dcw03 10 portrait effects

8/6/2019 DCW03 10 Portrait Effects

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ow many times during our lives do we

quietly cringe at photos of ourselves taken by

friends and family? Even if youre blessed

with unnaturally good looks, our guess is probably quiteoften! Whether the offending snaps were taken

on holiday, on a night out or while you were just

pottering about at home its always the same story:

If only the lighting had been more flattering, or Id

gotten a better nights sleep, or I wasnt having such a

bad hair day... Perhaps more saddening is that many

peoples professionally taken graduation pictures,

business photos or even wedding photos remain a

constant source of disappointment.

Well, the truth is it simply doesnt have to be that

way. Armed with a copy of Photoshop and a bit of

expert know-how you can create portraits of your

nearest and dearest that make them look their best, or

even better than they really do!

Bring out the bestWith a few subtle modifications to colour saturation,

light balance and focusing, you can really bring out the

natural vibrancy and beauty of your subjects eyes, lips,

skin and hair. Then, introducing a new background

and/or other complementary visual elements to give

your portrait an even more personal touch.

Working with a decent photograph in the first place

will reduce the amount and complexity of the editing

required, so its well worth taking the time to shoot it

as professionally as possible. In the following steps we

take you through the entire process, from the initial

taking of the portrait and the subsequent editing,

correcting, retouching and sharpening, right through to

introducing a new textured background and other

finishing touches.

IMAGE FILES

The main image is on your

cover CD/DVD in the Photoshop

project folder. Other elementsare available from

dcmag.co.uk/dandelion

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PROJECT

KEY DETAILS

ONOUR DISC

SKILLLEVEL

TIMETO COMPLETE

HOURS

2

2

2

2

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Discover the techniques and tricks used by cutting-edge Photoshop professionals to make their models look out of this world

PHOTOSHOP PORTRAIT EFFECTS AND TECHNIQUES

Lighting the modelThis portrait was shot at The Walcot Studio in

Bath, but Paul O'Connor insists that you dont

need a professional setup to achieve results like this. "We

tried three simple steps to get this pleasing shot. First the

studio lighting was done using one Bowens flashhead

with a 'beauty dish' attached. The light was placed in front

and slightly above the model who was about 8ft from the

wall to achieve sufficient 'fall-off' of focus and lighting.

A Creating extreme fall-offThe second consideration was the shallowdepth of field needed to create the extreme

'fall-off' which is so popular amongst portrait

photographers at the moment. I used a 100mm f2 Canon

lens. Shooting wide-open ensured that the plane of focus

was very narrow, and anything forward of or behind the

models eyes falls off nicely, concentrating the viewers

attention on her gaze.

B A change of planWe shot Louise on a very hot day, and theadded heat of the studio lights was causing

her to perspire, which in turn left shine on her forehead.

The answer to the problem was simple sit our hot

model in the cool doorway and shoot her using natural

light. There the sun was bouncing off the wall opposite

which is painted off white, flooding the doorway with the

most beautiful, soft, even light.

C

8 8

THANK YOUTO LOUISE AT PLUTO MODELSAND ALSO PAUL HAMES ATWALCOT STUDIOS, BATH

HOW WE SHOTTHE ORIGINALPHOTOGRAPHPAUL OCONNORPHOTOGRAPHER

H

THEPEOPLEISSU

[email protected]

THEPEOPLEISSUE

PATCH TOOLFIND IT on the toolbarUSE IT to touch up blemishes

and imperfections

MASTER IT by experimenting

with the Tool options

bar settings

TOOL SCHOOL

Create theultimate portrait
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Learn exactly howcolour channels canbe used to removecolour casts and otherundesirable elements

COLOURCHANNELS

The professional techniques used here havedramatically improved the original portrait.

