After posting some of Emily's photos, I was getting a lot of people asking me how I processed the photos.  Although, not every one of her photos was processed like this exact tutorial. I will help explain how I did two of my favorite images from her session.  I like to process a lot of my photos with a vintage/retro/old poloraid feel to them.  I enjoy that style, and I feel it helps convey certain moods in photographs.  Without this type of processing there would of been nothing exciting about the image.  The original image is fine SOOC (straight out of camera), but the mood is created by the tones and final post-processing I did to it.  Not every photo will come out like the end result in this tutorial.  A lot of factors depend on how the end result will look.  For example how well the original image was strobed, your scene, and original tones in the image.

You need a well lit image to begin with.  It doesn't matter how good your post-processing skills are, you will need a good SOOC shot to begin this process.  A lot of people don't understand the importance of lighting in your image (this is whole other topic).  If your image isn't well lit, your image is broken.  Always think ahead when you are on a shoot for how you think you will be processing the photo.  This will help with model placement, poses, lighting, and other things to make your post-process (PP) easier and quicker.  My workflow is always Camera>Lightroom>Photoshop.  I split my editing almost equally between lightroom and photoshop now, but that also depends on the type of photo concept I am working on.

Here is my original image.  It is a good exposure and I'm happy with it, but the mood just isn't complete.

Step 1

After you get it on your computer from your camera, import it into lightroom because we need to apply a preset to the image for the base effect.
Download Gavin's Old Poloraid LR Preset and apply it to the image.  Below is what the image now looks like with the preset applied.  Export the image from lightroom and open it up in photoshop.  The majority of the work is done, and depending on your tastes you might just want to keep the image like that.

Step 2

Begin cleaning your model's skin up. Get rid of blemishes or other problems on your model if she has any.  I am not going to walk you through how to fix or soften her skin.  Use the healing or clone tool to help do the majority of your work.  I also fixed Emily's boobs, because the dress or her bra was making an odd indentation in the upper part of her right boob creating a distraction (you can see this fix in the final edit as it takes a while to walk through it).  I used the liquify filter combined with the new puppet tool in CS5 to help fix that area. Make sure you flatten your image after you are done with any fixes.  Layer > Flatten Image

Now we are going to sharpen the photo a little.  I sharpen all of my photos even if it's already tack sharp SOOC.  Rule of thumb for sharpening is to not over do it, and to do it after you have re-sized your image to its final dimensions.  Most people will sharpen last in their PP because that is usually when they will have their final crop dimensions worked out for print or web submission.  It is up to you to make that judgment.

Duplicate your background layer, and set that layer blending mode to overlay.  Go to Filter > Other > High Pass.  You want to apply just enough high pass where the image looks a tad bit over-sharpened.  For me I use a radius of 1.5 pixels. Hit ok to apply the effect, and then flatten your image again.  Layer > Flatten Image

Step 3

We are almost there, but we need to make a few adjustment layers to complete the effect.  Make a new group by clicking on the little folder icon in the bottom of the layers palette and rename as adjustments.  That way we can keep our layers organized if you happen to have other layers in there, adjust the opacities of all the adjustments at once, and if you want to re-edit this down the road everything is where it should be.  Make sure the blending mode is set as pass through, and you can go ahead and adjust the opacity of the folder to 50%.  You may need to change this later on to better fit your desired effect.

In the bottom of the layers palette add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and set the saturation to +20.

In the bottom of the layers palette add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and set the Contrast to +20.

Now go to Layer > New Fill Layer > Gradient.
Name the layer Fill - Blending mode overlay - 30% Opacity
Press ok.

Set your gradient to white/transparent.  Radial - 90 degree angle - 110% scale
Press ok.

In the bottom of the layers palette add a Curves adjustment layer and set the following settings.

Now set your curve points to these settings.
Red Channel:
Output: 0  Input: 0
Output: 46  Input: 84
Output: 187  Input: 176
Output: 255  Input: 211

Blue Channel:
Output: 28  Input:
Output: 223  Input: 255

Green Channel:
Output: 60  Input: 64
Output: 207  Input: 183
Output: 255  Input: 255

In the bottom of the layers palette add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and set the following settings and change the opacity of this layer to 50%.

In the bottom of the layers palette add a Solid Color adjustment layer and set the following settings.

Step 4

You are finally done!  Now you can adjust the opacities of the layers or adjustments folder depending on how strong you want the effect to be on your image.  Fallout, on flickr, has made this into an action so you can just run his action instead of having to go through all of the steps.  You can download the action.  However, I have tweaked his action set a little to my liking so it produces a nicer effect in my opinion.  Which is why I walked you through the steps.

