Touch Ups

Hello once again,

Last week I said this week was going to be about using Photoshop to touch up blemishes or any other undesirable marks on the skin (or really anything else).

So here we are.

I’m starting this week with a very old photo I took of a friend of mine.

My original edit wasn’t very good because I was still learning how to use Photoshop so now seems like the perfect time to fix it.

Now, she doesn’t have bad skin, but due to some bad editing choices I made, her freckles makes her skin look flawed.
To fix this we’ll be using the Patch Tool (it’s hidden under the Spot Healing Brush Tool in the Photoshop toolbar).

This is one of the simplest and most helpful tools I’ve found in Photoshop.

All you have to do is click and hold down to draw a circle around the area you want to fix.

Now you should have that area selected.

Next click in that area and hold; then drag it onto a spot of skin that is clear.

And when you let go, give Photoshop a minute to do it’s thing, and the area you originally selected should be clear.

Now simply repeat this process to all areas you would like to fix.

When you’re done it might look something like this, but the extent to which you do this is all up to you.

Now I’m going to play with the colors.

First I’m going to use Hue/Saturation option in the Adjustments tools to turn down the saturation on the bright reds in the picture.

Then I’m going to add a curve like last time.

This one is also by Julia Trotti, but this one is called “Ghosts in Your Head”.

She says it works best in flash-lit photos, but I like it on sun-lit photos as well since it softens them up a bit.

Here it also makes her eyes pop again.

And since her skin got a little bleached out, I’m also going to layer on another curve called “Wild at Heart”. Once again, instructions on how to install curves is on the page.

It gives it a slightly yellow-ish, vintage feel.

And then I added a vignette for more of a focus on her face.

And there, not so bad anymore.

Taken from a very harsh, overly saturated wreck to a soft, almost vintage portrait.

If there’s anything you would like for me to talk about next week, let me know.

Until then I’ll leave you with this awesome song.

Adding Depth

Today begins my journey to try to teach people how I edit my photos.

I figured I’d start with something very simple and easy to do. So continue reading and I will show you how I achieved the effect above.

I started with this image:

The first thing I do with any image is to crop it, but this photo looked fine to me straight out of camera, so that will be a topic for another day.

So the next step is contrast and brightness correction. In this case, the photo is a little bright, so we’ll turn that down a bit.

I’ll also up the contrast a bit so the difference between the hands and jacket pops a bit.

It will also fix the colors in the background from standing out too much and competing with the foreground.

It’s already looking a bit better, but now to give it that dramatic feel.

There are many ways to add depth to a photo; I myself am a huge fan of using color to do so. That being said, Photoshop curves are a huge part of my editing process, and I have amassed a large collection of them.

The one I used on this particular photograph is called “Blood Orange” by Julia Trotti. You can find it for free download here on her blog. She also has directions on how to install them into Photoshop.

And here’s the result:

Usually this curve looks better on harshly lit photos taken in the direct sunlight, but it will also work for overcast days since it adds nice yellow and purple hues.

If this is how you’re feeling at this point, don’t fret.

I’ll be going into more detail and I’ll start explaining some of these concepts better as we go on.

Next week I’ll tackle how to make someone’s face smoother with Photoshop.

It’s an incredibly easy fix to a problem we all face at one point or another.

_{No pun intended.}