Behind the scenes of creating a self portrait!

[tingeliM]

Read the whole post in my blog!

Before

I started by using a Florabella Photoshop action called Vintage Summer. I first felt a little guilty after purchasing the vintage actions (quite a long time ago), but I admit I do love them.
So, after that I started using layer mask techniques to do different things. The action left my hair looking a little flat, so I copied the original photo layer and placed it above the action layer. I started going over the different layer modes and found a mode that made the hair look more vivid. Then I clicked the Add layer mask while pressing down Alt, and I got a black layer mask and the action layer showed again. I chose a big blurry round brush (no sharp edges) and put the brush opacity in about 40% or so. Then I just brushed over the parts of the hair that I wanted to be more vivid and highlighted. When I was finished, I just right-clicked the layer mask, chose Apply layer mask and merged the mask layer with the action layer. This is a technique I first learned from this video tutorial.

My skin isn't all that perfect so I used the technique I demonstrated in one of my previous blog posts and made my skin look a little smoother. I also used the patch tool here and there to get the most distracting spots off.
After that I duplicated the action layer (I always keep the original photo on a bottom layer in case I need to go back to that or copy it) and I used the dodge tool (just highlights and midtones) on my eyes. Then I used a layer mask again to add just that eye effect to the actual picture.

There is a chapter about how professionals sharpen their photos in the Digital Photography book by Scott Kelby so I digged that up and did the final sharpening according to his tutorial. First I had to flatten the image and then go Image > Mode > Lab Color. Then I went to Channels, chose Lightness and then used the Unsharp Mask filter. It basically just sharpens the details of the photo, not the colors.

And that's it! Well I did do some little things in addition to the ones mentioned, but they're not that important. I think the end result is pretty neat. What do you think?

After