PART 2

Now for Emily's Next image this will require a bit more work.  I am not going to show you how to add in the birds as I did in this image, but I will walk you through how to achieve the color tones I applied to the image.  I will provide the bird images at the end if for some reason you need them.

This is the orignal image SOOC.

Step 1

As I said in step 4 of the small tutorial up top about downloading fallout's action you will need it specially for this image.  You can download the action.  We will tweak the action a little, and add a few more things to complete this image to our liking.

Step 2

Now open your image in photoshop.  Sharpen it as we did in step 2 above in the other image of Emily.
Duplicate your background layer, and set that layer blending mode to overlay.  Go to Filter > Other > High Pass.  You want to apply just enough high pass where the image looks a tad bit over-sharpened.  For me I use a radius of 1.5 pixels. Hit ok to apply the effect, and then flatten your image again.  Layer > Flatten Image

You can also start cleaning up your image and your model's skin if needed.

Step 3

In the bottom of the layers palette add a Curves adjustment layer and set the following settings.
Set your curve points to these settings.

Red Channel:
Output: 0  Input: 0
Output: 28  Input: 55
Output: 176  Input: 167
Output: 255  Input: 250

Green Channel:
Output: 0  Input: 0
Output: 170  Input: 135
Output: 255  Input: 255

Blue Channel:
Output: 38  Input: 0
Output: 106  Input: 74
Output: 156  Input: 190
Output: 217  Input: 255

Now outline your subject and add a mask to that curves layer and fill the selection of your subject with black.  Change the layer to 80% opacity.

Step 4

Now add a new layer and fill it with a solid magenta color - #ff00e4.  Set the opacity to 18% and blending mode to soft light.

Step 5

Click on your background layer and now run fallout's vintage action preset, but you will need to change some opacities after it is done.  Once you have ran it on the image move the group folder on top of everything in the layers palette.  Open the group contents and you will need to delete the magenta cast layer, contrast, and saturation layer.  Now change the sepia layer to 10% opacity, the cross process layer to 10% opacity, the vignette layer to 5%, and the center fill light to 10%.  Make sure the whole group folder is set to 100% and pass through.

Step 6

In the bottom of the layers palette add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and set the saturation to -18.
Duplicate that hue/saturation layer we just made, and click on the mask next to the hue image to activate the mask.  Load the selection of your subject from the other mask we created in the first cross process layer by command+clicking the mask layer (ctrl+click for windows).  Invert your selection by going to Select > Inverse. Now fill your mask with black so your subject is white.  Change the layer opacity to 60%.  Check the image below if you get confused.

Step 7

In the bottom of the layers palette add a Levels adjustment layer.  This will be what pulls our dead gamma out of the image to make it pop.  Adjust the sliders so the far right slider (the highlights) are touching the first highlights in your image.  The way you can tell where your highlights start is to look at the histogram and follow the black curve.  Slide the far right sider to where that black curve comes to end.  Do the same for the far left slider (the shadows).  This pulls all of the dead gamma out of your image and brings it back to life.  Your histogram will vary.  If your image has extremes highlights and shadows or mid-tones adjust accordingly.

There ya go!  That should be it.  Adjust all your opacities on each layer to get your desired affect.  Like I said above your image will vary depending on your original tones and other factors.  If anyone follows this tutorial, I would love to see your final results.  Just post a comment with the link to your image and I will take a look at it!

If for some reason you want to add in the birds here is the image I got the birds from.  Just use the pen tool to outline them.  Right click and make a selection, featherd with .1 pixels, and then extract the birds out with the selection.

Download Birds Image (right click, save as)

©2010 Ryan O. Hicks. All Rights Reserved.

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In this tutorial I will be walking you through how I created my digital piece, “What weather do you want?”.  This will be a simple photo manipulation tutorial that combines some adjustment layers, filter effects, and pen/lasso tool work.

What you need to get started

You will need to gather your stock images and for this piece I used the following photographs.  The main subject (which is me) is my own stock image because I took it solely for the making of this piece.  You can download it at the link provided below if you do not want to make your own.
My stock image - http://www.rohicks.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/WW_meStock.jpg
Sky Stock - http://alegion-stock.deviantart.com/art/Sky3-stock-94057280

Step 1

Open the sky stock image in photoshop because we will be working directly on the sky file.  Double click the background layer and click ok on the dialog box to unlock it.  Now duplicate the background layer by pressing command+j (mac) or ctrl+j (windows).  Turn the visibility off to the original background layer to preserve it so we do not accidentally do something to it.

