Add Cloud Background Video

Posted by Philip in Follow-up, Photo Processing, Texture Photo

I started getting requests for a video version of adding the cloud texture.  So I took yet another photo of Sierra and applied the cloud texture.

The final image:

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Step by Step Adding a cloud as a background texture

Posted by Philip in Follow-up, Photo Processing, Texture Photo

This is a step by step instruction on how to perform a similar look as the photo I enhanced a couple days ago.  First start out with your model photo.  Clean up the background or any blemishes on the model you may want to remove.

In this case the original background color is very important since that’ll be the base color the clouds will take. Overlay the clouds and change the blend mode.  In this case I used Linear Light to achieve the rich coloring.

Now we want to bring the model back to the front.  So make a selection of the model and make a new layer with a mask.  Actually we’ll need two of these.  Your selection doesn’t have to be perfect.  Since all we are doing is blending with the original image, if anything is out of place it’ll be difficult to find any errors.

The top most copy will need a little fiddling, but we’ll worry about that in a moment.  This is just the cutout of the model on top of the blended background.

Most people would stop there but it lacks some punch so the next thing to do is to make the top most copy of the model black and white.  In this case I’m going to use the top copy to enhance the lower copy.  So I don’t want the black and white to be really strong.  Just enough to heighten the shadows.

Now we change the blend mode between the two copies of the model.  I used Hard light in this case to give her a more bronzed look.  This will better match the background.

Finally you just turn all the layers on and adjust opacity as you see fit to balance things out.  To the side is all the layers I used and what I set their blend modes to if it wasn’t normal.  You can easily bring through some of the cloud texture on the model by adjusting the opacity, but in this case I didn’t like the effect.

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Surprising Photographer: Un-negative Comments Follow-up

Posted by Philip in Follow-up

Last week I asked you for some un-negative comments.  Specifically positive comments for a new photographer, because this photo was made by someone very new to photography.  In fact, it’s a self portrait.  That’s right, the photographer is 4 years-old.  All I did was set the camera to work off the remote.  He decided the position of the light, where to stand, how far away to be from the background, what to wear (he wanted to match the background) and which lens to use.  Afterwords, he chose the photos and did the post processing (by clicking auto in Lightroom.) All I did was to convert it to jpg for posting on the site.  He’s so accidentally a great photographer.

Here’s the other one he picked from the same set.  What comments do you have now?

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Criticism: Negative Comments Follow-up

Posted by Philip in Follow-up, Photo Processing

Eric was right.  What I posted was the unedited photo. What I was hoping for was some criticism as if I had spent a lot of time working on the image.  The image was taken at a beauty school and the makeup and hair was done by a student and the model picked the clothing and accessories. The reason for the red cast is that is apparently Canon’s default for the in-camera portrait color profile.  She obviously didn’t need that extra red.

In this case I wouldn’t do a lot to edit the photo.  The background was blown out to be too white with the lights, so I toned that down a bit.  I removed some of the red cast and toned down some of the freckles, but left them there since removing them completely wouldn’t be her.  Now if this was for a magazine cover, there would be the need for a lot more work, but this was just a glamor shot for the model, and she was quite pleased with the result.

So the purpose of this experiment was to see what type and how much criticism I would receive vs. another photo where I asked for non-negative comments.  In my next post, I explain about the other photo.  But in this case the negative comments were quite reasonable.  Many where on target, but some pushed the boundaries of what I was looking for and that’s my own fault.  I didn’t state the intent of the photo (on purpose) so you didn’t know what I was hoping to achieve.

So the thing to take away from this experiment is that you should be very clear what sort of advice you are looking for when you ask for it as well as be certain the intended outcome when you give advice.  A lot of people have a hard time with criticism and get “wounded” by negative comments. Even when they ask for a critique.

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Add a custom catchlight

Posted by Philip in Follow-up, Photo Processing

We are going to add our own custom catchlight in the eyes taken from a window at the location of the photo session.

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Skin and Teeth

Posted by Philip in Follow-up, Photo Processing

This is a follow-up to Tuesdays’ vlog post about auto is not magic.  This is the image I said we would take into Photoshop and enhance it further.  In this video we’ll do so healing and smoothing of skin as well as clear up some yellow in the teeth.  The next vlog post will be enhancing the eyes.

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