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 :-)

Photos of smoke - post processing

More in this series:
- Photos of smoke studio setup and lighting
- Photos of smoke photo exhibit

Soo now you got a ton of smoke photos and they are all black and color less.
Here is the post processing step following the light setup and capture of the photos and this is where we do some modifications to the photos and make them stand out.

It hopefully is pretty easy to follow but otherwise just let me know and please ask if you got questions. I will make sure to get everything answered :-)

Here is a photo I will be using for the creation of a smoke photo or art smoke if you will :-)



The foundation

The first important thing to make sure of is that the background is black. Not just as in a pretty dark background but technically black with the RGB values 0, 0, 0.
To do this we need some reference points in the photo and those can be set using the color sampler (or just use the eye dropper and ctrl click instead of clicking).
In the toolbar locate the color sampler. It may be hidden but will be shown if you right click on the eye dropper.



Click on a couple of what should be black areas in the photo and notice how you now have the values for those points in info panel in the upper right hand corner. As I suspected there is a little hint (very little) as the RGB values are not 0,0,0 for the points I selected.



To adjust the tones in the photo add a curves adjustment layer either using the layers menu or click the half white, half black circle in the layers palette.



In the curves dialog click the lower left point and either use the arrow keys to tap the point right or use the mouse to drag it towards the right. It may be a little tricky but the goal here is to have the color sample values in the info panel go to the desired values of 0,0,0. Once completed you can brighten the smoke a little bit by selecting the point in the upper right hand corner and move it towards the left (using arrow keys or the mouse).



Now the photo should have the background black and the smoke standing out in white/gray tones.
Some smoke art photos don't have a black background but is presented as colorful waves on white. First step is to turn the background white which is easily done by inverting the photo. To do this and maintain flexibility add a invert adjustment layer from the layers menu or using the add adjustment layer button in the layers palette.



This will instantly turn the background white and the smoke comes out as dark on white instead of light on black. At this point you may want to make the smoke stand out a bit more by increasing the contrast. You can do this by moving the white point in the existing curves layer.
Double click on the curve icon in the layers palette and in the curves dialog box drag the white point (upper right hand corner or where ever you left it) more towards the left. This will increase the contrast and make the smoke stand out.



Now for a really neat trick and the reason why we are using adjustment layers instead of altering the photo.
Click the eye (effectively hiding the layer) next to the invert layer. Now you have white smoke on a black background. Clicking again will show the invert layer and you have black smoke on a white background. This is great to determine what looks best for your particular design.



Another factor when making smoke art is that smoke rises so most of your photos will reflect that fact. However sometimes wonderful things happen when you turn things sideways or even upside down. All of this can easily be done using the rotate canvas functions in the image menu.



For this one I decided to turn it side ways and well hmm that's an artistic decision soo... deal with it ;-)



Adding colors

Colors can be added to the smoke in different ways and no one way is the right or wrong way so try a couple of different ways and see what works best for you and your photos.

First up adding colors using a hue/saturation adjustment layer.
Add the adjustment layer by selecting it from the add adjustment layer menu in the layers palette.



First set a check mark in the colorize check box which tells photoshop that we want to add colors to the photo. Now you can easily adjust the color of the smoke and the intensity of the color by moving the handles in the dialog.
The really really neat thing is that since we made sure the background was technically black this isn't affected at all by the application of color :-)



Another option for adding color to the smoke is using a gradient map adjustment layer. Like the hue/saturation add the layer by selecting gradient map from the add adjustment layer menu in the layers palette.



Here you can select a gradient map that will fit your smoke photo even though selecting one of them can be a little tricky :-(



Depending on what you have loaded in the gradient map dialog you may see different gradient maps. To load a different set of gradient maps click the little arrow in the white round thingi ma bop in the dialogs upper right hand corner and select a different collection from the menu (at the bottom section).



Now selecting a gradient map will affect everything in the photo and can make it a bit weird. I know you can modify and even create your own gradient map but let's just keep it simple :-)
Click ok in the gradient map dialog to close it and change the gradient maps layer blend mode to color.



Now double click the half white, half black circle in the gradient map layer to reopen the dialog.



Once back in the gradient map dialog you can preview the map as you are selecting it.



A third way of coloring the smoke is to well just color it :-) I know I know...
Start by adding a empty layer to the layer stack clicking the new layer button in the layers palette.



Before doing anything else. Select the new layer and change the blend mode to color.



Select a soft brush (one of the fuzzy ones in the brush tip selector found in the top toolbar).



Pick a color and (after ensuring the new layer is the active in the layers palette) start painting on top of your smoke. Once again since the blend mode is set to color the white background isn't affected by the color.

For this one I selected a purple brush to color the edges and a blue for the rest.



Look what happens when I disable the invert adjustment layer (hide the layer by clicking the eye). On this one my coloring came out a bit too strong but I selected the coloring layer and lowered the opacity to 65% which lessened the effect.




More in this series:
- Photos of smoke studio setup and lighting
- Photos of smoke photo exhibit