Well, if you’ve followed this blog for longer than 5 minutes, you know that I’ve been affiliated for a while now with a wonderful professional and a great photog-bud Erin, over at Texas Chicks Blogs & Pics.    I think we first “cyber-met” when she either purchased or won some of my products online a few years ago, and started using them in her tutorial blog posts.  Since then, she’s grown to be one of the online leaders when it comes to teaching Photoshop Elements, and she has helped thousands of readers develop their editing skills.

I like people like that.  Those types of folks are my typical cup of tea.

I think many of you actually know me through Erin, but if you don’t, and for all those Elements users out there, I wanted to make sure you were aware of what an awesome resource she is.  I also get a lot of emails from friends who are just wanting to learn basic ways to improve pictures they take of their kids, like the example below, and I always refer them to Erin.

Here’s why….

If you’re just getting into Photoshop, Elements is a great tool to start out with.  It’s what I started out with because a.) you can pick it up for about $80  (vs. it’s pricier cousin, Photoshop CS, which is going to run you upwards of $500)  b.) it’s user-friendly and c.) you can accomplish most of your basic editing needs with it.  If, after a year (or 6 months or 2 weeks, whatever your time frame is) you begin to find it limiting, you can upgrade to CS (like I did) and typically Adobe will give you a little discount.  Clear that with them, first though.

So, if you’re a hobbyist, shutter-bug mom, or general photo enthusiast, Photoshop Elements is your friend.  And so is Erin, because she will provide you with some awesome tutorials and will teach you how to uncover all sorts of tricks Elements can do.  If you stop by, tell her I said hello.  We like to be friendly like that.

Until next time, PB

Happy Valentines Day!  I hope you all are lovin’ it up with those you all love today!  This has been the sweetest Valentines day for us because our little boy is finally at that age where he really is so cute about it.  He’s in love with the girl next door (they are both 5, mind you, so we’re not too concerned yet…) and his teacher, and one of his instructors at Tae-Kwan-Do and a few others.  What can I say, he’s a regular Romeo. We’re enjoying it, and I made up this little shirt for him in the spirit of all things lovely, which he wanted to show off this morning.  But the first picture I took turned out like this:

In an effort to jazz it up a bit, I turned it into this at first:

But then, I decided I liked it better in this black & white version, which is now sitting in a frame in our entryway.

I cut a video showing you exactly how I did each, but wouldn’t you know it, something went wrong, and I just don’t have the time or patience to re-cut the whole thing this morning.  So here’s a quick recap of the post-processing.

First image:  Shot in RAW and applied my “Seashell” preset from my Storyteller’s collection to it.  Opened in Photoshop & applied a little Lens Blur around the edges.  Then I applied the texture “Balance” from the freebies found here and removed the texture off of my subject entirely.  Easy Peesy.

Second image:  Applied “Black & White Crafted” from Storyteller’s in ACR, opened in Photoshop and then applied the same texture I used in the first image, and removed it from my subject.  Applying a colored texture to a Black & White image – especially a subtle texture like “Balance” – is a great way to add a little definition and interest to your black & whites while still retaining it’s overall Black & White feel.

Important note:  You don’t necessarily have to use my products to create these looks but if you choose to, please note that the Storyteller’s presets are for RAW shooters only.  If you don’t know whether or not you are a RAW shooter, chances are you aren’t one yet. 

***Quickie Meatless Update***

You all crack me up.  I think I received about 10 emails regarding my last post – Meatless Mania! – and one comment.  I typically get more comments and fewer emails.  And the funniest thing is that you all were asking me (in your emails) to keep you updated, so here goes.  Yes, I’m still “meatless” but I did try to eat seafood this weekend and became ridiculously sick.  Yes, I’m still losing weight.  Yes, my energy levels are still crazy high.  No, I did not realize I was joining yet another “Dark Side” (man, I’ve gotten pretty dark this year….) and, once again, there is absolutely no political motive whatsoever behind my meatlessness.  It’s purely for health reasons, and for me at least….it’s been SOOOO amazing.   I will do another, more extensive update about it soon but honestly, I could write a book on the subject, which clearly you all may not want to read.  Or maybe you would want to, but only in a secret, quiet and non-public type of forum.  Smiles.

