How do you make portraits 'pop' in photoshop elements?

<p>Just some post on the pic you had taken. However it's best to learn some lighting techniques and use them to get it right (or close to it) the first time.</p>

<div></div>

<p>Arghhh. Here's the attachment.</p>

<p>T</p><div></div>

<p>... and since the original never was displayed in-line (it was too large), here's the original, just Lanzcos downsized to 500 px wide.</p>

<p>T.</p><div></div>

<p>Maybe something like this.</p>

<p>here it is</p><div></div>

<p>On most of my pics I use a little unsharp mask with a 50 radius. Dodging and burning. WB a bit warmer, a little bit of saturation. The main point is the lighting when you push the button. It's ok here but very flat. The drool is very distracting. </p><div></div>

<p>Composition is also very important. You need to compose so that your eyes are drawn to the subject and they stay there. Shallow depth of field helps. Lines that lead to your subject. Any way you can add depth to the picture, foreground/background are both important. Simplify. Subject slightly brighter than the background.</p>

<p>I don't find mine to really be any better than the original now that I see them together.</p>

<p>I think Stuart's is the best of the bunch. I was wondering how Baby would look with toned-down catchlights, and a snazzier hat, so . . .</p><div></div>

<p>Tom, how do you get such a different preview of the unedited original than on my calibrated system?<br>

See below.</p>

<p>That image has an embedded sRGB profile.</p><div></div>

<p>If you get your lighting and exposure right in-camera, you'll have very little post processing to do in Photoshop. I use speedlights off camera on a light stand and balance them with ambient light to get, and note this very important concept, good lighting ratios. Everyone preaches 'soft light' but not so much 'soft directional light.' Your photo has soft light but it is ambient with little direction.<br>

<br />If you want your images to pop more, the best thing you can do is not photoshop - get books on lighting and study them. You don't have to use off-camera lights to get incredible results; you just have to pay attention to where the natural light falls and fully maximize its intensity, direction, and color.</p>

<p>Once you get into off-camera lighting you'll either never do it again because it's a hassle, or you'll kick yourself for not doing it sooner. I got my setup for dirt cheap - ebay triggers were $15, lightstand and tilter were $65, umbrella was $10, and one of my workhorse flashes came from a thrift store for $3 with a roll of film.</p>

<p>If you're set on using Photoshop to make them pop, select and sharpen the iris and eyelashes. My first pass is a a radius of .3 and strength of ~190; second pass of .7 radius @ strength of ~50.<br>

Also use your curves window. A shallow S-curve, with the darks curving down and the brights curving up, will emphasize the deeper colors and leave skin tones mostly alone.</p>

<p>Tim - Easy. The reason it looks so different is that I screwed up. When I noticed that there wasn't an in-line version of the original posted, I was rushing and not paying attention. Without thinking, I quickly posted the bottom layer in my Photoshop stack of layers, forgetting, of course, that I had brought the image in through ACR and hence, the image had already been tweaked by ACR before it became the bottom layer in my stack.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for catching my error, Tim. Sorry, folks!</p>

<p>Tom M.</p>

<p>PS - I fully second the suggestions of careful selection of the plane of focus, and soft but directional light. The original image is plenty sharp in some areas (eg, the edges of the 1 or 2 teeth that can be seen), but not quite as sharp where it needs to be (ie, the eyes). In addition, the light is so omnidirectional that it makes the facial features and texture of the skin have very low contrast. This makes these areas look even more smooth / OOF than they really are. This is one of the things I attempted to fix in my version, but, in retrospect, I think I went a bit overboard and should have blended more of the original back in.</p>

<p>Tony, so you dont like their choice of music or any music? Just curious as many sites have music in the background. </p>

<p>Not that anyone will read this far. You asked about portraiture on a site full of photographers and many of them pros.<br>

1 -- Yes, that music sucks.<br>

2 -- Learn to use that surface blur button in Photoshop. Once I found out about how it works, I started seeing it everywhere.<br>

3 -- The guy just before me who went from that wide shot you showed to the closer, hi-impact face was right on target.<br>

4 -- I can see you're competent. Good for your you're ready to graduate from an MFA school. Now, you must develop your own sense of style. Ostensibly, you asked all the folks here, "How would you do it?" A sense of style develops your anticipatory trigger finger so you shoot when you see the shot that yours. Focus, dive in, pan out, violate rules until you see something that gives you goosepimples and you'll chase it from that point on. Crop everything out of your picture that you don't see belongs in the photo and there you are. Learn your own photographic metaphor. What you need is time, seasoning, and self discovery. In other words, what you need is time, not advice. I forget who said this, but I use it a lot with students and at seminars. Someone asks, "How long did it take you to write that story?" My answer? "35 years."</p>

 

<p>The problem is the compostion, or, rather, the prop. No matter how I try to turn my eye to the kid my eye goes right to that portion of the hat at right, the ultra sharp focus on the eyelet and cord.<br>

Ditch the hat when moving in for this type of closeup. With the hat, back off and get the full effect of the overlarge hat on the kid's head.Then it would be a nice amusing shot.<br>

The lighting is too bland, also.<br>

If you get it right in the camera to begin with it works better. Too much over-reliance on post-processing to cover up inexperience in the camera room.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>A few suggestions:</p>

