From Wife to Model in 8 steps!

[fotojunkie]

Here's the workflow I used to turn a random "accident" photo of my wife into something useful.

Step 1:
Find a random picture you took of your wife. You might want a photo of your wife with less red-eye than mine.




Step 2:
Color balance, Saturation, Brightness, Constrast.




Step 3:
Find an interesting crop.




Step 4:
Bring into photoshop.




Step 5:
Clean up blemishes.




Step 6:
Unsharpen Mask to taste, focus on the eyes, lips, hair, not the skin.
Careful, heavy USM on the eyes is sort of like upscaling a photo... If they eyes are old, you may not have as much room to USM with. ;)




Step 7:
Copy your Un-unsharpened mask version as a new layer on top of the unsharpened mask version and erase where you want the effects (eyes, mouth, hair, etc).




Step 8:
Minor touch ups, I removed the clumps from my wife's mascara.




Please let me know what you think.
This photo was not intended for this purpose, just thought it turned out well for an accident photo.

Thanks!

[Snarfy]

pretty darn good! i'd reduce the saturation of reds in the eyes, and go even further with the overall softening.

[fotojunkie]

I agree about the red-eye. I even mentioned it under step 1.

Softness is a matter of preference. I like to keep a certain level of detail so that the image remains somewhat believable to the eye.

[Snarfy]

totally understandable, i was just saying the difference in how i would do it. =)