Here are two key tools which well be using:

Discover the quickest,most effective wayuse this powerful toolto touch up portraits

THE PATCHTOOLTechniques used

to create this image


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SWAP TO CMYK MODEOn this page, we will look at

colour correction in both RGB and

CMYK modes. Its a good idea to

fix things up a bit in RGB before

changing to CMYK as once youve

performed the conversion, extra

RGB details are lost forever.

STAGE1

TOP TIP The lens used to take the original portrait was designed for portraiture, but equally good results can be achieved with any standard 50mm lens at f1.8

060 DIGITAL CAMERAMAGAZINE

2

ENHANCE THE TONAL RANGEOpen the image girlraw.JPG from this months

disc. Choose proof colours from the view

menu. Now go to the Levels window. The histogram

needs adjusting as the lighter end of the image is a little

dull. Move right hand triangle to the left so it reads 228

and move the middle triangle so that it reads 0.89.

01 GENERAL COLOUR CORRECTIONThe image now looks a little brighter and hasa better range of tones. However, as it stands,

the highlights look a little cold. Go to the Curves window

by hitting CTRL + M and choose the blue channel. Click on

the left hand point of the curve and type 4 in the output

to give a yellow wash to the highlights.

02 CONVERT THE IMAGE TO CMYKClick on View, Proof Setup, Working CMYK tosee how the CMYK image will look when

converted ready for outputting to print. Click Image, Mode,

CMYK. The colours will change but our initial editing

means that you will end up with a better CMYK image

than if you had changed the raw image straight to CMYK.

03

VIEWING THE CHANNELSChoose Windows, Channels. Click the black eye

icon and drag up so the cyan icon is showing.

Drag down to view only magenta, then yellow then

black. Cyan should be around 30 percent; magenta less

than yellow and black sparse in the facial details.

05


06 INFOCUSTAKING COLOUR READINGS

Correcting colours using Curves

DELVING INTO CMYKIn the Preferences menu, choose Display,

Cursors. Make sure the Colour Channel inColour is off. In most cases its better to view colour

channels in black and white image so that tints can be

better accessed and compared to other channels.

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FINAL COLOUR CORRECTION

By viewing an images individual colour

channels, colour problems can easily be spotted

and corrected. Click on the CMYK eye icon again.

Choose Windows, Info and select the eye dropper

tool. Use it to measure the readings on the

forehead there is around five per cent Cyan and

THE CURVES PALETTE

To fix this, bring up the Curves palette again by

hitting CTRL + Mand go to Cyan. Click on the 75

per cent mark to lock the darker cyan tones.

Now click again at 25 per cent and drag down to

18 per cent to remove some Cyan. The colour

now looks much better.

EXPERT TIP0

THE CYAN CHANNELIt is possible by copying the cyan

channel to a new document ,

working on it with the clone tool

and pasting it back into the CMYKfile again, to remove veins, black

eyes and other blemishes that are

otherwise hard to remove.

CHRIS STOCKERSPHOTOSHOPTIPS


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PERFECT SKINOver the next eight steps we will

look at smoothing out and

enhancing the skin. Most people

dont notice this has been done

and just assume that the subject

was having a good day when the

photo was taken!

STAGE2 2

HEALING HANDSNow lets work on the lower parts of the face.

Create a selection as before and float theimage over the top using CTRL + J. This time, choose the

healing brush tool and sample and clone as you would

with the regular clone tool. Working on a floating layer

lets you remove unwanted changes using the Eraser tool.

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CLONE OUT LIP LINESZoom into the mouth and create a new layer,

setting the layer blend mode to lighten. Using

the Clone tool, spray the darker lines out of the lips and

with a soft brush, dab the teeth to soften the gap. To

remove it entirely would change the character of our

models face too much.

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TAKING OUT STRAY HAIRSStart by removing errant hairs from the

forehead. Select the rectangular marquee tool,

make a selection around the hair and then hit CTRL + J. This

will float a duplicate of the selection onto another layer.

Choose the patch tool (set to destination). Make a selection

to the right of the hair and drag left to remove the hair.

