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Here's one of my efforts from the studio shoot during the Rowardennan Meet - a portrait of Joanna, the light and life of our Saturday evening out at the hotel.
I thought Joanna was a good sport, letting so many of us photograph her. Fun to be with, too - almost always cheerful. And don't you think she has not just a cheerful, but almost slightly mischievous look on her face? Or maybe I'm reading that into the picture, since I remember Saturday night...
Anyway, the studio setup was great, and made it sooooo easy to shoot this. All I did to the shot after processing it in RSE, was to paint out the chesterfield settee in PhotoShop and remove a few minor skin blemishes.
I'm not normally someone who takes portrait pics, so let me know what you think - comments and mods welcome!
Thanks for looking,
Conrad
P.S. And thanks to Chris for lending me a flash gun and suggesting the right settings!
| Camera: | Canon EOS 20D |
| Lens: | Canon EF 22-55 mm |
| Recording media: | RAW |
| Title: | Jolly Joanna |
| Username: | 
conrad |
| Uploaded: | 8 Nov 2006 - 9:30 AM |
| Tags: | 2006, Flash, Flash / lighting, General, Hc, Highly commended, Joanna, Loch lomond, Meet, Portrait, Portraits / people, Rowardennan, Rowardennan06, Studio |
| VS Mode Rating |
Unrated These stats show the percentage of wins and the rating score that your photo has achieved. You can go to the VS Mode by clicking on this icon. Signup to e2Signup to e2 to see which photo this has won or lost against in the vs mode |
| Votes: | 49 |
| Modifications Welcome (Upload a Modification) |
Comments
A lovely bouncy bubbly smile to brighten up the day, Great portrait.
Very natural - lovely shot Conrad. Great to meet you at the weekend.
Edward
Wow, quite a lot of interest, how unexpected!
Thanks, everyone!
Cole - Good idea, I'll try to think how I can do that.
Matt - A mod would be most welcome. Especially if you give me a step-by-step instruction on how to achieve the same effect! (If that's not asking too much...) I'd be very interested to see what you can do with it.
Thanks, guys!
Conrad
Matt, thanks, that works really well! So yes, I would like to know exactly what you did. (Still a bit daunted by PhotoShop work, sometimes - I get lost in the many options and tools...) You didn't really think, btw, that I wouldn't like your mod? 
It looks very good, thanks!
Rodd - We do like to choose our pics carefully, but I suppose it is indeed hard to get a bad shot of a pretty lady with a bubbly personality!
Jolli - I thought you might like the title! ;-D
Thanks, everyone, much appreciated!
Conrad
Thanks Conrad - glad you liked the mod
First off, the credit goes to Katrin Eismann and her excellent book "Photoshop Restoration and Retouching"... page 118-120 of the second edition.
Correcting skin colour using CMYK:
* Select the image and copy to the clipboard
* Create a new image, change the mode to CMYK
* Paste in the image
Now you've got a CMYK version...
* Use the dropper to sample skin colour
* There should be next to zero black (K) content
* Look at the Cyan (C), and magenta (M) should be about double, with yellow (Y) being a little more. e.g. 20C 40M 50Y
* Add a curves adjustment layer
* Select the Magenta, grab the middle and drag it down - sample the skin until you get it where you want
* Select the Yellow curve and drag up a touch
* Select the Black curve and drag down - don't worry if the whole image goes lighter
* Once you're happy, flatten and copy
* Now switch back to the original RGB image and paste the new corrected version on top.
Now, I found that, because I reduced the black to correct the skin tones, the rest went too light.
So, add a Hide-All layer mask and paint back white around the skin with a 50% brush.
I still found it a touch too much, so I added a Hue/Sat layer, selected the "Reds" and brought down the saturation to -3, lightness +4.
(Phew!)
Highlights:
* Add a new blank layer
* Change layer blend mode to "Darken"
* Pick the clone tool, opacity 10% to 50%
* Make sure "Sample All Layers" is checked
* Sample nearby skin and clone over the highlights
* When done, maybe reduce layer opacity a touch.
Eyes:
Just used the dodge and burn technique on my Eye Tutorial on this site...
* Whitened eye whites (as mentioned on the tutorial)
* New layer
* Blend mode = Soft-Light
* Paint white at 10% opacity, large soft brush
* I also tweaked the "Blend-If" on the layer blend properties so that shadows were not affected (ie so it lifted mid tones primarily)
That's pretty much it really. You can do the skin tone correction in RGB with curves, but the CMYK method is a breeze once you've tried it.
If you haven't seen Katrin's book(s) - definitely, definitely read them Her web site is: www.photoshopdiva.com and there are some excellent freebie tutorials buried in her site too!!
(BTW, writing this out took far longer than the mod! LOL!)
Hope that helps!
Matt
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