I suck with Photoshopping

[HutchPhoto]

Sergio

Thanks for the heads up Long time no see.... I went back and did a little more burning and dodging so now whatcha think?

Before & After: I think too much burning...?

[Duffy Pratt]

Here was my take:

1) New layer, applied green channel in luminosity mode to the image. Faces are basically red, and as a result they carry the most detail in the green channel. Often, you can get great detail and contrast improvements just from this simple move on a portrait.

2) Convert to LAB.

3) Curve the L channel taking the pupil of the eye as the darkest area of interest. Moved this from 10 down to 8. And I took the lightest skin as the point I wanted to move up. I control clicked on it and moved it up until the light yellow on the shirt was at about 94. (L channel numbers are on a 0-100 scale)

4) Flattened. Duplicated the background layer and applied the A channel to itself in overlay mode. Then applied the B channel to itself in overlay mode. Reduced the opacity of this layer to 17% (which is a matter of taste). The overlay blend of the A and B channels into themselves enriches the colors in a very balanced way. The effect is way too strong unless you dial back the opacity of the layers.

5) Sharpened at something like 85, 1, 1. I would have used a high radius low amount sharpen on this picture, but it killed the detail in the eye. I thought about masking the eyes out for this step, but that was a bit too involved for this image.

Overall, the edit took far less time than typing the explanation. Maybe 3 minutes.

Duffy

[Arnor]

Hi Duffy,

Originally Posted by Duffy Pratt

1) New layer, applied green channel in luminosity mode to the image.

I followed the rest of your technique, but I'm confused about this. Can you explain this further? I'm using CS so this maybe something that is implemented in CS2 or CS3...

I experimented by taking the green channel and copy/paste it into a layer, setting opacity to 50% and mode ot overlay - that worked very nicely:) Just trying to learn:)

Best regards,

[Kathi]

I am a firm believer in making your tools work for you, not the other way around. It doesn't have to be hard to do...

Steps:
1) Auto contrast
2) Smart Sharpen
3) Imagenomic Portraiture - "smoothing normal" and tweaked down some to avoid smoothing too much while bumping the contrast up some
4) Kubota Mini Action Vignette

Time taken? 5 minutes.

Before:


After:

[Duffy Pratt]

Originally Posted by Arnor

Hi Duffy,



I followed the rest of your technique, but I'm confused about this. Can you explain this further? I'm using CS so this maybe something that is implemented in CS2 or CS3...

I experimented by taking the green channel and copy/paste it into a layer, setting opacity to 50% and mode ot overlay - that worked very nicely:) Just trying to learn:)

Best regards,

OK, you make a duplicate of the background layer and set it to luminosity for the blending mode.

Then go to Apply Image. Select normal for the mode, and the Green channel for the source.

That's it for the first step.

The other part that uses Apply Image is in LAB. There, again I make a duplicate of the background layer. I select the A channel only. Then go to Apply Image and change the mode to overlay mode. (Photoshop by default sets the source and the target to be the same, and you are trying to overlay the A channel on itself.) Then on the same layer I select the B channel only and do the same thing.

I hope this helps. I use PS CS also, so you definitely should be able to do all the steps I did. Everything I did is described in detail in either of Dan Margulis' books: The Canyon Conundrum (on LAB), or Professional Photoshop 5th edition.

Duffy

[Duffy Pratt]

CD:

I took a look at your first shot in PS. In your corrected version, the shirt varies from being a shade of pure magenta, to a red. Since the shirt was almost certainly white, I think this shows that something is amiss. (I was willing to bet that the shirt would be dead neutral.)

The suit in the original is a problem. There's some bad color noise, and almost a moire effect going on. It looks like you decided the suit was a very dark brown, which is plausible. But you darkened it so much that you basically killed all of its texture. I had to take a few steps to get the sort of brown you were going for, and still keep the texture of the suit, without showing too much of the purple noise that was in it.

To my taste your skin tones are way too orange/yellow. He looks pretty fair to me.

Anyway, I ran the image through Noisware to kill the color noise. I applied the green channel to the image in luminosity mode. Then, I did a set of RGB curves to make the shirt white and keep the suit as it is.

Then I moved to LAB, did a Shadow/Highlights to bring out suit texture and background wall texture. Then I did another curve to bring the suit to the near neutral brown in your correction (limiting the curve with blend if sliders to the darkest parts of the image). Then I did a regular USM sharpen at 100, 1, 1.

Duffy

[nuke]

Wow everyone! I can't keep up! I am reading everything in very close detail. I do have a few questions, but I don't have time right now to ask them. I just wanted to throw a quick note in telling you all how much I appreciate this!


Kathi - I what is all that? Are those downloadable filters? Actions? Other programs besides PS?

Thanks everyone! I'll try to post my questions when I get back from my concert shoot.

[JohnT]

Mike, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. He doesn't delve in to the "why" but only into the "how." I have the CS edition, and he also wrote a CS2 edition. I think you will find it very helpful.

[nuke]

Originally Posted by JohnT

Mike, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. He doesn't delve in to the "why" but only into the "how." I have the CS edition, and he also wrote a CS2 edition. I think you will find it very helpful.

Cool thanks! I actually have a couple of his books. Should I get the CS2 version (what I use) or just go for the CS3? I mean, I know some of the things he talks about won't be in CS2, but maybe some of the older things have been perfected or changed?

Thanks!

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by nuke

Cool thanks! I actually have a couple of his books. Should I get the CS2 version (what I use) or just go for the CS3? I mean, I know some of the things he talks about won't be in CS2, but maybe some of the older things have been perfected or changed?

Thanks!

That's a good question. I would probably go with the one that matches your PS version.

[Kathi]

Originally Posted by nuke

Kathi - I what is all that? Are those downloadable filters? Actions? Other programs besides PS?

I'm not sure if you can still get the "Mini Actions" for free or not - we got them a while back and it may have been part of a promo at the time. It's been long enough ago that I don't remember - sorry! If you can still get it free though, here is the website:
www.kubotaimagetools.com

Even if it's not free, the Kubota actions are WELL worth the money!!

Imagenomic has 3 different programs: Noiseware (noise reduction), Portraiture (retouching plug-in tool), and RealGrain (simulating film grains). I use Noiseware every once in a while, haven't used RealGrain at all yet, and use Portraiture with EVERYTHING just about. You can buy all 3 as a bundle (much less expensive that way) or buy them one at a time. Not cheap but WELL worth the money!! Here is their website:
www.imagenomic.com

[nuke]

Thanks Kathi! I'll check it out!

[Kathi]

Originally Posted by nuke

Thanks Kathi! I'll check it out!

Anytime!!