Archive for the ‘Retouching’ Category
Photomatix is really fun! I wonder if I would ever incorporate this “look” into my magazine work. We’ll see. 
I never read software manuals–it shows how easy and intuitive the user interface is. I first do a rough run where I “memorize” what settings does what at certain settings and the rest I allowed my calculative and experimental mind to roam free.
Wheeeee! Fun, fun, fun!
THIS POST HAS BEEN RE-EDITED 25TH OCTOBER 2009.
Here is a pseudo-tone mapping tutorial. My 8-Bit layered TIFF file zipped. You’ll see my original corrected image, tone-mapped image, and the final image as I intended.
1) Grab my file located here:
2) Buy or download for trial Photomatix PRO: http://www.hdrsoft.com/
3) Enjoy!
In this tutorial, you’ll go from this image: (Starting image–provided). I attached this image to show how the starting image looks like. A lot of folks would stop here, but if you want to take your images to another level of dramatics, read on!
Chit-Chit. CaptureOne PRO 4.8.3. "+0 EV"
Tone-Mapped via Photomatix PRO:
Here are the Photomatix PRO settings: Detail Enhancer only.
Pseudo HDR / Tone-Mapping Part
1. Download the 0EV, -1EV, +1EV file of Chit-Chit here: Chit-Chit_0EV_-1EV_+1EV.zip
2. Make an HDR image and apply the Detail Enhancer settings from the above screen capture. You should now have an image that looks like mine (Chit-Chit Tone-mapped).
3. Correct the lens distortion via the Distort –> Lens Correction Filter in Photoshop.
4. From this, you can in any direction you wish. If you get good results, send a web-sized version to me via the contact page. I am curious what goodies you cook up!
5. Here is my version: Chit-Chit-102209-009_3_4_5HDRI_tonemapped_Tutorial.zip
I recommended the following retouchers whom I am proud to consider them as my creative colleagues.
Retouchers (In Alphabetical Order):
[Final Draft #1 - 14 Oct. 2009]
On Feb. 5, 2008, I posted a tutorial on “Basic Pixel Level Dodging and Burning” on a networking site for photographers and creative professionals known as ModelMayhem.com. You can read the thread here: http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=245900&page=.
I want to update and streamline for the 2009 version via additional insights and thoughts to the elusive and the most coveted retouching technique. If you master D&B, you are limited only by your imagination and the tools at your finger tips. You will find these thoughts at the end.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I have a lot to thank towards my professional growth, but these illustrious authors’ words are at the helm of my retouching heart and I hope I made all of you proud of my rapid accomplishments from internalizing and applying your teachings. I’ve read all of your books cover-to-cover multiple times and the wisdom imparted are carried over to my own photographs.
Beauty retouching is the most simplest and yet challenging just because all you’re doing is evening the skin at the pore level. You need patience, discipline, and trained eyes to recognize and manipulate details.
Without further ado, fire up your PHOTOSHOP
I am going to augment the “Neutral Soft Light” (NSL) technique over the “Dual Curve” (DC) just because NSL does not leave dis-colorization.
We will NOT be using Lena’s face, so instead we’ll be playing with my mug shot. I am such a great sport. I volunteer to be your Guinea Pig! I took this self-portrait around Feb. 2008 when I turned 28.
Download the 8-Bit TIFF file of the practice file: http://blog.ronaldntan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/RNT-DB-Tutorial.tif
Darken Layer Mask
Lighten Layer Mask
1) Hide the “Retouched” group so you’re seeing the proof.
2) Add a curves adjustment layer–curved up for dodging or “Lighten” layer. Make sure your layer mask is set to “Hide all” (should appear black).
3) Add another curve adjustment layer–curved down for burning or “Darken” layer. Make sure your layer mask is set to “Hide all” (should appear black).
4) Set your brush to 100% opacity, 1-2% fill, and hardness 25-30% or 50%. I use 1% fill. Make sure you have advanced brush settings on. Press F5 to check!