Alrighty gang, I’ve got a very excited little boy to pick up from his Valentine’s day party at school and I’ve got to figure out how to get the mass amounts of sugar out of his teeth before his dental appointment this afternoon.

Hope you all have a super-happy hearts day!  XOXO – PB

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

Before:

I mean, really I do.  What other computer program in the world allows you to take a somewhat average capture and turn it pretty?

So much fun.

For those of you curious about how I did this, it’s one of my upcoming presets plus some dodge/burn around her eyes. Oh, I also added a solid color layer in yellow and put the blending mode on “overlay” and lowered the opacity to about 10%.  Then I did a little bit of a high-pass sharp on her eyes/face, erased it off her skin, and added some blur.  I do all sorts of things with blur, probably too much to explain in a post.

Hope you all like it!  As always, I love hearing from ya.   Have a great evening! – PB

Oh, and also, I received about a dozen emails on my last post, mostly along the lines of “Amen, Sister!”  For those of you who slyly sent me an email, but were too shy to comment, I’m glad you liked it.  And I promise, I’ll keep it our little secret.  Until next time…..

Well, first of all, I have to say a huge thank you to absolutely everyone who sent kind thoughts, emails, comments, or prayers regarding my bout with Lyme disease.  You have no idea how much your kind words meant to me and  I am SO happy to report that I am 100% cured!  I have absolutely no residual side effects and all of the neurological issues have gone away.  Completely.  Unfortunately, I’ve been crazy busy this week prepping for Hurricane Irene’s arrival….and as things stand right now, we have no idea if we are going to evacuate or not.  We live in southern Yorktown, Virginia in the “Hampton Roads” region, near Norfolk/Virginia Beach/etc. so needless to say, things are starting to get a little interesting around here….

In the calm before the storm, I thought I’d share a quick little collection of black & whites that are near & dear to me.  My first photography love has always been a good black & white.  In fact, the majority of the images I have in my house are all black & whites….with a few colorful family shots here & there.  I absolutely love black & white photography….it is classic, cool, moody & a little mysterious all at the same time.  When my son was born, I decided to create a collection of black & white images of him to put in a book some day as a gift when he departs the nest.   That will be a while, I know, but I’m hoping to have some shots he’ll want to keep forever.  Below are a handful of my favorites, along with tips for capturing dramatic B&W’s, and how I like to process them after-capture.

1. The two of us when I was learning photography.  Still learning.  This image  has some exposure issues, but I love it anyhow.  It’s a reflection, and the blown out/under-exposed parts actually add a lot to it overall.  Love it.

2.)  This was a sweet one.  A few Christmases ago, he wanted to set up this nativity scene with an old box, and I let him.  I used either my 24-70 or my 16-35 on this one, can’t remember, but again, I love it.  I did my “under-expose” trick that I’ll describe later because I knew it would be converted to black & white.

3.)  Another one I love.  Used the “under-expose” trick below, because I knew this was going to be black & white too.  Absolutely love how the reflection from the table lights up the silhouette of his face just a tad.

4.)  This was one of those “throw it into AV and see what you get” series of shots.  Although there are some definite exposure issues, again, I can’t tell you how much I love this series of images.  It’s also one of the sets that people always comment on when they visit our home.  Printed, it’s not quite as contrasty looking.   I love it – especially because it is of my two favorite people in the world.

6.)  This is my honey waiting for his carpool ride to pick him up for preschool.  It was raining that day.  He was prepared.

7.)  Another all time fave.  Had this one professionally framed.  He’s just standing in some windows.  I post processed using the below methods described, and adding a little lens blur.

