In this in-depth video I'll be taking a somewhat different approach to demonstrating dodging and burning. Rather than cover the actual painting aspect of dodging and burning, I'll be focusing on 4 different approaches and discussing which is best suited for various situations, the best practices for each and the limitations that come with them. The video is beginner t[...]
Tags archives: retouching
Lighting Effects and Composite Blending
In this fairly extensive video tutorial I'll be covering a variety of ways to enhance and add lighting effects to your image. In the case of composites, we'll look at some ways to use light and coloring to make them look a bit more believable and improve the blend between the subject and background.
We'll start with the above composite image and work through th[...]
Creating Beautiful Hair Highlights in Photoshop
In this video tutorial I'll be covering some techniques for making hair highlights in your portraits look beautiful. Rather than just enhancing the highlights, we'll also be discussing how to deal with common issues that arise when shooting dark haired models. Some of the tools that will be discussed include:
Layer blend modes
Channels based selection and adjust[...]
Mastering Color Adjustments in Photoshop
In this video tutorial I'll be covering the various ways that you can adjust the color of your images. There are countless ways to adjust colors within Photoshop so here I'll be looking at 6 approaches that I use on a daily basis within my images. The tools shown here will work equally well for fashion, portrait, landscape, architecture and all other types of images. [...]
Why I Don't Share Unedited Images
I get the question surprisingly often "can you post the original image", and my answer is always the same, "no". Rather than breaking into a lengthy explanation each time, I'm writing this article so that I can redirect future requests here. The reasons I don't share my originals are many fold but also simple.
I consider photography to be the entire process of brin[...]
Creating Long Exposure Sky Effects in Photoshop
After several requests, I've decided to put together a video outlining the steps for adding a long exposure motion effect to the sky in your landscape or architectural images. The below video works for just about any version of Adobe Photoshop CS so you don't have to use CS6 like you see here.
Kelby Training Review
Having explored a great number of videos on Kelby Training for over three months now, I think it's time that I post a brief review of the site and make suggestions to those that are considering joining. On the plus side, Kelby Training offers a month to month subscription which lowers your level of commitment and allows you to try it out at a relatively low cost of $2[...]
Portrait Do's and Don'ts
Perhaps it's just me, but I often stumble onto local studio photographer websites and am saddened by what I see in their portrait portfolio's. I'm not referring to more arty or fashion oriented portraits as this is a different and much more subjective realm. I'm talking about a standard head shot that is meant to depict the person as they really are. The sort used by [...]