07 MORE PATCH TOOL WORKThen flatten the image. Carry on tidying up theeyebrows, lines, stray hairs and so on. Making

selections is the best way to work with the Patch tool;

reduce the opacity of the layer to make the cloning effect

less harsh. For the bottom half of the face we will use a

different technique to paint out blemishes.

08 ADVANCED CLONINGCreate a new empty layer. Choose lighten asthe blend mode so that only the dark lines

around the eyes will be removed. Now select the Clone

tool and choose use all layers. This clones onto a layer

above. Use a brush of around 45 pixels to brush out the

lines. Then reduce the layer opacity to a natural level.

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USINGLAYERS IN

EXPERT TIP0

ALWAYS CLONEUSING LAYERSCreating a new blank layer andthen cloning from the image

below onto the blank layer above

in a godsend. Once you try it you

will never go back to cloning on

single layers again!

CHRIS STOCKERSPHOTOSHOP TIPS

4 COLOUR CHANNELSPaint Shop Pro 7/8 enables advanced colour control in the formof Hue and Saturation, Curves, Levels and Channel Mixing

THE PATCH TOOLPaint Shop Pro offers the same filter.Choose Effects, Blur, Gaussian Blur

GAUSSIAN BLURThe Clone Brush and Scratch Remover are thenearest tools to the Photoshop Patch tool

USINGPAINT SH0PPRO TIPS

12 INFOCUSWORKING WITH CHANNELS

Nosing aheadGETTING RID OF A RUDDY NOSE

The nose is a bit warm at the sides. Hit CTRL + 2

and then CTRL + 3 to look at the channels.

Go into Quick Mask mode (hit Q) and paint

over the magenta part of the nose with a soft

brush and then come out of quick mask by

pressing Q again.

THE SELECTION

You should be left with a selection around the

nose. If its the wrong way around, press CTRL +

SHIFT + I. Finally, choose Channel Mixer from the

Layers palette and adjust magenta to +32 and

yellow to +55.

EXPLAINED

THE HEALING BRUSHNotice that when working with thehealing brush tool that there are a

set of options from the mode menu

along the top bar, these include

replace, multiply, screen, darken,

lighten, colour and luminosity. Trythem out for various effects.

?


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TOP TIP Natural daylight is one thing we all have free access to, so use it to maximum advantage when shooting portraits. 99% of top pros do whenever they can get away with it

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ADVANCED CHANNEL MIXERIn the last step we reduced the Magenta but

at the same time put what was on the Yellow

channel into the Magenta channel. Its as if we had

copied and pasted the channel; however, this method is

far less destructive and allows us to retain some of the

original Magenta channel.

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RENDERING ARTWORK ON THE FLYOur dandelion seeds were specially created in

a 3D program. When the 3D model was

complete it was put into a particle emitter which

duplicated the seeds and fired them out. Check out the

expert tip, top-left, for more information.

17 FLESHING OUT THE NUMBERSDuplicate the layer. Hit CTRL + T and click withthe control key held down, choose Flip

Horizontal from the menu. Flesh out the numbers by

duplicating a few more times. Try scaling and throwing

some out of focus by Gaussian blurring the layer.

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SHARPEN THE EYESThe eyes in the photo are not quite sharp, but it

can be fixed quite easily. Go to quick mask (hitQ) and paint over the eyes. Press Q again to leave quick

mask with a soft selection and choose unsharp mask. Apply

a value of 125 and a threshold of 4 to resharpen the eyes.

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CHANGE THE BACKGROUND COLOURCreate a new layer and click Adjustments, Hue

and Saturation, Colourize. Drag the Hue slider

to 113 to dye the whole image green (choose soft light

as the blend mode). Paint with black paint onto the built-

in Hue mask to remove the green from the hair and skin.

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STAGE3 2

FINISHING TOUCHESWeve subtly refined the image

and now its time to add in

some new elements, to makethe portrait something even

more special.

