What’s Your Preference?

First Light · #1 (**permalink**) 07-26-2011, 12:36 AM

This is a (really bad) self-portrait that I took especially for the purpose of learning my LR editing software better. I would LOVE for my fellow photog friends here to edit it (especially if you use LR or GIMP, which I also have), then re-post, along with a step-by-step of what you did. I am a visual learner, and I think this exercise will really help me.

EXIF:
Cannon Rebel T3i
Lens: EF-S 18-55mm
focal length 32mm
exposure 0.017s (1/60)
f/4.5
ISO 400
flash on-camera, fired

Thanks, all!

Tito87 · #2 (**permalink**) 07-26-2011, 04:48 PM

Is this a little better?

First Light · #3 (**permalink**) 07-27-2011, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tito87

Is this a little better?

Sure! What steps did you take to get it to this point?

JFSanders · #4 (**permalink**) 07-27-2011, 01:35 AM

I did a process on this one, but I hesitate to post it as I could not get rid of the color fringing on your lower jaw. Anyway, suffice it to say that I did a bunch of color correction and healing. Then I brought the skin tones back away from red and set the black points and pushed the midtones a little darker then I sharpened it at about 30 percent and here it is.

Jim

edbayani · #5 (**permalink**) 07-27-2011, 07:22 AM

here is an edit using a blank layer and with the eye dropper tool select colors of the skin nearest the area you are going to correct and with a soft brush, 10% opacity, brush on the area you want corrected.

Tito87 · #6 (**permalink**) 07-27-2011, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by First Light

Sure! What steps did you take to get it to this point?

I just used a Green Filter and the High Pass Filter. It was a very quick edit. I'm sure you can do a better job, if you're more patient and spend a little more time.

bigwater · #7 (**permalink**) 07-27-2011, 10:02 PM

uuhhh fun! I went a little further with this then I normally would. A good retouching usually is one that the person in the photo doens't really notice but, since you asked.
I always start-out with the spot-healing brush on a blank layer to remove most of the skin variations (pimples, small scars etc.) In this case for fun I moved from there to the mixer brush to smooth out the skin a bit more. From there I used a curves adjustment layer (darken) with a mask and used color range to grab just the real bright spots on your face and feathered the edge of the mask. More curves hand brushed in to lighten the dark spots and wrinkles. Another curves layer to add some color to the lips. Hue/Saturation (little bit of desaturate and lighten) on the whites of the eyes and teeth. Clone stamp tool to get rid of the dark around the hair line. Now white balance with a curves layer and another curves layer to reintroduce some contrast. Add some eyelashes. Use a white layer add niose set to soft-light low opacity to reintroduce some texture to the skin And onto finishing it off. For that I prefer to select (mask) the skin (normally not the eyes lips hair ears or bottom of the nose) desature and use an inverted high-pass filter to reduce the contrast. The a regular high-pass filter on everything else to sharped it. I use the same mask on both but invert the mask. Merge all layers to top layer (again) add a fair amount of blur set to soft light low opacity to bring in more depth and tone and here you have it.