Step 2

Now we are going to do a quick photo fix (you can apply this fix to any photo to drastically improve it, as long as the tonal values are needing fixed).  We will be correcting some of the tonal values in the image.  Go to “Image > Adjustments > Levels” and set the 3^rd box (white point box) on the far right to “234”.  Then set the far left box, the 1^st box (black point box), to “2”.  This will allow the image to utilize the full tonal range of its histogram and not look so washed out.

Step 3

Now open my stock photo of myself if you are using it, or open your own stock photo of yourself or someone else.  Now using the pen tool or lasso tool, whatever comes easier to you outline your body.  After you are done outlining, if using the pen tool, right click and select “make selection”.

When the dialog box comes up enter “.1” as the radius and hit ok.  Now go to “Select> Inverse” and hit delete twice on your keyboard.  This will delete everything, but your subject and feather the edges of it.

Step 4

Now drag your subject onto your sky canvas or copy and paste it in, whichever you prefer.  Go to “Edit> Free Transform” and while holding down the shift key (to resize it constrained) resize your subject to your liking and move it over towards the right bottom corner.  Make a new layer and drag it underneath the sky layer so it is the bottom layer and fill this layer with black.
*Note* While using my free transform tool to resize I also leveled myself out by turning the corners of the free transform tool to line my feet up level on a ruler I had dragged out randomly on the screen.*

Step 5

With the subject layer (or me layer) selected go to “layer> New Adjustment Layer> Levels” and when the dialog box comes up make sure “Use previous layer to create clipping mask” is selected and hit ok.  This will bring up your levels adjustment and then set the far right box (the white point) to “226” and then set the middle box (the midtone box) to “1.14” (you may have to play with this if you are using your own stock subject and not mine).  This bumps up the highlights and midtones in the image to take out some of the dullness in it.

Step 6

Now go to “layer> New Adjustment Layer> Color Balance” and when the dialog box comes up make sure “Use previous layer to create clipping mask” is selected and hit ok.  When the color balance box comes up set the followings settings.

click on the shadows radio button
set the 3^rd box to -6

click on the midtones radio button
set the 1^st box to +15
2^nd box to -5
3rd box to -15

click on the highlights radio button
set the 1^st box to -5
2^nd box to -10
3^rd box to -20

Now click your subject layer (or me) to activate it, and go to “Image> Adjustments> Brightness/Contrast” and lower the brightness down by “-10”.

Step 7

Now we are going to work on the sky to get that peeled back look.  Click on your duplicated sky layer.  Create a new layer and make sure it’s filled with white (you can turn the visibility off of the “me” layer so it’s not shown for now).  Go to “filter> Render> Fibers” and set the variance to 20 and the strength to 5.

Go to “filter> Artistic> Plastic Wrap” and make sure the settings are 15 for highlight strengths, 9 detail, and 7 smoothness.

Now go to “Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur” and set it at 2 pixels.

Next go to “Filter> Blur> Motion Blur” use 90 for the angle and 800 for the pixels.

Last go to “Image> Adjustments> Levels” and set the far left box at 60, the middle box to 1.10, and the far right box at 200.  And set this layer’s blend mode to “hard light” and merge the layer down (command+e for mac / ctrl+e for windows).

Step 8

Now turn back your subject layer on (me layer).  You will need it on to adjust how you want the sky peeled back to fit your or my hands properly.  With it turned back on and the sky layer selected go to “Edit> Transform> Warp”.  Now using the different points on the grid transform the sky to look like it’s being peeled back and fitted to your hands as if you are dragging it from the left of the screen to the right (try to picture what it looks like to drag a big curtain across a stage).



With that done, we have a few more things to make this a little more realistic as if you were actually pulling it.  With the sky layer still selected go to “Filter> Liquify”.  Now select the “pucker tool” and make sure on the far right at the bottom the “show backdrop” is checked so you can see the rest of your layers.  Now with the pucker tool slowly press over the parts where your hands are to pucker the curtain to make it seem as if you were grabbing it at those two spots.

Step 9

This is our final step and now we need to add some shadows underneath our hands to look as if it’s over the top of the curtain.  Simply duplicate your subject layer (me layer).  Command+click (mac) or ctrl+click (windows) to bring up a selection of the me layer.  Fill it with a solid black and move it underneath the original me layer.  Now go to “Fliter> Blur> Gaussian Blur” and put in 5 as the pixels and hit ok.

Duplicate the shadow layer and set the opacity as 50% and merge it down with the original shadow layer.  That’s it you are done!

