This is the second in a two part tutorial on retouching outdoor portraits and retaining a natural look using Adobe Photoshop. In the first part we looked at fixing hair and making the skin look great using frequency separation and dodging and burning. In this part we will be finishing the image with sharpening, toning, refining details like the eyes and hair as we[...]
Category archives: lessons
Natural Outdoor Portrait Retouching Tutorial
This video is the first in a two part tutorial on retouching outdoor portraits and retaining a natural look using Adobe Photoshop. In this first part we will focus on fixing hair and making the skin look great using frequency separation and dodging and burning. Part 2 will look at sharpening, toning, refining details like the eyes and hair as well as adding some s[...]
Don't Leave Photoshop as an Afterthought
As you develop your photography and post processing skills one of the most important things to do is to pre-visualize your final image and think about what can be done with post processing, long before you press the shutter. Having a plan for your images is crucial as your early actions will largely dictate the options you have once you get to the post processing stag[...]
Shallow Depth of Field in Studio Portraits
Who doesn't love a portrait with a nice, creamy shallow depth of field? It's certainly a look that I love and use often. While its application is fairly straightforward outdoors under natural light, in the studio things become a bit more tricky. Typically when shooting in the studio with strobes, we'll close down our f-stop to around f/11 to cancel out the ambient[...]
Fine Art Architecture Processing in Photoshop
In this week's video tutorial we'll look at creating dramatic, contrasty, fine art black and white architecture images using Adobe Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex. Having Nik Silver Efex isn't necessary as the bulk of our work revolves around Photoshop, but I cover it here because I consider it to be the best tool for creating black and white images.
In the tutorial [...]
Understanding and Creating Luminance Masks in Photoshop
This week's video is intended as a supplement to the multiple exposure blending video I posted a little while back. In this case we will go into more detail about what luminance masks are, how to refine them and how to create them from scratch without the need for any third-party actions.
A lot of the tutorials that I've seen out there seem to assume that you'll be[...]
Beauty Photography – Lighting and Retouching
In part 1 of this two part post on beauty photography we covered the details of organizing and budgeting for shoot day. In this part we'll be focused more on concrete techniques such as common lighting configurations, camera settings and briefly discuss some important retouching techniques and steps.
In Camera Technique
As far as camera settings go it's pretty s[...]
Photoshop Blend Modes for Photographers
This week we bring you an in-depth, two part video covering nearly all (the actually useful ones) the Photoshop layer blend modes along with examples of typical scenarios where you would use them. We've approached the subject from the standpoint of photographers and retouchers so the examples given will be reflective of that. All examples and blend modes will work in [...]
Modifying & Removing Make-up with Frequency Separation
This week we have a quick video tutorial on changing make-up - in this case eye shadow - using frequency separation. While frequency is typically used for retouching skin, the technique can be incredibly useful when making drastic color changes such as this one. In a nutshell, we'll be replacing eye shadow with skin tones in order to make the make-up more subdued.
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Beauty Photography - Costs and Scheduling
What's there not to love about taking beauty shots? You spend the day with a talented team of individuals and take photos of beautiful models. In this two part post we'll be delving into the key elements of a beauty shoot, their costs, how to schedule your day, common lighting configurations and briefly discuss retouching. If you're looking to add beauty photograp[...]