Touchy Condition

I have been reading good number of blogs and listening to many podcasts about photography over the last year or so. What I have found is that when it comes to workflow, there are as many different processes as there are photosensors on a high end DSLR. There is an understanding that it is a personal workflow and a general what works best for you is great. So we all end up developing an individual workflow that- well... Works.

Now when it comes to photo retouching, there are fewer positions. Actually the battle lines are pretty clear. There are the purists who take the position that your get everything in the camera and don't touch a thing, Those that say it is ok to do what was done in the darkroom. Finally there are the "go for broke" people that don't mind using the digital tools to make an image look as good as it possibly can. For the most part these folks want the person who looks upon the image to see what they saw when they took the shot. I am not going to address here the group that takes a photo and makes it unrealistic yet has it's own artistic value.

Personally I fall into the third group. If a combination of the digital capture and digital post production can make an image that is beutiful and one the client will be delighted with then I am all for it. Just like sharpening there are a couple of steps that are in effect here. 

Pre-touching - That of working a RAW file to an editable state. Jpeg shooters get the corrected image right from the camera. RAW shooters get what comes off the sensor allowing a wider range of correction using RAW conversion software.

Re-Touching - Taking a printable image and making corrections for color cast, and minor "fixes" of the subject. Zits, teeth whitening, removal of shadows and specular highlights (sweat spots). Many people refer to this level as color correction.

Enhancing - Taking touching one step further and going into lighting, softening, enlarging, and reducing. Each of these has their particular limits of use. The quality of the final image is decided by how and where your eyes drawn, and does the image look like as though it could have been taken naturally with makeup and high quality lighting.

Here is an example here in the following images. This is an image of a nice looking young lady where the photographer has re-touched and done some skin softening to give a glamourous look to her.

Bringing this image into Photoshop, in this case Elements, and adding a number of layers for adjusting aspect of the above image we can produce an enhanced version that may or may not be asa pleasing to the client but the option is there. Something that film could only offer on a marginal basis.

Referencing the layers stack below and right we will step through the process.

Layer 1 - Is the background or original layer when the file is opened. Generally this needs to be copied or unlocked before real editing can take place.

Layer 2-4 - These are adjustment layers for a 25% warming filter to bring some natural light to the skin tones. The layer masks as well as layer 5 were generated from a selection of the girls face and hair saved on another layer (not shown) simply for the purpose of re-selection. All three of these layers are the same and are used to multiply the effect of the filter. Just the same as using three layers of a CTO gel on a flash.

Layer 5 - Is simply used to provide a darkening on the background. While the sweater does reflect the darkening at this point, it provides the basis for the effect later.

Layer 6 - Includes some facial enhancing that I chose to do. There was some funky shadowing on her right cheek that I chose to take out at this point so I could reapply at a later time. There is another enhancement that I will let you discover on this layer and will address in tomorrows post. See if you can see what it is.

Layer 7-8 - This is a real tool to provide non-destructive dodging and burning of an image. I will be having a post on this technique at a later date but suffice it to say it provides a means to really paint with light in an image.

Layers 9-11 - Are a re-coloring of the sweater. By using two colors and Blending Modes (along with what we did on layer 5) we can give the image a foundation that helps frame the young girls face rather than detracting from it with a bright sweater.

So where did we end up. Simply a different take on a very nice image to start with. Below is the finished image and you will have to choose which one you enjoy the most. The bottom line is we have the tools to provide more choices. How we use those tools to draw the viewers attention into the photo is always the catcher. That moment that you realize you are staring at an image is when you can realize it is a great image. That is the goal of the digital artist.

Stop back tomorrow and see what I did to this image that I did not discuss in this post.

Cya... Doug