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View Full Version : PP touch up: Eyes, teeth etc.


reyjinn
01-29-2008, 05:10 PM
Decided to practise some post processing techniques on this snapshot my girlfriend took of herself and a friend at a party last weekend. All post work done in The GIMP.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/reyjinn/2228113171/" title="Saga+Adda (after) by reyjinn, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2347/2228113171_dbd4d5f103.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Saga+Adda (after)" /></a>
Basic info: ISO 400, exp 1/60, apt f/4.5, focal lenght 33mm and on board flash was fired.
The original pic is here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/reyjinn/2228080251/in/set-72157603818263901/).

These are the step that I took.
First I used the lasso tool to select teeth and the whites of their eyes to lighten them up a little. Used Hue-Saturation; Hue was untouched, Lightness up and Saturation down. Don't recall the exact values but the eyes needed less than the teeth. Also used the clone tool to hide little faults in the skin.
Next I made a duplicate layer of what I had so far. Desaturated, inverted the colors and set the layer on overlay 100% opacity. That really lightened up both their skin tones and gave the background shadows a little more detail.
Then I created an empty layer on which I used the paintbrush tool (50% opacity) on areas I wanted to highlight or shadow. Chose Gaussian Blur with ~50 px and set the layer on overlay ~30% opacity.
The last step was creating two more duplicates of the background layer. Set one on hue and the other on saturation and both were at 50% opacity.

I am fairly satisfied with my first attemt but am wondering if there are some glaring faults that I'm unvilling to realise are there. So please if you have any advice on different techniques or additional steps let them fly.
Also I was wondering if any of you knew about a decent technique to get rid of those fuzzy little hairs people have. They can be seen on my girlfriends nose (the brunette on the left) and I really wanted to remove them but didn't know how to.

wulf
01-29-2008, 05:35 PM
You are going to hate me for saying this but I prefer the original; the stronger contrast and darker colours match well with the funky mood conveyed by their smiles. I think I would have gone for increasing sharpness in some areas (especially round your girlfriend's eyes) and a bit of skin smoothing (especially for her friend, who has more weathered skin) but keeping the overall appearance closer to the original.

I think the hairs you mention are hardly noticeable, even viewing larger on Flickr, and I would be inclined to leave them. Tiny details like that can make someone appear human as opposed to airbrushed without marring the overall appearance.

Wulf

reyjinn
01-29-2008, 05:43 PM
Hardly any reason to hate you for that :) It is a remarkably good photo when considered how it was taken (dSLR held in outstretched arm, intoxicated...) which is why I chose it for editing. The route your suggesting is not at all something I'm against, I had just recently found a tutorial which outlined these steps so I decided to try. Perhaps I'll give the other version a try.

peeperita
01-30-2008, 02:26 AM
your post work on the eyes and teeth are nicely done and not too too....

good natural look in both of these areas....

thanks for sharing and have fun!

peeper

reyjinn
01-30-2008, 09:21 AM
Thanks, I was trying not to overdo them. Now I just have to practise more on getting the skin smooth without destroying shadows and such.

jujitsu1
01-30-2008, 09:28 AM
I like both photos and would love to be able to try this . Please could you tell us which tutorial you used ?

reyjinn
01-30-2008, 10:45 AM
I like both photos and would love to be able to try this . Please could you tell us which tutorial you used ?
I used these as guides. Felt like some of the values used in them were way over the top so I toned them down. Especially the one where they brighten the skin.
http://gimps.de/en/tutorials/gimp/picture-photo-image/brighten-lighten/index.htm
http://gimps.de/en/tutorials/gimp/picture-photo-image/eyes-retouch/index.htm
Since then I've found even more guides.
http://inphotos.org/simple-steps-to-photo-touch-up/
http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/10/12/how-to-touch-up-portraits-with-gimp/
Google of course brings up tons of these. But I used the first two when I was working on this pic.