Before and Afters

My friend Maren asked me to do this a long time ago. I've planned to do it, its just been on the back burner because I knew it'd take some time to go back and find untouched files. I'll do a 2 part/2post for this because I have a few things to show.

First I'll show a before and after of pictures taken for sessions. That means I use Manual mode, look for the best light, and the images are what I consider my best from the session. I'll then show in my next post how I tweak my snapshots to make them look better.

Photography really is about taking a great image through the camera, and then knowing how to make great images look fantastic using tools in photoshop. In the past 4 years, I've learned photoshop...the first 2 years I used Elements 2 which is the most basic photoshop that came with my Digital Rebel. I took 1 class from a Ritz Camera store, and the rest I learned from online forums. I bought a book, but I'm just no good at absorbing things from book to brain. Then, almost 2 years ago I upgraded to Photoshop CS2. That is still what I use, even though there is a CS3 version that I know a lot of photogs have upgraded to. For those that know photoshop, I really wanted to be able to use "actions" and now that I have Bridge (a tool in CS2) to edit my images, it has cut down my processing time quite a bit.

This is my Straight out of Camera (SOOC) Image. A great shot. Great lighting. Her eyes are in focus, her feet are slightly out of focus. Making my focal point her eyes, know the rest would be thrown out of focus and her face would be the main focal point.

I used my 50mm portrait lens.

ISO 400

Shutter Speed 1/200

Aperture 1.8

She was on a bean bag inside her home, near a window letting in lots of light. I faced her towards the window and I stood above her, making sure to not block the window light. You can see the window reflection in here eyes. So, looks pretty great, right? I then take it into photoshop to do a few minor things.

First, what I do to all of my images is give a slight vignetter around the edges. You can see it the most at the corners, but it darkens the edges of the entire image, which gives a bit of a soft frame so the focus goes to the subject. Often with babies, there is a slight reddish ness that I'll lighten that red. Since I shoot in RAW, I'll then convert this image into a JPG and add a Color Pop Action (recipe with steps made to make my flow faster) which brightens the "fog" that comes out of digital images. I'll then work on skin tones. I apply to most of my images a Portraiture filter. I don't always do this, but often. It can tend to look plastic, but I do it on 3 or 5% depending on the subject. This smoothes the skin and shadows around the face. I'll show you later on an image of myself, there is a bigger difference on an adult.
I'll then add my favorite black and white conversion action which is called Shot of Espresso, made by a girl on my photography forum.
The thing is, most photographers have their own "formulas" or recipes that they do in photoshop. Some like a certain look, while others don't like that look. I've got hundreds of them and try out different things and am always looking for new ones to change it up. 2 different places to look for actions are Phaunt Actions and Indie Actions Both are pretty reasonable in price and I have both of them. Some action sets take more "tweaking" than others, and thats another lesson all in itself that I'm still learning. Totally Rad Actions and Jinky Actions are cool, but more pricey. Just don't be fooled that you push a button and get what they show you...its a big more complicated than even I originally thought. You can also type in "free actions" in google and see what comes up. You just have to have Photoshop 7 or higher in order to use them. There are some plug-ins that work for Elements though, try this one.

One more sample:

This girl came with her friends from Houston. It was a very overcast day and rained later on. Overcast is actually not preferred because its just gray and hazy outside. I don't have the light glow that I want. I take what I can get, couldn't reschedule this. No light in the eyes, and shadows under the eyes. Both a photographers nightmare. This image is actually a tad underexposed (dark) so not perfect SOOC, but decent.

Below SOOC

This is after my vignette, shadow and exposure bump (lightens the overall image and shadows define edges a bit) Below Image

This is after I add my "color pop" to the image to help the image to come alive (below)
Then I went in and lightened her eyes a bit and swipe my clone tool (at 13%) under her eyes to lessen the harshness of the shadows under her eyes.

I then added my Portraiture Filter

And then a funky look because I think it looks great with the dress on the tracks

A closer look

P.S. I don't know why you can't click on them to look closer...I wish you could.
I'll just have you all know that this took me 2 and a half hours to put together, so give me some blog love if you actually read all of this;)!!