Portrait & Photoshop Fun :)

[leight]

Hey guys,

After checking out this awesome website from Tara Whitney, I thought that I would play with one of my fun portrait shots. This is of my cousin when we went on our North QLD Holday in Sep/Oct of 2006. So what do you think? I love the post photoshop pic!


Process
What I did to change the photo is shown in the list below:

• Open up the Original jpg in Photoshop
• Duplicate the 'Background' layer and apply some Levels to the duplicated layer to enhance the shaddows/highlights
• Duplicate the 'Levels' layer twice
• On the lower duplication layer, apply a lense blur
• Mask the top layer, and paint away the area which I wanted to be blurry. Masking is good - because you can undo really easy
• Once that was complete, I then smudged the 'halo' on the blurry layer. It appeared as a halo around Ryan because he was blurred, and on another layer he was in focus, leaving this 'ghostly halo' around him.
• I then duplicated the original 'Levels' layer and moved it to the very top, applied an 'Overlay' blending mask, and set the opacity to 50% A little too much maybe, but I like it...

It's amazing what a little work in Photoshop can do to an image! I am definatly going to do some more Photoshop work on portraits. It brings out some pretty damn sweet results!

Enjoy

- leighton

[Griffin2020]

Tara whitney is amazing. I love her shooting style. I was "introduced" to her by my DW (who is a scrapbooker).

[leight]

I found her site from someone off here Did a new one this morning - and love it again (except for the bottom arm). I used the same process, however I adjusted the colour balance also (obviously). Enjoy!



- leighton

Edit: Just realised I didn't add in the extra 'Overlay' layer at 25%. I think it looks a lot nicer, and more realistic

[jiminyClickit]

leight,

It's fun to watch someone be excited about discovering new abilities and ways of making a photo even more "their own creation." Have you tried layers to simulate HDR? That will take some photos into richer colors and a wider range of tones. As you say, Enjoy!

[leight]

Nah I've actually never tried HDR, but it looks pretty interesting Thanks Jiminy

How fun is this photography stuff! WOOT

[jiminyClickit]

leight,

WOOT indeed.

[hitkaiser]

great link, its really inspiring, and your second shot does look quite good, much more realistic

[olya]

I visited Tara Witney site, there are a wealth of amazing images of children there. Leight I like as you edited these two photos. Now they look really interesting. And thanks for your step-by-step instruction. I'm sure to try it out.

[shazzt]

Thanks for this tutorial. I love Tara's work and it is nice to know how I can get a similar effect (although it may be a while before I can match her photography skills!)