Evening guys, well It's been a while, what with one thing an
another, I Haven't had the chance to blog much. But now is a good a time as any
to get back into the swing of things,
So, you remember those 2 beautiful girlies of mine, well
they are now 5 and 2 (yes it really has been that long) and yes, I am still
taking photos of them.
Last year I made the move to do more outdoor photography and
I Love it (still do studio stuff too but when weather permits I love getting
out and about) As weather is so abysmal at present I decided to edit some
photos I took on one of my outings last year, just for the fun of it, and
astonishingly my editing style has changed somewhat over the last few months.
As such one of my images has been posted around on the net,
mainly through different Facebook groups and I have been asked by a few
photographers in those groups to write a work flow tutorial on how I achieved
my final edit. Having never done anything like this before, I found it quite
daunting yet challenging to do, none the less I have done it, may not be
perfect (please remember it is my first time doing anything like this), But I
do hope you find it helpful at least.
My original image posted this morning entitled Happy
Monday!!
So my Tutorial will show you how I went from this
To this
In
a matter of a few short stages.
Ok to start I open my raw file in Lightroom and make just a
few minor adjustments.
The image is slightly under exposed so keeping an eye on the
histogram at the top right hand corner I increase exposure by +0.96, I also
drop the shadows by -40 too.
that’s all that needs to be done from here so next I bring into Photoshop
The first thing I do once loaded into PS is duplicate the background layer, working on my copied layer I make a start, it has been suggested that my original edit didn't really follow the rule of thirds, so in this tutorial I will be shifting my subjects (Yes that really is my 2 year old daughter Winter) position more towards the right, I do this my selecting the rectangular marquee tool and drawing a rectangle around the area I wish to move, like so
once I have my selection I will move it by hitting V to change to the move tool and drag to where I want her to sit, in this case further right, making sure that the edges of the path still match up.
Once I have her in the position I want her, I can hit ctrl D (on pc) to deselect, I then set about using the clone tool to blend in the areas around where she has been moved, working with both layers to ensure the final image still looks realistic,
Once I have finished cloning the right-hand side I will flatten the image. (you will see I do this a lot, some would say it's bad practice too, I find it helps me keep organized after each stage of the edit)
Next I will use a couple actions that I use quite regularly, I will provide links to all actions used at the end of the tutorial.
Using Paint the moon, Reverie collection for this image, to start with I use the 'Outdoor All in One Mega Base' action, (love these btw ) Instantly I turn off the Sunlight layer as I don’t feel this image needs it, then I select the Warm Earth Tone layer, and mask off the path, making sure to not get any on my subject. Following this I will select the Lush Green layer and mask off everything that is green, this gives the foliage a really nice pop.
When this is completed I will flatten the image again, Next
I will use under the same action set, Delish Matte Base, (another one of my
favs) gives a nice matte creamy feel to the
image,
But I don't really like the look of it on my subject so
..... I mask it off her,
And then yes you guessed it I flatten again.
Now I have the basic tones and colors set in my image I set
to work on my subject, first of all I smooth her skin, (some will say there's
no need however in this particular image I feel it has a more refined look) to
do this I use the Greater than Gatsby, Clean work flow action ' natural skin
smoother',
Now I use the sharpen tool to sharpen her eyes, mouth and
the curls of her hair. not too much but just a tad to make them stand out a
little more.
Once this is done, you can see we are getting somewhere
close to where the final edit is. now I need to select my subject, by using the
Quick selection tool, draw around her so she has the marching ants outlining
her, then hit the refine edges button,
Click the smart radius button and set the radius to 4.5,
then set about refining the edges especially around her hair, (wouldn't want to
miss any of those curls now would I), Once I have refined all the edges around
my subject I hit ok.
Now's the fun part, under the selection menu hit inverse to
outline everything but my subject. now under filters, go to blur and Tilt-Shift
(my new favorite toy to play with <3 <3)
I dragged the DoF slider (not sure if that’s the correct
name for it, if not someone please correct me, but for now it fits ) down to
the desired area, in this case just below my daughters hand, bringing the other
sliders up and down towards the DoF circle (I shall call it for now) with blur
set to 77, distortion at 2% and Selection bleed at 30% I hit ok.
Looking pretty good, ok two more things to do, firstly
double check areas that were cloned, are they obvious if so try to neaten them
up now, if not move I on to last stage,
Ok back to our actions now, further down the Reverie set is
an action call Cat's Pajama's (Finish Boost) I use this at the very end just to
give the image a nice Vignette and color pop.
Once action has been run I do one last flatten image and
there we have it, The final Edit.
And lastly as promised links to the actions I have used in
making this image.
If you have reached this far, Great!!! I haven't bored you
<3 thank you for taking the time to read my tutorial, I hope that in some
small way it may help some of you out there,
All Photos are Courtesy of
Freebird Photography
As always Thank you got taking the time to read my post,
please feel free to comment, your feedback is always
welcome.
Please also note that all copyrights remain with Freebird Photography,
the downloading
of my images are prohibited and should in no way be edited
or cropped.
Regards
Jaimie
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