Quick and Easy Portrait

[wohaver]

Here is a lttle trickery that will make your friends more pleased with the photos that you take of them by using layers and masks. This can be done in both Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements.

There is alot that will improve this photo, but one thing at a time. Here we will just concentrate on creating a smoother skin tone. To do this we first create a layer of the entire photo. Then go to filters and apply a Gaussian Blur to the entire image. The amount of blur is a matter of taste, but will probably be somewhere between 30% to 50%. The layer will look something like this:

Now to this layer we apply a 100% mask. This will appear as a Black Mask on the image layer. If the mask appears as white simply type a Ctrl + Delete (Command + Delete on a Mac) on you keyboard. This will chabge the mask to Black. With the layer entirely masked you will see the Background image.

Now select a Brush (size @50 or so) (Opacity setting @ 50%)and make sure that your foreground color is white. As you apply the brush to the image the unmasked blur will smooth the skintone. I have applied a greater amount of correction than necessary to emphasize how this works. But have fun and experiment with this to achieve your preferred results.



Enjoy,
William

[sandman935]

Yep... it works. I used a similar technique here.

[wohaver]

That really looks good Sandman.

I also like editing raw images -- but my version of Photoshop (CS2) doesn't suppor my camera, so I have to do that with Canon software currently.

No doubt I'll have toupgrade to CS4 here pretty soon.

I like your warm tones as well.

wohaver