5) Press F5 (PC) and check the “Other Dynamics” setting. I have only “Other Dynamics” & “Smoothing” checked.
6) For “Other Dynamics”, my settings are: 0%, Pen Pressure; 0%, Pen Pressure.
7) This is the tedious part. Zoom into like 500% until you can see the skin burrows. Do you see the darks?
With your pen, try to match the laugh lines with the size of the brush by pressing open bracket “[" to decrease brush size and close bracket "]” to increase brush size.
9) Make sure you have clicked onto the black layer mask, otherwise there won’t be any effect!
10) Press “D” to set the fore and background to default black and white. If the foreground isn’t white, press “X” to change to white. You’ll be “painting” on the black layer mask to lighten the darks.
That’s about the bulk of it! I have the “Darken” layer because I wanted to darken or have a more defined nostrils.
The “Skin Evening” group is basically done with the Lasso tool with a feathering about 30 pixels. The purpose is to even the skin. You select an area with the Lasso tool, feather generously to create a smooth transition. Add a curve adjustment layer and only move up to lighten or down to darken only a bit.
To tone down or dampen the shine (like on my forehead), I added a new layer. Set my brush mode to “Darken”. I sampled my skin near the shine and I painted on the layer with the sampled color with the eye dropped tool sampled at 3×3.
To add highlights, I lightened my cheek skin a bit. Same thing as above, the inverse–brush mode set to lighten. Sample the shine and paint on the new layer.
UPDATED: I added contrast enhancement to my portrait. If you look at my “Merged” layer, it is self-explanatory.
CONCLUSION
There are many way to D&B and there isn’t a right or wrong way. Ultimately all you are doing is lightening or darkening pixels or groups of pixels. Lately I am using more and more Neutral Soft Light (NSL) technique because it does not create any reddish dis-colorization. The NSL is basically filling an empty layer with 50% grey and using black to burn and white to dodge.
Detailed NSL for Lena looks like this:
This is a composite of all the NSL layers from my file. I tend to spread my work flow and layers. I would D&B the cheeks and move elsewhere to correct and make another NSL layer and work on the forehead, etc. If you like working on the same NSL layer and you made a mistake, set the color to 50% grey (#808080) and “erase” your mistake.
Last tip I am going to leave is this: STUDY THE DEPTH OF YOUR SUBJECT’S FACES! Know which areas of the face naturally protrude and which recedes. Foreheads protrude. Eye sockets recede. In 2D, lighter shades are closer (to make protrude–dodge) while darker shades recede (burn).
Questions? Comments? You’re more than welcome to contact me from the contact page of my website, http://www.ronaldntan.com/ If you are a member on ModelMayhem (MM), hit me up and say hi. I normally spend some time in the Photography and Digital Retouching forums.
FEEDBACK on my writing is appreciated. Let me know how I could improve. Down the line, I want to auhor a photoshop book.
I ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO PRACTICE. READING BOOKS IS LIKE SCHOOL. YOU NEED HOMEWORK! HOMEWORK IS WHEN YOU APPLY THE LESSONS LEARNT INTO YOUR OWN IMAGES, STYLE, AND WORK FLOW. IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE, TEACH SOMEONE! YOU WILL SEE THAT TEACHING AND SHARING OF KNOWLEDGE NOT ONLY PROLIFERATE INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALISM, BUT FOSTERS AND CULTIVATES NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES, FRIENDSHIPS, AND GROWTH–PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY.
Here is an image that was not selected by my editor when I was asked to shoot the cover of DNA March 2009 (Australia + Abroad). I REALLY love this photograph and worked (edited) for myself. If you look at my TIFF layers, pretty self-explanatory. I just used the plain lasso tool (L) in Photoshop to make my selections.
