Light retouching - Create a clear portrait

A while ago I had a tutorial on how to create Crystal clear photos. Now I am (sort of) continuing that with a tutorial on light retouching of a portrait to give it just a little extra and stand out a bit.

In this tutorial I am using layers in photoshop. It could be done with many tools and even though layers are not strictly required I prefer using layers since they give me the option to go back and manipulate the effect later and adjust the intensity of each layer individually. For those reasons it is always a good idea to save your final result as a photoshop file to preserve the layers even if you "only" intend to use a jpg version online.

After the school photo day I took a couple of portraits of Emma. In this tutorial I will use one of those to illustrate :-)

(this is where I should have a note about always capture the photo correct in camera instead of "fixing" it in photoshop... but I am sure you heard that enough).

The initial photo is here. It is a little under exposed and the contrast isn't as high as I would like it... but those are things for the digital darkroom (photoshop).



First off I want to adjust the brightness of the overall photo a bit. To be able to determine the amount needed and ensuring it doesn't result in something too bright it's a good idea to check the histogram.
I know the histogram can seem mighty tricky, but in fact it is "just" a view of the range of light that can be shown in the photo and the intensity of light for each shade (this is very simplified... don't shoot me). In short the left side is the dark/black side and the right side is the light/white. You don't want the histogram to fall over either side.



Add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer from the adjustment layer menu and increase the brightness. In this example I ended with a value of 20 that moved the histogram a little more to the right (more light/white) without pushing over the side.



Next add a levels adjustment layer (in the same way as I did in the crystal clear photos tutorial) and line up the black and white arrows with the start and end of the histogram.



So far so good :-)



Now this is a portrait and for portraits I want to draw attention to the eyes and let them capture the viewers attention. The next steps are kind of some old tricks but even though it's some of the oldies they still work out pretty good.

Making a selection can be done in many ways. Some more refined than others. Here is one way of doing it that works even though it may not be the most precise method (a wacom tablet is a great help here).

Start by selecting the background layer and pick the Lasso tool from the tool box and do a rough selection of the eyes (hint: for the second eye hold down the shift key while making the selction to add to the selction).



Usually I get a selection that is hmm let's call it slightly uneven... I refine the selection by switching to the quick mask mode (shortcut key: Q or the button on the bottom of the toolbar). This will turn everything that has not been selected red or well any color that has been set for the quick mask overlay color.



Zoom in (shortcut key: CTRL + +) on the selection and pick a paint brush in a size smaller than the selection. Now color with white to add to the selection (the overlay color disappear) and with black to remove from the selection (add overlay color).



Once done, exit quick mask mode (using the button or shortcut key: Q) and copy the content of the selection to a new layer using "Layer via copy" found in the menu Layer->New or simply use the shortcut keys: CTRL + J.



Since this is the eyes we have copied name the layer "eyes" (double click the layer name in the layer window or with "Layer Options" from the layer menu).



First up is to brighten the iris a little bit. To do this select the dodge tool from the toolbox.



Change the settings to "Midtones" and the opacity to about 50% (this will slowly add the effect). Change the size of the dodge tool to be a little bit smaller than the width of the iris and paint around the center of the eye without hitting the edge of the iris.



Next select the burn tool from the toolbox (it is on the same menu as the dodge tool).



Change the setting for the burn tool to "Shadows" and again an exposure around 50%.
With a small burn tool size burn the edge of the iris and with a bigger tip burn the center of the eye to make it all black (or very close).



Switch back to the dodge tool and change the setting to "Highlights". With a well sized tip brighten the whites in the eyes.



Now is the time where the advantage of layers come handy. This effect may be a little bit too much when zooming out (shortcut keys: CTRL + -) and we can easily fix that by adjusting the opasity of the layer in layer window. Here I reduced the opacity to 30% to make it a subtle effect.



Next step is the hair and a little bit of sharpening. Select the background layer in the layer window (this to ensure content is copied from the background layer) and do a rough selection of the hair. Then switch to the quick mask mode to refine the selection if needed.



This step will be a subtle effect so if a little bit too much is selected it will under normal circumstances not break the photo or even be visible in the final result.



Select the new layer and just for good order let's name the layer "hair".



Ensure the hair layer is selected and apply the "Unsharp Mask..." from the Filter->Sharpen menu. For sharpen effect I think it is important to be very carefull and not oversharpen. If a portrait is over sharpened there will be small halos around edges in the photo. One way of getting close to a decent sharpening is to set the amount to the max percentage (now you should see the halos) and decrease the Radius until the halos start to go away. Now lower the amount to somewhere in the range 50%-80%.



In this example the skin is very fine and there isn't much to do. The skin can be tricky and many times over processing the skin in a portrait can make it seem like it is made of plastic (we don't like that... right?).
Select the background layer and make a selection of the skin (like in previous steps).



Copy the content to a new layer (CTRL + J) and let's name this one "Skin".



