Get the Goods: Photoshop Portrait Makeover -- Digital Makeup

Here is the third and final part of the portrait makeover tutorial videos crafted by Digital Photography School forum member Yanik (image-y). Thank you again Yanik for sharing your knowledge.

I was looking forward learning how to use Photoshop to add eyeshadow, blush and lipstick to portrait subjects. Some of my clients cannot afford to upgrade their packages to include a personal session with a make-up artist before the shoot. So it will be good to know that I can add a little more life and color to their portraits myself if necessary without overdoing it.

Important tips from this lesson include:
1) always working on a duplicate layer
2) keep your brushes soft with a 0 hardness
3) use dodge or burn to add contrast
4) lower opacity on your layers to keep the adjustments soft and natural

As usual, Yanik explains there are many different ways to do the same action in Photoshop, so if you have any other great techniques that you use during your editing process, please share them here in the comments section. And if you need some more ideas, YouTube has plenty of similar tutorials that can help you.

Get the Goods: Photoshop Portrait Makeover Tutorial -- Removing Pimples and Reducing Wrinkles

Yesterday, Digital Photography School forum member Yanik (image-y) introduced us to Part 1 of his Photoshop Portrait Makeover tutorial dealing with whitening teeth and eyes.

Part II teaches us how to remove pimples and diminish wrinkles. Yanik explains why he chooses to "lessen" rather than "remove" wrinkles because he wants to make sure his subject's remain realistic and not overprocessed.

Here is a summary of the basic steps in the tutorial:

1) Duplicate Layer -- to avoid making adjustments to the original image
2) Use spot or regular healing, remembering to use a small brush to remove blemishes
3) Flatten image and then duplicate layer again. This was a new step for me. Usually I just keep adding duplicate layers, but I think flattening one step will save me a lot of effort later when I need to change opacity or use some other type of blending mode to adjust a specific layer without affecting the entire image
4) Lower the opacity of the layer to 50 percent to bring back some of the wrinkles.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's post about using Photoshop to add makeup to a subject's face, including eyeshadow and lipstick, as this is a technique I've never tried before.

Get the Goods: Photoshop Portrait Makeover Tutorials, Whitening Teeth and Eyes

Last week, Digital Photography School released some sorely sought after Photoshop tutorials to help portrait photographers makeover their subjects. I wanted to personally thank DPS forum member Yanik (image-y) for putting together these amazing series that will be exceptional additions to our post-processing workflows.

I often use plug-ins such as Portraiture to quickly do "glamour makeovers." But a little bit of these type of programs goes a long way -- sometimes too far, I think, leaving the subject looking over-processed and plastic unless you tone the opacity down on your glamour duplicate layer. Learning to do piecemeal techniques such as whitening teeth and eyes, removing pimples and wrinkles, creating makeup and changing eye color might take longer. But I think it could ultimately give you more control in your editing to create realistic makeovers that retain a client's natural beauty without making them look overdone. I can't wait to try these out. If you haven't joined the Digital Photography School forum and receive their update emails, this is definitely a great reason to do so because the school helps you stay on top of new technology and techniques that can make you a better photographer.

Part 1: Whitening Teeth & Eyes


New ideas I culled from this video:
1) use desaturation to tone back yellow teeth or red eyes
2) keep your selection feathered with at least a 1 pixel so your edges won't be hard
3) keep things natural by using a soft touch in your editing.
4) learn how to do both the "lazy" and "more precise" methods so you can use both depending on how much time you have to edit.

If you know of any other ways to do these techniques, please leave a comment here to "share your wisdom" as Yanik suggests. I will present each of these tutorials throughout the week, so make sure to come back!