» Photoshop on Shapes and Shadows «
The photos that go up on the website aren’t just the raw files. Here I show you my layer by layer process of how I edit the photos that we publish. I’ll be using a photo from our Shapes and Shadows shoot as an example.
1) [Background] This is the basic image, straight from the camera. Before anything else, I try to crop or straighten the image if I think it needs to be changed.
2) [Layer 1] After those basic adjustments, I start by stamping or using the healing brush to get rid of small blemishes on the skin. I also get rid of dust on the glasses, spots on the background or lens - basically anything that distracts from the photo.
3) [Layer 2] I actually create this layer after I convert the photo from color to black and white. But basically, the idea here is to even out the skin, shadows, or anything else that is a little rough. For example, if she had dark shadows under her eyes, I would probably lighten them a bit in this layer by “painting” in white to lighten, or if I wanted to darken the shadows, use black.
4) [Black & White 1] Here I convert the photo to black and white. This layer allows me to manipulate it further than just a greyscale conversion however. By using this layer (instead of greyscale), I can manipulate my tonality by selecting which colors I want to read darker or lighter in the black and white version.
5) [Curves] This step is also much earlier than the order I presented in this little example. You can think of curves as a much more powerful brightness/contrast layer. It allows me to make certain parts darker or lighter with greater precision.
6) The final product! And there’s my layer by layer (not step by step) process.So the final breakdown, if you’re interested in order, is -
- Straighten/Crop
- Curves
- Blemishes/other light retouching
- greyscale conversion
- evening out skin tones
Of course, there’s no 100% “right” way to do retouching, this is just method that I happen to use. Thanks for reading!
» Mae