EXPERT TIP0

WORKING IN 3DLearning a 3D program can be

useful for creating effects and

adding details that you may nothave to hand. Most like Cinema

4D save layer files with masks in

Photoshop format. There are even

some free ones online



16 INFOCUS INTRODUCING NEW ELEMENTSSeeds of changeMAKING THE DANDELION SEEDS MOVE

Weve chosen to add some floating dandelion

seeds to the image to create interest and a

feeling of depth. You can use anything you like

to achieve the same effect take a photo of it

and then drag it to the image were working on,

choosing screen as the blending mode.

ADD DANDELIONS

Then go to motion blur and apply a blur of 14 to

give the dandelion seeds a feeling of

movement. Apply the dandelions to the front

and back of the image. Increase the blur value

for those at the back in order to enhance the

sensation of depth.


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4 Which lens?You dont need an expensive array of lenses. Most situations can be covered by 'oldfaithful', the standard lens. Dont ignore it, its probably the best lens in your box!

THE NEXT STEPHalf the process is knowing when to

stop editing the image. For our mainimage, weve stopped at step 21,

but theres no reason why you

should have to. Here are three more

effects for you to try out. Whether or

not the effects work depends on theoriginal image and, of course, your

artistic judgement...

STAGE4 2

FURTHERINFORMATION

EXPERT TIP0

FIXING OVER-SATURATED IMAGESIf you have an image of a modelthats over saturated and lacks

highlight detail as a result of being

underexposed, then playing

around with the colour settings

may not help. To fix this problem,make up a black and white

layer using the Channel Mixer,

then set its blend mode to SoftLight, and take down the opacity

of the layer until it looks moreevenly balanced.


ADDING BACKGROUND TEXTUREFor the background, take a photo of say, a

rough wall or a sheet of rusty metal. Drag it

onto the image and re-scale it to fit. Choose the Overlay

blend mode and add a layer mask by clicking the Add

Layer Mask icon. Now remove the texture from the girls

face and hair by painting over them with black paint.

19 BLUR THE BACKGROUNDClick the new background layer icon. When youare erasing the mask with the paintbrush, the

mask the icon to the right of the eye changes to a mask,

but icon changes to a paint brush, which tells you that you

are painting onto the image. With the image selected

apply a Gaussian blur of 16 and click OK.

20 GIVE THE IMAGE A GLOWDuplicate the image by dragging it to thepeeling page icon. Add a Gaussian blur of 16

pixels then change the blend mode to Soft Light, setting

the opacity to 71 percent. This will give the image a soft

glow other blend modes and opacity settings may work

better for other images so do experiment.

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NOW FOR SOME COOL EFFECTSCreate a duotone image using the Gradient

map from the Layer palette. Click the gradientto edit it, and click the left icon to make it active. Then

click the colour dialogue and enter a value of 100 cyan

and 50 magenta. On the left, enter 0 into the CMYK field.

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A BLACK AND WHITE VERSIONIn the Channel Mixer click Monochrome. This

lets you make a monotone image by mixing

the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Here weve chosen

Cyan + 42, Magenta +24, Yellow +42 and Black+32. View

just the Black channel to see how it will work in grayscale.

23

ADDING DETAIL INTOINDIVIDUAL CHANNELSAs well as removing unwanted colourelements (for example such as those

that cause blotchy legs) from

individual channels, the Channel Mixer

can actually be used to add colourinformation into individual colour

channels that are a bit short on detail,

thus creating a more dynamic result.

IN DETAIL3

24 INFOCUS GETTING ARTISTIC

Experiment with painterly effectsUSING PHOTOSHOPS ARTISTIC FILTERS

Convert the image back to RGB to access the

Artistic filters. Here we have applied the Water-

colour filter to the image with a Brush Detail

level of 10, Shadow of 0 and Texture of 1.

PAINT ON TEXTURE

Another way to create a painted feel is to paint

a texture onto paper, then scan it and apply it to

the image. Experiment with different Blend

Modes and opacity levels to fine tune the affect.

dcw03 10 portrait effects

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