The TIF file is here: adam-125-resized. Please respect my copyright wishes and do not “re-interpret” without my consent or re-post anywhere other than ModelMayhem.com where I originally made available in the “Share Your PSD” thread authored by my photographer friend Mr. Sebastien.
I wanted to do a special shout out to my “unofficial” bhaiya in Mumbai, Sayan Surroy. I met him on ModelMayhem.com. He lives in a country where I want to retire or live down the road. I love India and its vast history and culture.
Aditya Joshi by Sayan Surroy
I taught myself photography and retouching the year before moving to Los Angeles. I highly recommend RetouchPro.com as a great source to learn technique and experimentation. Here are the books that I recommend that I’ve purchased:
Restoration & Retouching; Masking & Composition by Professor Katrin Eismann. ISBN: 0321316274; 0735712794.
Photoshop LAB Color by Mr. Dan Margulis. ISBN: 0321356780.
Professional Photoshop: The Classic Guide to Color Correction. 5th ed. by Mr. Dan Margulis. ISBN: 032144017X.
Photoshop Channel CHOPS by David Biedny, et. al. ISBN: 1562057235.
Reading these books will not turn you into an overnight retoucher. These books contained valuable insights and information and it is up to the reader to apply and interpret them. When I first started teaching myself, I tapped into my sleep hours practicing and following along. My affinity towards the experimental curiosity kept me going. I was experimenting with photoshop techniques. You have to be passionate, self-motivated, and driven with discipline when trying to teach yourself. I was driven by my photography and retouching ambitions because of the wisdom given to me by Mr. Sean Armenta, “Your passion for something will naturally drive you to learn all that you can about that something, whether it be photography, snowboarding, knitting, whatever. You will automatically seek out knowledge about what it is you are most passionate about.”
You can read my review of Prof. Eismann’s Restoration & Retouching. 3rd ed. on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Photoshop-Restoration-Retouching-Voices-Matter/product-reviews/0321316274/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R2XDUBGNHD7BYJ.
Here is my interpretation and take on the “photo-painting” style. There are many variants of the “photo-paiting” style and these styles fell under the umbrella of utilization and combination of techniques such as local contrast enhancement (LCE) and dodging and burning (D&B) or “painting with light” (PWL). Experiment and you’ll find your own “photo-painting” style.
I lit Crosby with my 22″ Speedotron Beautydish with a 35-degree honey comb grid.
Crosby T. Wehr @ LA Models
1). Download my layered 8-Bit Tif file to study the layers. Crosby-2-205-Tutorial.tif
2) Looking at the layers should be self-explanatory.
3) The interesting layer is the “R-Channel Find Edges.”
4) CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + E to merge all the layers onto a new layer and name it “Merged Layer” for naming purposes.
5) Click and select “Merged Layer,” and go into the channel palette and duplicate the Red channel. You should see “Red copy” in the Channels palette.
6) To the “Red copy,” apply the “Find Edges” filter located Filter –> Stylize –> Find Edges.
7) The “Red copy” will resemble a pencil sketch after executing the filter. Run a Gaussian Blur at R=1 and then auto level.
At this point, an edge mask was created. CTRL + click on “Red copy”. Click on the RGB composite image in the Channels Palette and CTRL + J to copy onto a new layer. Name this “R-Channel Find Edges.”
9) Set this layer to Luminosity blending mode and run an Unsharp Mask (USM) at 50,30,0. Vary the settings here depending on taste and one’s own image.
I recently did a quick test with Daniel @ Ford Models Brazil. He is currently in LA.
Model Daniel Ferreira @ Ford Models Brazil
I wanted to have a dramatic painterly effect so I lit Daniel with my 22″ Speedotron beauty dish with a diffusion socket attached. The post-processing technique is called “texturing.” To texture a photograph, photograph textures and place on top of your image in either soft light, hard light, or any of the blending modes to see which effects appears interesting.
In this image, I had two textures overlaying: a grunge and scratches. I also used a layer mask to hide the texture and appearing only in the region where I wanted.
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