Okay, here are my tips for how I shoot black & white…these are not standard photography guidelines – just the way I like to do it.

I like backlighting and silhouettes – in fact, I totally love them.  In order to get the look seen in pics 3, 6 and 8 above, I typically meter for my subject (in these cases, it was the back or side of my son’s head) then actually under-expose the subject only by just a tad (I’m usually photographing what you may think of as “grey space” at this point – in other words, my in-camera readings are right at “0″) while opening up my F-stop as much as possible without completely blowing out the image.   I’m also using the lowest ISO possible at this point to avoid too much graininess.  A little grain is no biggie, but too much will totally kill the mood of your black & white.

Did that make sense?  If not, go back and read it again and/or post questions in the comments section below.  I’ll do my best to answer them for you.

Alrighty, now on to the post-processing part.  I hate to disappoint you all ( I’ve gotten so many requests for post-processing black & whites) but my photoshopping method – 90% of the time – consists of a very, very basic Gradient Map conversion, then mild tweaking of brightness/contrast & selective coloring.  On occasion I’ll go hog-wild and play with levels a bit, but that’s typically just in the event that an image doesn’t have enough contrast to begin with.

This is my basic formula:  I add a gradient map via the adjustment layers icon in the layers palette, then I convert it to black and white.  If you have no idea what that means, these handy screenshots should help.  They are in Photoshop CS5.

See how that works?  Easy Peasy.  Now, here is the basic tweaking that I do.

1.)  Make a copy, then lower the brightness just a tad and increase the contrast just a tad on the copy.  If you don’t know where to find your brightness/contrast just go to Image/Adjustments/Brightness Contrast.  I typically lower the brightness to anywhere from a -3 to a -7 and increase the contrast just a little itty bitty bit (maybe to a +2 or +3 or so) and then that’s it.

2.)  I am fussy about skin tones (which btw, all skin smoothing, wrinkle removal, etc. should be done before you convert to B&W, not after….it’s just easier that way) so I will typically use my eraser on the layer I just performed the brightness/contrast adjustments on, and remove the brightness/contrast from the skin – face, hands, etc.  If you need to go back & burn your shadows just a tad over the eyes you can.

3.) If I’m really in a perfectionista type of mood, I’ll whiten the skin a tad by going to Image/Adjustments/Selective Color & then I will select the blacks, only from the pull down menu.  I’ll bump those up just a tad – maybe to a plus one.  (I’m doing this on a layer so I can erase/remove the effect over skin if needed) and then (In another layer) I’ll do the same thing, only select the neutrals instead of the blacks, and remove the blacks from them just a bit.  Then I’ll do a reverse layer mask on that layer, and paint it back in just a tad over the skin….this will suck the grey out of your skin, and give you really bright, white skin without blowing out your highlights in the rest of your image.

4.) I pop my eyes just a tad by using the methods described here, and then I run my Multiply Action to darken all around the edges.  I think you can see the difference just in the images below.  The first is a basic BW conversion (using the Gradient Map method outlined above) and the second is with my tweaks added.

Alright friends, well – that concludes today’s post.  Keep all of us “East-Coasters” in your thoughts and prayers as we make the best decisions we can regarding evacuation, supplies, etc. during the coming days.   I have no idea what the next 72 hours holds for our family, so if I don’t return emails right away, you’re going to have to give me a break.  As always, I’ll return your emails as soon as possible.  In the meantime, feel free to leave comments or questions here.  There is a good possibility I’ll be spending a lot of time in a hotel room this weekend – a bit further inland –  with (hopefully!) an internet connection and no Irene.  I’ll need something to do.

Until next time…XOXO – PB

Well, there are tons of things going on behind the scenes here at both Patti Brown Photography, LLC & Kaleidoscope: A Collection of Color & Light, and while I’m not ready to share everything yet, let’s just say I think you all are in for some treats!

