Retouching headshots – any hints or tricks?

P
Posted By
Phosphor
Sep 3, 2003
Views
148
Replies
8
Status
Closed
Hi — I’ve been using PS and now PSE for quite a few years but only in a VERY basic way for personal stuff and desktop publishing at old jobs at a church & acting school. (Paid for lots of classes!!!) I’m an actor and just had new headshots done. I went digital and color, B&W is on the way out. The photographer retouched one on the spot – he dodged my scalp and used the healing brush – that tool is great!!! Yesterday I went and had 3 photos retouched (at $30 EACH), being scared to do much myself since the dodging I did on my scalp looked pretty bad.

Well, it was great sitting down with the retoucher and watching him work. It gave me the confidence to do the other 5 photos myself. (I’m a character actor and need different shots) I consider those $$ very well spent since I will save in the long run.

To brighten my eyes and teeth I used the red eye tool – amazing watching the yellow go away on those teeth. Then later I tried the Burn tool and that also worked great. Any other ideas?

The clone tool was great to even out complexion imperfections, extra shadows, etc. What other tools are good to use for that?

For the scalp, I copied some good hair in a wedge and positioned it over the bad spot and streched, rotated and erased bits of it. I just made sure the hair matched well.

Any suggestions for settings for the dodge tool? I set the opacity down to 20% and used the midtones setting. My first attempts were dark and blotchy. Yuk. The number of choices is mindboggling!

I also ran levels, flattened all the layers, put a black border around photo and set up my name. Heck, they charge $5 to add a black order around the photo to set it off from the white border and name. That was the easiest thing of all to do!!!

I’m on an iMac and have calibrated my monitor, so I’m confident about the color quality. I got my first digital camera this summer and bought Elements because it was so much less than a Photoshop upgrade – $50 at Costco versus about $150. Now the healing brush is the only Photoshop envy I have!

Any other ideas or suggestions on this kind of retouching would be appreciated!

The funniest thing was that I was so enthralled with watching him work on the photos, I didn’t realize that one of them was the wrong one! I hadn’t double checked the CD I’d burned! Guess I better screw my head on next time…. I guess driving into Hollywood can do that and I have to go up again today to bring the correct file for printing. And I’m proud to say I set it up myself!

Thanks,
Jane

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PL
Paul L UK
Sep 3, 2003
Jane

Give this a try for a ‘soft focus’ effect:-

duplicate layer;
gaussian blur the new layer, quite strong (30 pixels, but you may have to experiment); change blend mode to soft light;
drop the opacity to 80% (ish);
erase (or use a layer mask) on anything that should be clear, not blurred.

All settings/modes can be changed to get what you think looks good.

It’s a starter !!! 😉

Paul
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Bernie
Sep 3, 2003
There is FINALLY a book with USABLE techniques that includes virtually anything you could want to do with your PS/PE people photos.

Scott Kelby’s book: Photoshop Elements for digital photographers

You can get it thru Amazon for $20.00.

After all the books I have purchased,some have a few good techniques, many not really practical, this book will stop you from ever having to buy another how-to book when it comes to portraits. It is NOT a how to use PS/PE book, but how to do all the things you need.

Ralph
<http://www.darkstar.us>
CS
Chuck Snyder
Sep 3, 2003
Ralph, my copy is supposed to be delivered tomorrow, according to UPS – looking forward to it! I have the full PS version, and it’s terrific – great concept and execution!

Chuck
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Bernie
Sep 3, 2003
I was very impressed. It is all there, with techniques that are good and allow you to adapt it easily.
I dislike the books that give you some example file, they show the settings for THAT picture, and gives no clue to why the settings work, and of course, the settings will never be close for any of your pictures.
Since starting with PS 3.2, and wow, all the books, this book was too good to be true, I can’t imagine anyone not being happy with it.

Ralph
<http://www.darkstar.us>
NS
Nancy S
Sep 3, 2003
Ralph,

I agree with you about the great book. No theory here, short on words and big on screen shots. The whole book goes like this…If "x" is wrong with your image, do this, (like too much flash, undesirable freckles, etc)
P
Phosphor
Sep 25, 2003
Thanks for hints and for the information on Scott Kelby’s book – I finally got it from Amazon and it’s one of the best books I’ve seen on how to do all those things with real information. I’ve already tackled a couple of old family photo and tried Scott’s teeth whitening technique. By the way, my headshots turned out great and I may play around with them some more for the next time I have to duplicate them.

Jane
CS
Chuck Snyder
Sep 25, 2003
Jane, I’m glad the Kelby book whitens teeth, too – I was going to spend a bunch of money at the dentist and now I won’t have to do that…!

🙂
B
Bernie
Sep 25, 2003
The liquify filter has done WONDERS for my looks.

Ralph
<http://www.darkstar.us>

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