Follow along in this photo editing tutorial as Andrea Riley, I Heart Faces Creative Team Member, shows you a step by step edit done in Photoshop Elements.
Although I primarily work with Photoshop CS5, I started learning to edit with Photoshop Elements. I thought it would be a fun challenge to edit this photo of my daughter completely in Elements and without any actions being used.
I currently only shoot in RAW, and for this particular photo, the file was HUGE. I made some basic adjustments to it, and saved it as a JPEG (which is the file that is available to work with during Fix-It Friday.) I didnt notice at the time that there are some overexposed areas on the hair. I was able to bring those details back in a second edit using the RAW editor, but it required such drastic changes that the rest of her looked really odd. Normally, I would combine the two edits, but I figured it would be much easier in this edit to just accept the overexposed areas. I also want to note that I wouldnt usually take as many steps to edit, although I do tend to be a sprinkle of this and a dash of that type of editor. If my post seemed to take a lot of steps, its because I adjust all along as I see things. It doesnt take a lot of time to go through these steps, but it seems like it would when reading them.
Why no actions? If I were to make one suggestion to new photographers, it would be to wait at least 6 months (or more) before ever trying out an action in photo editing program.
- Most new photographer do not realize that actions are designed to have the opacity reduced. For quite some time, I would run action after action, keeping them at 100% opacity. Looking back, my photos were a mess! I thought they were creative and artistic at the time.
- Actions are designed to save time, but they are not necessarily the right match for your photo. I almost always get my photo cleaned up to be a basic edit before I ever run an action. To do that, you really need to know editing techniques such as adjusting levels and curves, using the healing brush and layers masks, how to make a good black and white conversion, and much more. The only way to learn these things is to get in there and try them.
- When first using actions, there is a tendency to overedit. Its exciting to see what the action does to the photo, and then another, and then anotherbefore you know it, you have a once pretty girl who now has orange plastic skin, alien eyes, and a psychedelic background with a touch of sun flare just for fun.
So, on with the show. The first thing I always do before editing a session is to calibrate my monitor. Ive heard many photographers say, I took my computer in to get calibrated a year ago. Its good. Nopeits not. Calibration should be done on a regular basis to have the best chance of getting back prints that look like what you see on your screen. I dont calibrate daily by any means, but if I photograph a session, I calibrate first just so that I dont have to wonder whether my colors are accurate. Looking back on my edits before I had a calibratoroh my! They were way too contrasty and yellow. I can almost always tell if a photographer calibrates or not just going on those two indicators. If a calibrator is not in your budget, I would suggest using a printing company that color corrects. But, make sure to add a calibrator to your projected budget. It is a must-have for professional photographers and a worthy investment for any level of photographer.
Step 1: Calibrate
- (I use a Spyder Elite 3.)
Step 2: Healing Brush
I like to clean up the image first. I used the healing brush on my daughters perpetually messy face. I always make a duplicate layer before making adjustments so that I can see the before and after. It also allows me to delete the layer if I end up not liking the changes. (To duplicate a layer, right click on it and choose Duplicate Layer or Ctrl-J. If you have a Mac, use command instead of control.) I always zoom in really close on the face and make fine adjustments. This is so important so that only the skin that needs to be changed is affected.
Step 3: Under Eye Circles
- Dark under eye circles runs in our family so I always try to reduce (but not eliminate) them. Flatten the layers. (Right click on the layer and choose Flatten Image. Now, make a new duplicate layer. Take the dropper tool and sample a good color of skin near the eyes.
- Make sure you have chosen a soft brush and paint below the eyes. Resample for the other eye. You can also sample for different areas of the face, and smooth out areas.
- Reduce the opacity to 26% (Photo is before the opacity was reduced.)
Step 4: Brighten Skin and Hair
Flatten the layers. Create a blank layer. Sample a bright, peachy pink sample of skin. Take a soft brush and go over the skin and hair. Change the Blending mode to Soft Light and reduce the opacity to 45%. (My picture shows 53%, but I reduced the opacity just a bit more.)
Step 5: Levels Adjustment
Flatten the layers. Create a levels adjustment layer. When adjusting levels, I try to bring the black and white arrow to the beginning of where the hills begin. I watched a tutorial recently that suggested bringing them in even further to where the hill starts to rise drastically. Ive just found that this is usually a bit much. (When you hear people talking about clipping the blacks and blowing out the whites, this is where it can happen.)