I’ve received literally hundreds of comments & emails over the past few weeks regarding my free actions, products, and tutorials.  So, I thought I’d quickly clear up a few of the most commonly asked questions, and also respond to a few suggestions you all have made.

First of all, you’re asking for actions, and although I love you – I just don’t want to get into the action “business” right now.  I will put up a few more freebies (just the few little actions in addition to Oil Painting that I’ve written for myself and use most often) but I just don’t see trying to re-invent the wheel when there are so many great ones out there!  Also, several of you have asked about online mentoring and workshops, and again (so sorry to be a drag) but right now is just not the time for me to take on additional responsibilities.   One day, I promise, I’ll make mentoring available and maybe even do a workshop, but it absolutely won’t be in 2011.    In the meantime, some of my professional peers do offer mentoring programs including Erin from Texas Chicks Blogs & Pics, Andee from Crave Photography & Jodi from MCP.  I would strongly suggest exploring their sites and determining which one is right for you.  As for workshops go, once again, I cannot say enough good about the Nichole Van Workshops. They are awesome, and Nichole really knows her stuff!

HOWEVER…the absolute top request I’ve received recently has been for MORE TUTORIALS – and that, my friends, I can do for you!  I’ve got several tutorials already in the works (both photography & editing posts) so bear with me gang…they’ll be here just as soon as I can possibly make it happen.  Also look out for more elements tutorials (you asked, I’m listening!) and cool new products are also coming soon!

On that note, here’s a quick B&A for you, and (of course) the editing notes can be found below.  I did a B&A&A because I wanted to show you how I achieved the color, etc. on the first one and then what a cool difference a flare can make when used just right on the second one.

Here’s the Before & First After:

The first thing I did on this image is run my free  Oil Painting action for CS  (Elements version can be found here at Erin’s website.)  I completely erased the effect off of their skin only, and lowered it to around 40%.  I then added “Marsh” (I inverted it) and “Beach Glass 4″ both in overlay blending mode, both from my Gallery Collection – erased the texture over my main subjects and lowered the opacity of each to around 50%.  I then went back and used my “burn” tool, on a separate layer, to just barely burn over my subjects in order to make them pop & sharpen them up a bit.  I lowered that layer to taste, just so it would really blend.  I also popped their skin a bit by adding a brightness layer underneath the Oil Painting Layer (more skin tutorials coming soon…) and that’s it!  Easy Peesy!  You certainly wouldn’t have to just use the products from my Gallery Collection, but that’s what I used.  Oil Painting is a must though – you won’t get the color/glowey-ness without it.  And hey, it’s free!

Finally, in this last image, I added “Big Flare II” from my Lite Flare Collection (BTW – people always ask me if I meant to spell “Lite Flare” that way instead of “Light Flare” and I actually did….I had this clever little vision in my head at the time, which I am apparently the only one who finds clever, so I do really regret it and wish I had just spelled it properly to begin with.  It’s the English Major in me…trying to be clever…but anyhow, I digress…back to the editing notes) and on the actual flare layer only, I popped the saturation, lightness (found in the hue/saturation slider) up a bit, and popped the brightness up a tad.  I also used one stroke from a ginormous soft round eraser to erase right over her gown in a very subtle manner.

Hope that helps!  I hate for every B&A to sound like some sort of cheesy product up-sell, so I promise, I’ll try not to do it with every single one.  But, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t use my own products.  Because I like’em.  That’s why I created’em.  And I’m so glad so many of you are enjoying them too!

Alrighty then…that should just about wrap up this post!  Thanks so much for stopping by and as always, if this B&A was helpful or inspiring, please let me know about it by leaving a comment below!  In the meantime, have a wonderful week, and happy photo-shopping!

XOXO – PB

Here is the original mistake-laden post where I lured you into thinking you could get a free Elements action.  Once again, my sincere apologies.  