The toolbox have a couple of healing tools. For smaller area I prefer using the "Spot healing brush tool" and the "healing brush tool" or "Patch tool" for medium to large area.
In this example I only have to deal with a little leftover food around the mouth (When zooming in on the photo you will see this with almost any child... trust me... any... even yours if you have some).
Using the "Spot healing brush tool" just paint over the spot you want to fix and it is gone. Sometimes it can go wrong but this is where a quick undo (shortcut keys: CTRL + Z) and retry can do the trick.



At the eye there is a little loose hair that's easily removed with the healing tool.



Here is the final result with a before and after.

Before

After

I hope you liked the tutorial and please do feel free to drop a comment in case you have any questions or such :-)

Enhance and pop color

So I made a promise... To make another tutorial ;-) it's been a while and I found a few photos that some people liked so here is the first of the new tutorials.

The photo I am using in this tutorial is of a leave in a stream from the fall time in the mountains. I originally picked this one and wanted the red color to really stand out. So not only did I want to make the color pop out of the photo but also enhance the saturation to make it really stand out.

The leave being in a stream partially covered by water helped in creating some glossy reflections which I enhanced.

So here goes the tutorial starting out with a somewhat ordinary photo.



When I first started out with photoshop I created changes directly in the photo (background layer). This worked out ok but as some knows it does make changes to the actual pixels and changing parameters later is rather difficult (i.e. impossible).
Instead of making changes in the background layer I will be using adjustment layers and for this particular one where I want to make multiple adjustment layers but limit them to part of the photo I will create them in a group (don't worry it's not that difficult).

To create a layers group simple click the folder icon in the layers palette



Before adding anything else make sure that the new group is selected in the layers palette. This will ensure that the new adjustment layers you are creating end up inside the group.

In this particular photo I want to increase the brightness of my target area a little bit. To do that I am as the first step adding a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer to the group. With the group selected add the adjustment layer via the adjustment layer menu and apply the brightness needed for your photo. Here I increased brightness with a value of 35.



Next I want to add the color effect to my target area (the leaf). There are several ways to do this but here is one of them. As the first step I am adding a channel mixer layer (I know it sounds weird to do that to increase saturation but hang in there for a sec).
Here you will have to adjust the values depending on the color that's in your photo. For this particular case I have the red color I want to pop out and some green.
First off I set a check mark in 'Monochrome' (this I guess is the "weird" part) and adjust the output to boost my colors with the following settings: red: 190% and green: 90%.
This will most likely blow out everything in the photo so I adjust it to keep details in my target area by setting the constant to -20%.



As you can see there isn't really any colors popping anywhere... It's a very bright black and white but this is the point where... hmm... just go with it. It will be fine ;-)



To make the Channel Mixer layer pop the colors rather than turn everything black and white I am changing the blending mode of the layer to overlay. You do this by selecting the layer in the layers palette and select Overlay from the blend mode drop down.



And there you have it. Talk about colors that pop out in a sort of painterly way. It's kind of a weird way of doing it but I like the effect where the colors are not "just" boosted but the contrast and shades really get to play around and create a somewhat special look.



Chances are that the adjustment layers will "blow out" some areas of the photo as it is the case with my example here. Since my goal is to get the adjustment and color just for a small area I am not concerned with the actual color of other areas and can remove them.
To adjust the effect of the adjustment layers I am using a layer mask on the entire group. If you don't already have a layer mask on the group layer. Select the layer and click the "Add vector mask" icon in the layers palette.



Select the mask in the group layer and start painting (with the paint brush) black in the areas where you want to hide the effects.



After applying the mask to the group the photo is more balanced while still having the popping colors in the target area (the leaf).



To "convert" the photo to black and white I add yet another "Channel mixer" adjustment layer. Make sure the group layer is selected and click "Channel Mixer" from the add adjustment layer menu in the layers palette. This will add the adjustment layer above the group and make it independent of the mask applied to the group. Note alternatively you could use a "black & white" adjustment layer for this step.
The goal with this layer is to create a balanced black & white photo. The values used highly depend on the photo you are "converting". Start out by setting a check mark in the "Monochrome" check box and adjust values according to your photo.
For this particular photo I used the values: Red 56%, Green 38%, Blue 2% and a Constant -6%.



To get the target to show through the black & white conversion layer add a layer mask and color the target area black in the mask.
If you have a stylus this may be easier done as creating a mask with a mouse can be tricky at times.
You can start out by using the Lasso tool to make a selection around your target area and fine tuning it using the quick mask function and painting in your selection (make a loose selection with the lasso tool and press Q to switch to quick mask mode. With a brush paint black in the photo to add to the selection and white to subtract).
With a selection in your photo click the add vector mask in the layers palette and your mask is created based on the selection.



If your photo is still too bright or too dark you can add a Brightness/Contrast layer on top of the entire layers stack. This will adjust the brightness and contrast for the entire photo.
In this example I wanted to darken the entire composition a bit and increase the contrast. To do that I added a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer (with the top layer selected to ensure my new adjustment layer is on top) with the values: Brightness -15 and Contrast 10.



And now we are done. Below you can compare the before and after.

Before

After

Hope you liked the tutorial and please do feel free to drop a comment in case you have any questions or such :-)