Heres how I see it (using my not completely technical explanation). When you slide the white to the left, you are making colors that are near white completely white, and when you move the black slider to the right, you are making nearly black colors completely black. Done slightly, this can brighten whites and deepen the darks. Done too drastically, you will lose detail in the shadows and dark areas (clipping the blacks) and create areas with no color information (blowing the whites). The middle arrow is the midtones. I adjusted this just slightly.
Step 6: Smooth Skin
- Normally, I would use my handy Portraiture plug-in, but I wanted to create a tutorial that could be done with Elements only, no actions or plug-ins. So I decided to use Gaussian blur to help even out my daughters skin tones, particularly the muddied area on her cheek. Flatten the layers. Duplicate the layer. Choose the Gaussian blur. I picked 41.0 pixels for the amount of blur. This may be too high if you want to get near the hairline as the hair will blend in with the skin color in that area.
- Add a layers mask to the Gaussian Blur layer by clicking on that layer and pressing the button shown below. If you have an older version of Elements, there are free layers mask actions out there, or you can trick the program by following the steps here.
- Click on the layers mask that was created and choose Ctrl-I. (This will fill the layers mask with black.) Now, choose a white, soft brush and brush over areas that you want to smooth. The skin will look very fake at this point.
- Always stay clear of creases on the faces. If you cover these areas, the skin will look fake even if the layers opacity is reduced.
- Keep the blending mode as Normal, but reduce the opacity to 35%. This adds a bit of smoothing without losing all the skins texture. I see many a photographer (even well-established ones) keep way too much blur in the photo. My style is to try to keep it as natural as possible. My girl is not a porcelain doll, and I dont want her to look like one. Its okay to let some imperfections peek through.
Step 7: Background Pop
I flattened the layers and then created a duplicate. I changed the blending mode to soft light and reduced the opacity to 20%. I then created a layers mask and removed the effect from my daughter with a soft black brush.
Step 8: Shadows/Highlights
I also adjusted the shadows/highlights. Flatten the layers. Duplicate. On the top layer, choose Enhance Adjust Lighting Shadows/Highlights. As you can see from the screen shots, I just adjusted the shadows slightly (3%). I created a layers mask so that the changes only applied to my daughter, not the background.
Step 9: Color Casts
There is a slight pink and yellow color cast on and under my daughters chin. Flatten layers. Create a blank layer. I should have used a soft brush here but didnt notice that brush changed somewhere along the line. I painted on the blank layer with a color I sampled from the skin.
I changed the blending mode to Color and reduced the opacity to 61%. I also went along the edges of what I colored with a soft eraser to smooth the effect.
Step 10: Adjusting the Eyes
I typically leave the eyes alone. Ive just found that it is too easy to go overboard and create alien eyes. If the eyes are in focus with the correct lighting, extra work is not needed. In this case, though, my daughters eyes were somewhat shaded and the left eye isnt fully in focus. I flattened the layers and created a duplicate. I used the burn tool (shadows) to darken her eyelashes and along the circumference of her eyes. I dodged the midtones in the center of her eyes, and burned the shadows over that same area. The opacity of the layer was reduced to 14%. My daughters eyes are very dark, so lightening them significantly would make them look fake. My main goal was to help them stand out just a bit more and fake better focus on the left eye.
Before:
After: (very subtle change)
Step 11: Brightness
I felt the photo could use a boost in brightness, so I chose Brightness/Contrast and upped brightness by 16 and reduced contrast by 3.
Step 12: Warming
I applied a filter to warm the photo up slightly. This was a very slight change, but I like what it did to the blues in her shirt. If you prefer photos more on the cool side, skip this step.
Step 13: Unsharp Mask
Guess what? Im going to flatten the layers and duplicate again! So predictable. Next, choose Unsharp Mask. I typically use the settings shown below. Always zoom in (I usually zoom in on the eyes), and make sure you like the sharpening effect. I always erase the sharpening from the hair.
Final Photo:
And here is the Before and After:
Now its your turn!
Join us in our free Photography Community tomorrow for Fix-it Friday. At that time you will be able to download a high-res version of Andreas beautiful photo, edit it in your own style, and share your results with the other members in our forum. Not a member of our I Heart Faces Community? Be sure to join today!
Download the high-res image and participate in Fix-It Friday here.
Would you like to be considered as an upcoming Featured Photographer in our Before & After photo editing series? Our schedule is filling up very quickly so please contact us ASAP. We only consider those who include samples of their current editing and writing style and links to their blog/website. We love to feature members of our community whenever possible!
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