This is a quick post, but I just wanted to share ASAP that my “Oil Painting Action” (the free one from a few posts back) was converted by Erin from Texas Chicks Blogs & Pics for Elements users.  AND, and, and (this is the best part!) it’s totally free!   Click here to download and while you’re there, leave her a big thank you!!!

I was totally stoked when she contacted me a few weeks ago to ask permission to convert it to Elements.  Of course, I told her to go for it (I always feel a little guilty that I don’t have more time to devote to my awesome Elements clients/readers/etc….plus, it’s an awesome program…) so, now, you all can utilize the “Oil Painting” effect too!  Yay!

Please, please just leaver her a sweet comment telling her thanks so much.  She is such a nice person, and such a pro, I just love partnering with her in any way that I can.

Enjoy!  - PB

Thing 1: Sorry for not having blogged in a bit.  I’m really inconsistent with blogging because I have a life.  It sometimes gets in the way of spending tons of time in photoshop and on computers.   And, unless there is something worthwhile for me to share, I just don’t feel the need to bore you all to death with the minutia of my day.  There are super fascinating bloggers out there who are really great at sharing every single detail of their lives, I am just not one of them.  I’m WAY, way too boring.

Thing 2:  PROMISE ME that you will read the PLEASE NOTE and the PLEASE NOTE THIS TOO notes below.  I’M WRITING THIS IN BIG, BOLD, BLACK LETTERS WHICH AUTOMATICALLY GIVES ME THE RIGHT TO NOT ANSWER YOU IF YOU EMAIL ME WITH A QUESTION WHICH IS CLEARLY ANSWERED BELOW. Got it?  Good.  If that sounds sassy, I’m really not meaning it to, I just want to be absolutely perfectly clear  in order to keep my inbox manageable.  I never mind answering questions, but I don’t like typing the same thing over and over again.  If that sounded mean and you are offended in any way, read the next sentence.  If not, feel free to proceed to the B&A, tutorial, & free action below.

(NEXT SENTENCE:  SO SO seriously sorry if that sounded ugly in any way sweet photog friends!  Love you!  Hugs!!  Big Cyber-niceties & LYLAS!!  (Oh, and one more reminder, please make sure you read the bold notes below!!!)  I mean that in the absolute nicest way possible! Hugs again!  XOXO )

Alrighty, moving on….

This is a simple little B&A&A which I think you’ll enjoy.

Pic 1: the Before.  Pic 2:  Ran my “Oil Painting Technique/Action”  (Technique outlined a few posts back – Action is below.)  Pic 3.   Again, ran the “Oil Painting” Desaturated a tad, and added “Clouds” from my Gallery Collection in soft light.

Finally, you can download my “Oil Painting Action”  action for free below.  I think you’re going to love it (it’s been testing beautifully – you all should SEE some of the B&A’s people have sent me.  Wowza!)  and nobody has had any downloading issues, or other problems with it.   The coolest feature?  It won’t cost you even a penny.  It was created & tested in CS5.  Don’t know what other versions it will work with, but I’m pretty positive it won’t work with Elements.  If anyone uses it in CS2,3, or 4 feel free to let me know in the comments.

PLEASE NOTE: You will need to make sure you are brushing on the proper mask (directions are included) on the last step (where you’ll be popping the eyes – this is totally optional.)  In that one step, I accidentally left the brush on the image, not on the mask.  Move it to the mask first.  You may not even notice that part (only one of my testers did, and she’s got an eye like an eagle, which I love)  and although I contemplated re-cutting, re-testing, and re-spending a whole bunch of time getting it completely foolproof & perfect by fixing that one teensy tiny thing, I just didn’t.  So, you’re going to have to press that button yourself.   It’s a free action, after all, so you can’t be too annoyed by it’s imperfection.  That violates the karma of receiving something for free.

PLEASE NOTE THIS TOO: when painting the main effect off of your skin, I suggest using a brush set at 75% opacity.  But, you can set it at 100% if the skin underneath looks too red.  Use your judgement.

Oil Painting Action……………$0.00……………..