Step 10 (optional – sharpening)

This is a way to sharpen the full image (only sharpen images AFTER you have resized them to what you will be submitting to the web, your final print, etc.)  Select the whole image ctrl+a (windows) or command+a (mac) and go to “Edit> Copy Merged”.  Now hit ctrl+v (windows) or command+v (mac) to paste the layer in.  Move it to the very top of the layer palette.  Set this layer to overlay and 40% opacity.  Go to “Filter> Other> High Pass”  and set it as 2 pixels (this will vary depending if you resized the image – rule of thumb is set the high pass filter so the image looks just a TAD over sharpened).  And now you are done and with a sharper image!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, feel free to comment if you have any questions or feedback.
Thanks.

©2010 Ryan O. Hicks. All Rights Reserved.

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Final Image

In this tutorial I will be walking you through how I created my digital piece, “Mother Nature”.  This is a simple photo manipulation of a few stock photographs and some brush work.

What you need to get started

You will need to gather your stock images and for this piece I used the following photographs and the brush set for the bokeh.
Female - http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/art/May-Queen-S-11-117077616
Butterflies - http://Shoofly-Stock.deviantart.com/art/Butterfly-Stock-4-36155021
Leaves - http://godsmonster.deviantart.com/art/wall-eeq1-86517794
Brush Set - http://m-ajinah.deviantart.com/art/Night-Lights-Brush-Set-106015559

Step 1

Open a new document with the document’s width set to 1200 pixels and the height set to 1920 pixels.  The background color of the background layer is irrelevant, as we will be covering it up with a gradient, but I set it to white for now.

Step 2

Now go to the bottom of the layer palette and click on the little circle that is half white and black to create a new fill or adjustment layer and select gradient.  When the dialog box pops up make sure dither is checked, align with layer is checked, the scale is 100%, angle is 90, and the style is a radial type.

Now click in the gradient box to set our gradient that we will use as the main background’s colors.  On the left side the green color is #a4c456 and the far right green (the darker one) is #021a02.  Click ok on both dialog boxes.

Step 3

Now open the stock image of the female and we are going to do a quick photo fix. We will be correcting some of the tonal values in the image before we start.  Go to “Image > Adjustments > Levels” and set the 3^rd box(white point box) on the far right to 228.  This will allow the image to utilize the full tonal range of its histogram and not look so washed out.

Step 4

This will be the most tedious part of the whole process, as you will need to outline the female with the pen tool or the lasso tool.  Use whatever is easier for you, however the pen tool allows for better control and smoother lines.  Once you have outlined her as you like copy and paste her into your canvas.  Now make a new group folder and name it “woman”.  Move her into that folder so you can keep your layers organized throughout this project.  The image below is how I outlined her and what I kept and didn’t keep on her body.  I cut out a lot of the hanging leaves/grass stuff hanging off of her arms and around her hair.  I felt they were too distracting to my final image, but you are welcome to keep it how you like.  I also used some of the healing and clone brush in combination with outlining her to clean up some of that extra grass and leaves.  Once she is pasted into your canvas go to “Edit > Free Transform” and size her accordingly to fit on your canvas.

Step 5

We will now sharpen the female a little.  Now duplicate the woman layer by dragging her layer to the new layer button at the bottom of the layer palette or pressing ctrl+J (windows) or command+j (mac).  Set the layer blend mode to overlay and 40% opacity.  Go to “filter > other > high pass” and set it to 1.5 pixels and hit ok.

Step 6

Now go to the little half black/white circle again at the bottom of the layer palette and select hue/saturation.  Enter -20 for the saturation and leave the rest at 0.  Then go to “Layer > create clipping mask” to apply it directly to the just the female layer.

Step 7

Now we are going to do some brush work to make some of her stand out and pop more.  Command+click or ctrl+click on the woman layer to create the selection of the woman.  Create a new layer and fill it with 50% gray and deselect the selection.  Now using your dodge and burn tool go over the layer in spots that you want to enhance by darkening and lighting the female.  Use a lower opacity dodge/burn brush set to midtones and go over it till it looks good.  Here is how my layer looked like after I got done with it (I changed the blend mode to normal so you can see where I burned/dodged the layer).

Here is a before and after of what my dodge/burning made her look like.

Step 8

This next step is optional, but it will add a nice subtle touch to the female.  Duplicate the original woman layer.
Then go to “filter > stylize > glowing edges” and use these settings.

Edge Width as 1
Edge Brightness as 13
Smoothness as 15

Now go to “image > adjustments > levels” and use the following settings.

