Facebook Fan Question

This question comes from facebook fan: Hopes Touch:Magazines make only certain "types" of people look good when photographed. How do you make everyone irrespective of size, race etc look good in pictures? What's your secret? 

The best secret is being able to capture emotion.  Taking the picture when you see light in someones eyes from a smile or a laugh....oh and of course there is always photoshop (shhh...don't tell anyone!) Lol!  Lets look at an example....Sorry Ashley, since you are my sister, I get dibs on your pics :)

So this looks like a pretty good pic, but it needs some adjustments... (Note: click on the pics to see larger version)

First you want to crop the photo so your subject is the focus, not the background...

Then you want to get rid of any blemishes...yes that includes the small lipstick mark on Desmonds face :)

Next we smooth the skin using the clone tool on 30%

Now lets add some highlights to the skin, using the dodge tool on 10%

Now its my favorite part...the eyes :) (This one would take too long to explain, so I will save it for another post)

Now lets make some minor adjustments to color...then we are done :)  

Photoshop color and eye tutorial

This is an old post from my personal blog from when I was using Photoshop 7, but at least you can get the idea on how to do the steps.


Here is the BEFORE

And

Here is the AFTER
















 The steps I used are:

• Dodged the eyes
• Took the eyedropper and color matched the darkest part of the outside of the eye and filled in the spots that were not as dark to help the eyes stand out.
• I then used the magic wand and selected the eyes and hit sharpen more under filter once.
• I then used the magic wand and selected the eyes and the background and the blue on the shirt.
• I went to "Select" and choose inverse
• I then went to "Image" and choose hue/saturation and desaturated to black and white (this kept the color where I picked with the magic wand and turned everything else black and white).
• I then added a layer by hitting the "alt" key and add new layer on the layers tool box.
• Under that it pulls up another menu and I choose overlay and checked the box fill with overlay...etc
• I then choose the eyedropper again and picked a lighter shade of blue on the picture.
• I then choose the paint brush and put the opacity to 50% or higher.
• I then made the brush a large circle and went over the parts of the black and white that I wanted to add a little blue to..i.e. in the top right hand corner.
• Then I put the opacity to 15% and made the brush small and went over the eyes with a light blue from the eyes using the eye dropper again.
• To get the color back in the checks and lips I put the opacity to 10-15% and the flow down to around 9% and picked out a pink and went over the areas of the face I wanted to add color to.
  
• I then flattened the layers and took the blur tool and blurred the edges of the background that were a little rough with the black and white.
• Then saved it! :)

PhotoShop Vintage, Actions, and Texture

I used the directions on iheartfaces.com for getting a vintage photo, then added a few more steps.

First I added a red photofilter and dropped the opacity to my liking.  I then used the eyebright action from

Coffee Shop blog  to brighten the eyes a little.  I then added a texture from

Deviant Art and put it on overlay 20%,

flattened the image...done:)

How to make the eyes brighter in Photoshop

1. Make a duplicate layer under the layers tab.
2. Burn: move down to 10% under shadows and burn the dark part of the outside ring around the eye.
3. Dodge: the color part of the eye.
4. Select the eye and under filters hit "sharpen more" once
5. under image, go to adjustments, replace color, select the color of the eye that you want to enhance and increase the saturation.
6. Adjust opacity on the layer to your liking and flatten image.