Before & After & After. And a video showing you just what I did.

Hello friends,

First of all, let me start by wishing each of you a late Happy New Year!  I hope you all enjoyed the holidays as much as we did.  My big resolution for 2012 is going to be to blog more.  I have such awesome readers so I’m declaring (isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with a resolution?) to blog at least once a week, and I want you all to hold me to it!  To kick the new year off with a bang, I thought I’d share a mega-video tutorial.  I mean, this one has TWO parts.  Wow.  Bigtime.

As always, I have to do my little OCD disclosure prior to releasing any footage into the universe that contains my voice, so here we go:

1.) In the ACR part (first video)  I say that “I always shoot in Auto.”  Please do not send me emails about that.  I do not shoot in Auto, P, AV, or utilize any form of green boxes in any way.  If you do, that’s fine, I’m cool with that.  But I don’t. I shoot in Manual. I meant to say “I  always shoot Auto White Balance” and if you’ve got a problem with the White Balance thing, well then I guess you can go ahead and send me an email about it.

2.)  I know I sort of jump around on both of these videos, but I also think they provide some solid photoshop tips & tricks, or I wouldn’t have created them.  So don’t laugh at them.  Plus, you shouldn’t laugh at people who divulge free Photoshop info.  You should only leave them sweet comments below letting them know how helpful they have been to you.  Hint, hint.

Alrighty, here we go.

Here is the Before image.

Here is the after.

 

And below are the 2 videos that show you exactly what I did.   The first one shows the slight ACR tweaks I made, and I gotta be honest, it’s not my finest blog-video-graphic production. But if you’re new to ACR (or even Lightroom) you may find it helpful.   The second one is much more Photoshoppy.  It starts in Photoshop CS5 where we left off in the first video (the very average ACR one) and walks you through everything I do, step by step by step by step. The links below will take you straight to the videos.

THIS IS VIDEO #1.  SKIP THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE MY VERY BASIC ACR TECHNIQUES.

THIS IS VIDEO #2.  IT WAS RECORDED IN PHOTOSHOP CS5, BUT YOU COULD PROBABLY APPLY THE METHODS TO ELEMENTS AS WELL.

Video number 2  also focuses a lot on skin, and answers the specifics about how I get that “glowey skin” look in some of my images.

While we’re at it, here’s another little tweak I did.  The only thing I changed is the background texture utilizing the methods outlined near the end of Video #2. I just lowered the lightness a bit, and got a completely different look.  Textures are so awesome, and the crazy way I photoshop always allows me to make lots of little tweaks until I achieve just the look I want.  (Note: the image below isn’t featured in the video.  But I just told you exactly what I did, so you should be able to figure it out easy peasily.)

Alrighty gang, look for a few more fun posts coming soon.  Until then, happy photoshopping!

XOXO-PB