Jordan part 2: putting it together

Okay, here’s how the Jordan image came together:

(If you want to focus on one of the steps in the above animation, clicking on it will open the current frame in a new window.)

1. The base image.

2. Here, I darkened the orange background so that his face draws most of the focus. I did this simply by creating a Curves adjustment layer, and painting in the background.

3. Here I removed blemishes and evened his skin tone.

4. His hands ended up being darker than his face because of how it was lit. I didn’t catch it at the time, but it was quick work in Photoshop to brighten it up using an adjustment layer and a layer mask.

5. Overall color balancing: I desaturated everything a bit, and used a Color Balance adjustment layer to pump a little yellow into the highlights. By the way, in my opinion you can improve most portraits by pumping a little yellow into the highlights.

6. The image was somewhat dull, so I increased the local contrast by using the “Making Photos Pop” technique with a large radius.

7. I didn’t have much control over the placement of the window in the background, so I added a vignette to put even more focus on Jordan. Here’s how to create a quick vignette: create a new layer filled with white, create a layer mask, use the circular marquee tool to draw an oval in the general shape of the vignette, fill with black, gaussian blur the layer mask (containing the oval), and finally adjust the layer opacity down to taste.

8. This is the step that gives your image the “illustration” look, evident in the final image. Basically, you exaggerate the highlights in your subject by “dodging” them. In this image, I focused on his face, hair, and clothes. I especially like doing this to wrinkles, like on his jacket and jeans.

   Exaggerating the existing highlights is easy, but sometimes you need to imagine how light would fall in a perfect lighting situation and paint those highlights in too. Figuring that out just takes practice and messing up a lot. Since I dodged on a separate layer, mistakes didn’t cost me anything. You can use the dodge tool and rely on undo, but a better way is to create a Curves adjustment layer that lightens the image, and then paint in the layer mask. Then, you can leave your non-drawing hand on the “x” key to quickly switch between white and black to dodge and un-dodge, respectively.

   By the way, this step is best done with a Wacom tablet. If you don’t have one of these and are serious about photo manipulation, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. I know they can be expensive, but the control they afford is completely worth it. Buy one, like, now. You don’t need to buy the biggest one, but don’t go too skimpy. The smallest one you should even consider is this one, which is a newer version of the one I use. Trust me, in this case size is important.

   One other thing, just so I can come away from this article with a clear conscience, that Wacom tablet link is hooked up to my Amazon affiliates account. So if you buy a tablet using that link, then you’ll be supporting this site. Just make sure you use that link, or if you want to, this one. These are not the droids you are looking for. Move along.

9. In this step I again increased local contrast to further augment the painting I did in step 8, so I applied the pop technique again, with a large radius.

10. Again, this time with a small radius, which makes the image look crispy. Look at his clothes. You can almost see the fibers. Check the hair. Be warned: it is very easy to overdo this step and over-sharpen. This is all a matter of taste. Some days I look at this image and think it’s over-sharpened. Some days I think it gives it that hyper-real look. I like to think that makes it just right.

11. This step is the opposite of step 8, where I “burn” instead of “dodge”. The technique is the same, but you create a Curves adjustment layer that darkens instead of lightens. In this step, I burned in areas where I thought shadows might naturally fall that happened to coincide with the vignette, which put further focus on the subject.

Well, there you have it. Many of my images, especially portraits, have these techniques applied to them, and not always in the order I presented. I hope this discussion wasn’t too advanced, but in case you need further clarification on one of the steps, just leave a comment. Maybe I’ll make it the topic of a future post.

One final note: I encourage you to try the steps above on your own, and then post your images up on the freemixology flickr group for everyone to see. The site is new, so there probably won’t be much there yet, but hopefully it will become a great way to learn from one another.

Mar 01, 2008 by mike Comments (2)