"Gary F. Pitel" wrote:
Joel wrote:
"Gary F. Pitel" wrote:
I want to sharpen the eyes in an image. Now I also will blur the image and dodge and burn the image. My question is when should I do the sharpening before I do anything else or after all the other adjustments are done? I will make a copy of the original image and use that for the surface blur and than I will also mask that layer to control the blurring. Next I will do some paint smoothing on another layer and lastly I will dodge and burn on another layer.
So when should I do the sharpening and is that done on the original background layer or what layer is best to do it on? Thanks
I don’t think there is any single answer to all questions, and some technique may depend on other to get the best out of all. Example
– If you just blur to soften a little then you may be able to sharpen after soften.
– But if you blur to turn (skin texture for example) into plastic then it would be hard for sharpen to reverse the sharpness. In this case Masking may be the answer.
Or you can exclue the area you want to sharpen (I would use Mask as Mask gives more control than excluding). And of course I have no idea what type of image you have in mind, when I am thinking of headshot.
The subject is a Portrait of a Women. I only will be sharpening the eyes
Female portraiture I often soften the skin a little, and leave the eyes alone or sometime sharpen a little.
Since I usually apply a very little soften so I just
1. Mark the eyes (3-4 pixels feather) or any area I don’t want to soften, then EXCLUDE (Select -> Inverse ?) the eyes. Then you will have the rest soften except the eyes
2. And if I want to sharpen the eyes a little more then I just apply directly to the eyes (25-40% or so).
and I will be using a mask for the blurring to smooth the face and paint smoothing is just to blur it a little more and to make the blur uniform. The dodging is to eliminate some wrinkles. Yes I will size the image on the very first step. I will do everything on its own layer. I am lost as to where to put the layer in the layer order when I do the final step and sharpen the eyes.
I use Mask & multiple layers quite often and I don’t follow the exact step’s but when or whatever I feel like.
– Winkles, it depends on the situation you can use
– Clone Tool with low opacity (tablet is a good tool as you can go over and over and over multiple times which is better than once at higher opacity)
– Healing Spot/Path is also a good tool
– Layer, using Paint Brush to apply a low opacity color (using eyedrop to pick the sample), then combination with either Erase Tool or Masking to soften the winkle.
IOW, it’s not only depending on the technique but depending on the age or your style. Or you don’t want to completely remove all winkles from an elder person, or you don’t want to leave heavy winkle on young person (especially female).
Does it want to be the very top layer? Do I want to do it on a copy of the background layer (untouched layer) or on a copy of the blur layer? Thanks!
I always make a dupe of the original, and for most works I work on the top layer and masking to get the original information from the lower original layer.
Sometime I have multiple layers, maskes for different need’s so I use whatever suites me the most or cutting down the time. And because I have retouched hundreds of thousands of photos, so I don’t often spend more than 1-2 minutes (many in less than 1 minute, and some can be up to 10-20 mins). Or before I start doing anything I spend few second to study the photo first, and I usually know exactly what I may do (my style and what I know) so I don’t need to waste the time thinking what to do <bg>