how smooth and polished you wan the skin and overall look.

These two photo show the before and after of my stamp and cloned effects. I think of this stage as prep work for the later smoothing of the skin.

Step Two – The Skin.

A quick plugin and mask.

To push the skin-work a little more, and to save time, I am using a plug in to get a nice effect on the skin. There are many good plug-ins and tools that you can buy and lots of them are very good. I like the toys from Imagenomic. Plug-ins can be very powerful when used in the correct way.

Create a new merged layer of your clone and stamped , smoother layer and open up this layer in your plug in. ( you can download the plug in for a 30 day free sample ) When using editing modes and filters such as these I prefer to push the effects hard then pull this back in the layer modes and opacity. For example. In the plug in , you will notice I have all the settings on max and gone for a really barbie doll like look. At the moment for this step I am only looking at the skin, not the eyes or hair or any other detail. The only thing that matters is the skin. I am trying to a get a really flawless skin effect.

Once I have my new super skin layer, apply the effect and Photoshop will come back to the main screen, your new layer should be in the top. Add a layer mask to the new layer and with the paint brush, remove all the of the new layer that you don’t want, thus, just leaving the effected layer visible over the skin. ( little pro tip – use the mask reveal mode to fine tune your mask , press the “\” button ). you will notice that you can balance out and create some nice depth just using this method. If you don’t want to use the plug in method. There are a number of other ways to get this look in a dew steps. This is not going to be a high end beauty shot, so lets not worry to much.

I do think the most simple way is the best way as a rule. After creating my new layer and creating my layer mask to go with it ( using a soft brush and soft edges ) , my file looks like the screen shot below.

Step Three – The Sharpen.

The Unsharpen sharpen.

Create the photo, develop, then color is my work flow, it does confuse me why people tend to sharpen there photos as a last step ?. After I have my new lovely skin, I want to sharpen up those tiny details to really make the photo “pop”. There are many many ways to sharpen a photo, all have there uses. I like to use the Unsharp tool.

Sharpening filters emphasize the edges in the image, or the differences between adjacent light and dark sample points in an image. The generic Sharpen or Sharpen More filters are often for graphics, and are less suitable for color photographic images. However, filters do vary, the name “Sharpen” is vague and is not always very descriptive, it is hard to say what they do. But the Unsharp Mask is where the action is for photographs, the standard tool. It offers the necessary greater control. Its my weapon of choice 90% of the time. The Unsharp Mask filter has parameters that allow it to have variable effect, to primarily affect the strong edges in the image, and to specifically exclude the smoother low-contrast areas. It is NOT a simple on/off choice. It is these parameters that make the USM so powerful and useful for photographic images. The Photoshop USM tool is shown, and Elements USM is the same.

One thing to remember when adding your sharpening filters, well a few things,

• DONT over sharpen.

• Create a new layer and apply using Layer Masks.

• DONT sharpen your whole photo.

• PULL OUT KEY ELEMENTS.

• The fastest way to make a rubbish photo is the sharpen tool.

Step Four – Add some color.

Add some creative lighting.

Create another new layer by merging all the layers into one file. Sometimes, if I have done a lot of complex layer masks I might make a new file to keep my file simple. Some people might say that’s silly as then I can not go back to every step. But then again.. each to there own. So you have a new layer. Ready for a little bit of color touch up. Eyes and lips are the key elements I wish to show. So these are going to have a tweak to make them stand out a little. To color them I am going to add a Hue/Sat layer and change the color using the values. See photo below. Remember, your only looking at the color of the eyes when adding your color. Using another layer mask you will let this layer come though only in the places you want it to. See the other example photo. The red coloring shows the parts of the photo that wont let that section of the layer show. I have also used this effect to color the flowers a little.

his sample screen shot shows all my new color layers with the layer masks on each layer. If you want to keep your PSD history nice and clean, maybe use a group to set these layers away from the other layers. I am not that good at keeping a tidy work flow, but if you are going to have a couple of people working on one photo, its nice to tag and name layers, ie: eye color mask, Lips mask etc.

Step Four – Duotone.

add an overtone.

The Next step is also a very simple and cool trick, The use of a pre-made Duotone color filter. (There is a blog about duotones on my site). Just think of them as color mapped filters to match your photo. Its like putting a mono-color version of your photo over the color version. You can just use a simple color filter, like the photo filter or make a color by just filling a layer. Have a play about with different ways and you will find what works for you. To create your own toned layer, duplicate your newly created final layer into a NEW DOCUMENT. Convert in to Grey-scale then convert in to the Duotone mode. Sorry if I just jump a little here, but select your colors using the ink selection process, or select one of the many pre-made tones. Have a look at the Triones, monotones maybe. The aim is to get an interesting color that will fit over your color version to give some extra elements of interest. Have a play with this section.

I have gone for a nice purple – Grey tone range. To add the color layer onto the color file, just drop and drop the layer on the top of your layer stack. Something important to think about is the layer blending mode in which you want to use something to let your combine in a nice way, for this example the Lighten Blend mode was used.

At this stage I am pretty happy with my almost finished photograph, but I still feel its a little flat, I have used a yellow color filter to over lay the whole photograph to just add some punch back in. This also works with the story and content of the photo. Once again. Add the filter using Layer Masks.

And done ! A very quick easy simple way to edit a photo. At this stage I would save a PSD version if I am to edit up a set of the photos to ensure my steps and settings are saved, then save 2 other versions. One CYMK converted TIFF file , just in-case I need a print ready file, then make a smaller 1000px high Jpeg version with credits on for the internet.  my final version as some added level changes and a few other changes. Enjoy !