Jennifer Woodward

I’ve had a few people ask how I achieved the finish to some of my portraiture works, so as promised, I’ll try and explain as best I can, how I acheived the image below.

This is by no means a step by step guide, as I generally just mess about with an image until I’m happy with it. There are however, certain effects in photoshop I tend to favour for certain subject matters, so I can at least give you an insight into those!

To start of with, if you are going to heavily edit a photo, it’s generally important you are working on perfectly focussed image in the first place, so if you are going for quality, use a tripod. The reason this is important, is because when you edit your work, you are directly affecting the pixels of your digital image, and somtimes, editing can cause pixel loss, therefore reducing the quality and sharpness of the image. Lighting is another important factor – it doesn’t have to be perfect, but make sure you don’t have any areas that are very under or over-exposed.

One thing I always do when I start editing, is to duplicate the background layer twice to create three layers. I then hide the background layer, leaving two layers visable. I then tend to work on the top layer when adding effects, and once I’m happy with each effect, I merge with the second layer before duplicating the merged layer ready for the next effect. This way, you always have your untouched background layer so if you do go terribly wrong, you haven’t lost your original image. You can also use your background layer to compare your edited layer with. I find this very useful to measure how far you’ve come with your editing. If you’ve gone to far, and over edited, you can always reduce the opacity of the edited version to get some of the detail back, before merging with a duplicated copy of your background layer.

To create a glamour style portrait, I generally start by tidying up the image. If it’s too grainy, I use despeckle or reduce noise, but this can cause loss of detail to important areas like the eyes or lips. Detail can be recovered by carefully using the eraser tool on these areas. This will reveal the layer beneath. These layers can then be merged and duplicated. I focus very much on the eyes and mouth of my portraiture work, and I frequently select these areas using the marquee tool or pen tool, (set to a feather strength of 100 or so) and sharpen them using the unsharp mask. Any areas that look over sharpened can always be erased with the eraser tool. I also use this method to increase contrast.

The next step I might take is to set the colour palette to a very pale flesh colour and select diffuse glow. It’s always best to add each effect in a subtle way. I often repeat effects over and over adding just a hint each time. It might be more time consuming, but the final result will be much more pleasing to the eye. After you’re happy with the glow of the skin, have a play about with the layer effects in the layer palette. My favourites are “overlay” “screen” and “multiply”. To create the effect of smooth skin, I add a suitable layer effect, and then choose gaussian blur. You will have to play about with the slider here to see what strength looks best. I often reduce the opacity after each effect before merging with my second layer. I find the effects work much better adding a little each time. Remember that if you lose any detail in the eye/mouth area, you can recover it by using the eraser tool.

The next step might be to add accented edges – I find this can add extra sparkle, especially to the highlights of the lips and eyes. A common setting for the highlight strength is 28 or 29, but again, have a mess about with it and see what effect it has on your image.

I use a variety of methods to get the colour and tone of an image right, and I tend to begin by using the selective colour option. I’ve actually only just discovered this way of altering colour, and I find this option gives you much more control than any other method. The best advise I can give on getting the colour balance right, is to trust your instincs. If it feels right, it is. Same goes for any other editing you do. Try not to think too much about how it should look, and more on how you feel about an effect or colour you just added. Art is about expression in the most honest way. If you like it, it’s right! Other options to alter the colour and tone of an image are photo filters, colour balance and variations. I tend to use all of them at some point during my portraiture works.

Another effect I frequently use is craquelure. This can work great on eyes and lips to bring out texture and highlight. Again, I will select the area I want to enhance, then after the effect, I usually either reduce the opacity of the layer, or fade the effect via the edit menu so it doesn’t look to harsh.

Well, that’s pretty much the basics! I will usually run through each of these effects alternately adding a bit at a time. I often return to the eye/lip area to sharpen or add contrast. The skin can be further smoothed by reducing noise and or, despeckling repeatedly. Any detail like hair, eyes and lips, can again be recovered using the eraser tool.

I hope this journal gave you a useful insight into how I go about my portraiture works. It might not be a step by step guide but I hope it will encourage you to acheive the effects you desire from photoshop.

Let me know if there are any areas you are unsure about, or if there are any other questions, either leave a comment or bubblemail me.

Happy editing!!

Jen :-)