editing portrait images

Billionaire Mansion

 

I've been shooting portraits for 3 years and Im facing the limitation with editing portrait images that I can not advance my editing skills. Im using Capture One Pro for Sony and Photoshop but mostly C1P is my main program so far. I just control basic tools and I have no idea how to create color tones like that facebook page images. I know what tools to use but I couldn't achieve professional color tones for portrait photographs. Basically, Im seeking of advanced editing skills. As a portrait photographer, I dont want let other people edit my images unless I work for other people. I dont know where to learn for better editing skills. I found Google and Youtube not helpful. Since some photographers have reputations just because of their color tone styles, I would like to ask about editing portrait pics.

It's extremely difficult without a starting point. Can you post a few of yours so that it's possible to make recommendations.

Used only basic tools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's a couple things that have nothing to do with post-processing. He's starting out mostly with subjects who have darker skin tones than yours and everything is lit primarily by flash, sometimes a ring flash. His subjects have a lot more makeup. Then he's doing quite a bit of skin smoothing. You may or may not want that. I notice that there are digital artifacts in some of his photos.

 

I'm not sure exactly where you want to go with it since it's all somewhat subjective, but applying some warming (via the WB), adding contrast, and then playing with hue for individual colors will allow you to do quite a bit. Alternatively, you could look at a product like Portrait Pro, which can do a lot of that for you if you back off on the face sculpting.

 

If you search for "bronze skin tone," you will find a lot of information as that is how it is generally referred to. There are Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions that can do it, but the LR presets will affect the whole image.

 

Here's a very quick pass using skin smoothing via a plugin and a (free) Lightroom preset from Beart for color. The background is probably not what you want but that's what happens in Lightroom.

 

http://spirer.com/images/rework1.jpg

Like Spearhead says, the person with the facebook page's photos are taken with entirely different lighting, indoors. Yours are mainly outdoors. Nothing wrong with your images, btw. You could work on smoothing skin textures. Here I used some reverse "Clarity" (in ACR) just on her face to smooth out the textures, and clone tool for a few bright spots and eliminating the lines in her cheeks. These are the types of things you just have to experiment with to achieve the look you want.

So this YouTube tut on creating custom toning styles with gradient maps didn't help?...

 

From the posted samples it appears your subject is bathed in too much front lighting and harsh side lighting that accentuate skin textures. Some look as harsh and stark as police mug shots taken with a high quality DSLR. The second from the bottom side view of the woman shows too much bra that's of a different color from the dress. A slight wardrobe malfunction and the lighting is just too flat and harsh.

 

Are you working with a soft box or some type of diffuser? Sometimes adjusting the distance to subject of these lighting effects can give a different and more appealing glow...

 

Foundations - Understanding Soft Light

Sign up for Kelby training, there are numerous classes on retouching and everything else. Also, if you don't have the Nik collection of plug ins, get them, they are priced right... free. Silver efex, their b&w plug in is amazing. Their auto sharpening for web or print is fantastic. In color efex, skin softening allows you to address small, medium and large textures, then when back in photoshop adjust the opacity. The adjustment brush in lightroom with masking turned on applies the effect within, for example a face, not hair, clothing or background. It let's you adjust exposure, contrast, and a handful of other things including clarity, that for skin you can pull down and as well sharpness, the same then just paint the face, neck and chest.

I am a recent convert to Lightroom and it doesn't even resemble the limited capability it had in 2005 when I rejected it as too basic. I have heard for years from other pros they do 80% of their editing in it and I can see why. It also can be used tethering and unlike the 10 yr old nikon program I used, you can make edits in the first shot like white balance, capture sharpening then have it applied as each shot is taken. You shots need some skin softening. For my taste, I want the skin smoothed but texture remaining. In one case, your subjects skin is red, perhaps pull down the red channel or saturation. You light is pretty flat. Are you standing in front of a strip box that is horizontal? Kind of unusual catch lights in the eyes. Watch where you place highlights or bright areas as they pull the eye, like the bright area on the black dress over subjects left breast. I would burn that down in post. Great expression on that shot. Bambi Cantrell said expression trumps perfection but I like Jerry Ghionis' response to that, expression plus perfection trumps expression alone. Think of a circle on a white piece of paper then turn your pencil on it's side and shade about half of the circle. Now you have a ball, a third dimension. You might try getting your main, shadow creating light, off the camera axis. Your subject has beautiful eyes and I would reduce the red, whiten the whites and kick up contrast, clarity and detail in the iris and darken shadows. I might darken the dark ring around the outside of the iris slightly. Once you learn to do these things, they only take a few minutes. After all, the eyes are the window to the soul. With the adjustment brush in LR, just paint the 2 eyes and you can adjust the sliders and see your changes as they are made. But as Shakespeare might say, get thee to Kelby.

I personally use a combination of clone tool, healing tool and noise removing software plus masks. Only try to maintain the original light tint and texture....

 

If other people see the manipulated image from mihai and later meet the model in person, they will be shocked.

 

Why not be authentic?