Set the layer to screen and drop the opacity to 50%.  Some of the lines make the female look odd and are distracting because the edges are glowing purple and blue or just some random colors we do not want.  So make a layer mask for this layer and using a soft brush with black as the foreground color brush away some of the lines that is distracting.  I brushed around the edges of the female and around her chest area on her dress.  Duplicate this same layer and change the blend mode to overlay and drop the opacity to 10%.

The next step to finish off the female is to add a curves adjustment layer.  Once again go to the little half black/white circle at the bottom of the layer palette and select curves.  We are going to up the contrast a little bit more.  So select “increase contrast” from the drop menu in the dialog box and lower the opacity of the layer to 30%.

Step 9

In the layer palette create another new folder and name it weeds.  This is where we will create the weeds in the image and will be up to you on how you want your leaves or weeds in the scene to look.  Open up the stock image of the leaves.  I used the portion of leaves in the front of the image along the wall because they were in focus and had a little bug on one of the leaves.

Using a soft eraser brush to erase away the leaves and weeds to your liking.  Place them around the image and transform them to fit your scene.  Now merge all your weed layers together so it is just one layer.

Duplicate the weed layer twice.  Using the first duplicated layer set it to overlay with an opacity of 40%.  Go to “filter > other > high pass” and set the pixels to 1.5 and hit ok.  Merge this layer down with the original weeds layer.  This will sharpen the weeds up for us.

Now click on the other duplicated layer to activate it.  Now command+click or ctrl+click on the layer to bring up a selection of that layer and fill the selection with 50% gray.  Set the layer blend mode to overlay.  Once again using your dodge and burning tools set to midtones and go to work on the weeds layer to make them stand out more.   View my image to see where I did some of the brush work.

Another thing I did was copy some of the dirt in the leaves stock image and place it underneath her feet as you see in my photos above.

Step 10

Now create a new layer and drag it above our gradient adjustment layer.  Load the brush set from the link at the top of this article.  Use the spot 007 brush (or whatever you like the best) and make your bokeh and set the layer opacity to 15%.

Step 11

Now you need to make another new folder on top of everything and call it effects.

Create a new layer and name it blue line.  To create the blue swirl I used the pen tool and wrapped the lines around her body.  After you make the lines with your pen tool select your brush tool and make sure you have your brush settings with a diameter of 5 and hardness set to 0%

Click back on your pen tool (p), right click and select “stroke path” and make sure “brush” is selected in the drop down box with “simulate pressure” unchecked.

Now use the eraser tool to erase certain parts on the blue line to make it appear as the line is wrapping around her.  I erased every other line so it looks like it is going in front and behind her.  I also used a soft brush and erased some of the end of the blue line to make it look like it was disappearing.  I could of used the simulate pressure command, but I chose not to because I didn’t want the end of the line to get smaller.  I just wanted it to look like it was vanishing towards the end.  Now go to the layer styles of the blue line layer (double click the layer icon) and go to outer glow and inner glow styles and use the following settings.

Do the same thing for making the green line and use the same layer style settings for the inner and outer glow except change the color to #00ff06. (the reason you see part of the green line erased is because that is where my butterfly will go in the next step)

Create a new layer and name it glow. Using the color #00ff06 for the green line and a soft brush, brush along certain areas of the swirl that flow across her body to make it look like the green line is glowing against her skin or dress.  Do the same with the blue line with the color #0012ff.

Now for the little wave like thing in her hand I used another brush I found on the Internet that was apart of an abstract brush set I found a while ago.  So I can’t remember the link to where it is, but search out some abstract brushes at brusheezy http://www.brusheezy.com/brushes?search=abstract and download some of them and use any that appeals to your eye.  I also applied an outer glow to this layer with the opacity of 41%, spread of 1, size of 1, mode set to screen, and color set to #12ff00, and everything else set as the program default.

Create one more layer and name it ball glow.  Using a bigger size brush with 0% hardness and the color of #99fa35 create a soft glow effect in her hand.  I also reduced the opacity of this layer to 50% so it wasn’t as strong.

Step 12

Now create a new folder on top of everything called butterflies.  Open the stock butterfly image and cut and paste each one of the butterflies into your image.  Arrange them how you want them to look around the image.

Now once again go to the little half black/white circle at the bottom of the layer palette and select hue/saturation.  Set the saturation to -19 and leave everything else at 0.  Go to “Layer > create clipping mask” to apply it directly to the just the butterflies.

Step 13

The last thing we are going to do to finish this piece off is bring the highlights up just a tad.  For the last time go to the little half black/white circle at the bottom of the layer palette and select levels.  In the far right box (the white point box) set the number to 250.

And that’s it!  Hope you enjoyed my first tutorial and if you have any questions post away.

©2010 Ryan O. Hicks. All Rights Reserved.

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