<p>Add some Photoshop-generated vignetting. Darken the background and add some Fill Light to warm the subject. Lighten and sharpen the eyes if needed. Remove blemishes, freckles, and bags under the eyes. Experiment with more or less contrast. Add Clarity for grown men when you want to accentuate skin flaws to make them look tough or "weathered." Lighten or darken hair slightly and sharpen the hair independently. Use burn and dodge techniques to focus attention on particular features.</p>

<p>Non-Photoshop techniques: Hire a make-up artist and a hair stylist. Shoot in dramatic light, e.g. window light. Shoot interesting-looking people. Shoot them in interesting settings. Shoot them from interesting angles, heights, and viewpoints. Try different light modifiers and positions.</p>

<p>Balance the whites, check skin color, saturate a bit, fix vibrancy, black should be black whites should be white so fix the levels, make the whole pic a little lighter, You have plenty of pixels on that pic so if composition wasnt right to start, go ahead and crop a little, the eyes are the most important part in this case place them on an important spot. <br>

Regards.</p><div></div>

<p>Hello again everyone,<br>

and THANK YOU for all the contributions and advice, which I WILL try to apply as I really want to progress. I do understand that it will take time though, but I started last night by taking my manual out again, and re-studying certain features of my camera and speedlight. I experimented with various speedlight settings and was quite pleased with some of the results.<br>

We live in Texas at the moment, and daylight here is not ideal for portraits-very harsh. Will have to shoot in the evening outside I think.</p>

 

<p>Maylis, lighting is important, and it is something you have to learn to see. I use natural light most of the time, and that includes window light, outdoor light and indoor lighting. I also use flash as needed, only very rarely. To me the most important thing in a portrait is expression, particularly in the eyes. I like some "contact" with the camera/photographer that generates some "energy." Composition means not having elements in the image that lead the viewer's eye away from the subject. Anyway, please go to my website www.sjmurrayphoto.com for examples if you wish. I have examples of children, adults and animals. It is my hobby, so I am not a big successful pro, but I get a lot of great comments from other photographers, and from the people I have done portraits for.<br>

In your example, the others above have done a nice job of fixing the color balance. I would have taken more images until I had one where the child was looking at you and with a happier or more neutral expression. Wipe the drool too. Keep practicing. Read some books on lighting. Study the photographers you admire. </p>

<p>So, don't be diplomatic ;-) , tell us which tweak you like the best and why.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>i'm not sure if this has been touched upon here but I like the bokeh you get from some of the L series prime lenses, especially the 135mm and the 85mm. The 85mm, I'm often shooting at 1.4 and sometimes 1.2 but you have to be careful, a slight shift of the head and one eye's in focus, the other isn't...</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/8074923</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Tom Mann, I like people who is Honest and to the point, but i think is better for her to find her own style replicating a look can be easy with some help, finding a personal touch can take more time and would be more rewarding............. but that is just my very own personal opinion, (the diplomatic one) .... ok now. Maylis tell us which tweak you like the best and why.... :)<br>

Regards.<br>

JART</p>

<p>Just used some simple processing filters.</p><div></div>

Maylis, something to think about: if you are using terms like 'oomph' and 'pop' you need to analyze what you are seeing a little

more deeply and try to learn to identify quantifiable qualities that have real meaning. There is no slider for 'oomph' in any post-

production package, but there are sliders for sharpening, color balance, contrast, etc. Once you can pick out specifically what is

bothering you in your photo, you will have a much easier time. It's not really hard with practice—notice for instance how quickly

everyone spotted the color balance problem in the image. Until you can separate out the individual axis of control you will be

just wandering around the digital forest.

 

A few things to help:

 

1. Shoot in raw and learn to use lightroom or aperture. This allows you to postpone decisions like white balance until you are in a

controlled environment. It also lays out the controls in an intuitive way and lets you experiment non-destructively on your

images.

 

2. Become one with the histogram. You can tell from the histogram alone that the image you posted is too blue in the white

balance and is underexposed.

 

I'll put my money where my mouth is and offer a shot with a 5D that although in BW I think has some 'pop' (If I may be so bold)

 

http://phtm.us/2t/

 

Everything is very simple: One light source in a softbox with some reflected fill and processed to take advantage of the full

range of the histogram. But the processing is just a small part of it. There is also the matter of oomph that comes from how you

deal with your subject—many of the photos on the website you posted would still have a lot of oomph even if the processing

was off because her connection with her subjects is very strong. The simple composition and direct approach to the subject

helps a lot. In the above photo, the outtakes with the same light and processing don't have the same emotional oomp because I

didn't catch the expression. Of course these things are much easier in a controlled environment like a studio where you can

really simplify everything to the bare necessities.

<p>Ok, s,o I'd have to say my two favorites are on page 4: Stuart's, and then Rob's. John's on the first page would be #3. If Stuart is still following this I would be interested to read what he did to obtain that particular result.<br>

Thought I would post another image from a few months ago, shot in my home studio, so that you don't think I'm too bad!</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>My try.<br>

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v732/glenngaryglenross/pop_web1.jpg" alt="" /></p>