Once you’ve captured some stellar portraits either in studio or on-location, you’re probably going to want to process them in order to bring out the true beauty. Many elements beyond the control of the photographer can interfere with a portrait or distract a viewer unnecessarily, which is why Photoshop is used to salvage and improve many images. With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most frequently used Photoshop techniques for portraits:
1. Set Your White Balance – Before you start any kind of editing, you need to adjust your white balance so that you have natural-looking skin tones in your portrait – this is especially important if you’ve shot indoors with incandescent lamps or other ambient lighting. Here’s a fantastic video showing you how to simply adjust your white balance in PS,
Photoshop: (Image Adjustments - Variations) Works in the way of Opposite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emi8j8WvD7o
2. Spot Healing Brush Tool – Using the spot healing brush tool, you can accurately and seamlessly remove any distracting blemishes, bruises, pockmarks, or other skin imperfections. It’s also great for removing shadow spots caused by debris or water stains on your lens. However, try not to go too crazy with this tool to the point where you’re severely altering the face – keep the freckles, but remove the acne.
Sometimes, the spot healing brush tool can act a little weird, especially when working along an edge (like the hairline). In this case, you can just use your clone tool. The clone tool is also great for when you just want to reduce the prominence of an imperfection rather than completely removing it. If that’s the case, you can adjust your clone tool opacity level so that your clone appears to be somewhat translucent – this works great for natural blending or if your source is drastically different from the area you want to clone stamp.
3. Edit the Eyes – In most cases, the eyes are the focal point of an image– it’s just human nature to look someone in the eyes, even if it’s a photograph. Whitening the area around the eyes and removing red veins is paramount to creating a clear and crisp image.
4. Whitening the Teeth (mini-tutorial) – If you’ve taken a few portraits and the teeth came out not-so-bright, here’s a simple way to remove the yellow while also keeping the natural coloring and shading. I chose this sample image of a tiger from CC on Flickr in order to not insult anyone who may come across a yellow teeth tutorial with their photo as the before-and-after.
Select the area you want to effect with your elliptical marquee tool. You can refine the edge to soften the transition a little bit, but not too much otherwise the inside of the tooth won’t get the full effect (Figure 1). Also make sure not to select any of the surrounding lip/red area as it will turn it an unattractive grey.
5. Skin Softening – With the fantastic quality of high-end glass and state-of-the-art dSLRs, we can get superior detail and tack-sharp images. However, portrait clients may not always want to see every pore on their face.
6. Custom Lens Vignette – Many images – especially portraits – can benefit from a vignette in order to redirect the attention from the background and onto your main subject: the model.
1. Set Your White Balance – Before you start any kind of editing, you need to adjust your white balance so that you have natural-looking skin tones in your portrait – this is especially important if you’ve shot indoors with incandescent lamps or other ambient lighting. Here’s a fantastic video showing you how to simply adjust your white balance in PS,
Photoshop: (Image Adjustments - Variations) Works in the way of Opposite
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emi8j8WvD7o
2. Spot Healing Brush Tool – Using the spot healing brush tool, you can accurately and seamlessly remove any distracting blemishes, bruises, pockmarks, or other skin imperfections. It’s also great for removing shadow spots caused by debris or water stains on your lens. However, try not to go too crazy with this tool to the point where you’re severely altering the face – keep the freckles, but remove the acne.
Sometimes, the spot healing brush tool can act a little weird, especially when working along an edge (like the hairline). In this case, you can just use your clone tool. The clone tool is also great for when you just want to reduce the prominence of an imperfection rather than completely removing it. If that’s the case, you can adjust your clone tool opacity level so that your clone appears to be somewhat translucent – this works great for natural blending or if your source is drastically different from the area you want to clone stamp.
3. Edit the Eyes – In most cases, the eyes are the focal point of an image– it’s just human nature to look someone in the eyes, even if it’s a photograph. Whitening the area around the eyes and removing red veins is paramount to creating a clear and crisp image.
4. Whitening the Teeth (mini-tutorial) – If you’ve taken a few portraits and the teeth came out not-so-bright, here’s a simple way to remove the yellow while also keeping the natural coloring and shading. I chose this sample image of a tiger from CC on Flickr in order to not insult anyone who may come across a yellow teeth tutorial with their photo as the before-and-after.
Select the area you want to effect with your elliptical marquee tool. You can refine the edge to soften the transition a little bit, but not too much otherwise the inside of the tooth won’t get the full effect (Figure 1). Also make sure not to select any of the surrounding lip/red area as it will turn it an unattractive grey.
5. Skin Softening – With the fantastic quality of high-end glass and state-of-the-art dSLRs, we can get superior detail and tack-sharp images. However, portrait clients may not always want to see every pore on their face.
6. Custom Lens Vignette – Many images – especially portraits – can benefit from a vignette in order to redirect the attention from the background and onto your main subject: the model.
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