ONE MORE NOTE: Remember, this action was created and tested in Photoshop CS5.  It won’t work with elements, and although it should work with other versions of CS, I can’t vouch for it’s compatibility.  But, but, but you can still visit this post and learn the technique for yourself, step by step.

As always, comments are appreciated.  Until next time, Enjoy! – PB

***MOVING ON***

Okay, on to the photoshop stuff.

First, many of you emailed or commented saying you want to learn how I do a “multiply” layer to darken/enhance the edges of an image.  I mentioned it in my last post so I thought I’d tell you really quickly before we get into the next picture.  It’s super simple.

1.)  Make a copy of your image.

2.) In the layers palette, choose multiply for the copy blending mode.

3.) Create a reverse (also called inverted) layer mask by pressing “Alt” and your layer mask button at the same time.

4.) Paint in white on the mask around the edges to add depth.

As soon as I get a chance to cut another video tutorial, I’ll put all this in there.  Let me know if you have questions, but if you don’t know basic stuff like “where is my layer mask button?” you can always just google it or watch the video tutorials I already have created, which are very helpful.

***MOVING ON, AGAIN.***

Alrighty then, let’s finally get started with the featured image.  If you look at the histogram on this image SOOC, it is actually properly exposed and a pretty decent capture overall.  It was shot using natural light, and what makes it strong is it’s composition (notice how her eyes are primarily in the upper left corner, framed by the angle of her bangs and the angle of the veil to create a nearly perfect triangle…) and it’s also a very “high-key” image, which just means there is a lot of light/light color in the image overall.

However, since it’s tough for me to leave well-enough alone, I wanted to enhance it a bit with photoshop.  I’ve outlined the basic technique used below in the “quick notes” for this image.  PLEASE note, this technique won’t work well on every image – it’ mainly for images where there is already a lot of light.  Please also note that you’re going to have to use your eye/own judgement a bit when you use these techniques.  I’m really trying to get you to develop your own eye when editing so you can learn to trust yourself and ultimately really develop your own, unique style.  So, play around with these techniques – take them out for a spin and feel free to add your own levels of brightness/contrast/blur/etc. with each trick I’m sharing.  Always remember – they are only pixels.  You can’t hurt them, and as long as you don’t save over your original image, you’re not losing anything.

***Editing Notes***

Step 1.  Make a copy. On the copy layer go to Image/Adjustments/Hue Saturation.  Slide the saturation down to around -60 (desaturate) and slide the Lightness slider (right below) up to around +60.  With that copy still selected, go to Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur.  Set your blur to around 75%.  Now, put that entire layer into the “soft light” blending mode in your layers palette.  Or overlay.  (Note: you may want to write this into an action for your own use.  I use it all the time.  I call mine “Angel Glow” because it gives a pretty little glow.)  If you want more of the effect, just make a copy of the layer you’ve been editing.  As always, adjust your opacity to taste.  Flatten when you’re happy with it to this point.  Don’t worry if the eyes look a little soft, we’ll get to that.

Step 2. Make a copy.  Put the copy in soft light mode.  Make a “Reverse Layer Mask” (that may be Patti-terminology for an actual term, but I don’t know the proper name) by clicking on your layer mask button and your “alt” button at the same time.  This will remove the soft light effect from the entire picture, but will allow you to paint it back in where you want to.  Paint back the soft light ONLY on her eyes.  Lower that layer a tad to where you like it.  Flatten your image

Step 3. I typically do a light layer pull (that’s more made-up-Patti-terminology) and a Lab Color/Soft Light pop at this point to brighten things up.  First of all, make a copy.  With that layer selected. To pull the light layer go to Image/Mode/Lab Color.  Now, in your layers pallet, go to Channels.  Select the “Lightness” channel.  Everything will look black and white.  I typically bump up my brightness a little and lower my contrast some in this mode.  Then, select the top layer (Lab) in channels before returning to the Layers palette.  Now, lower your top layer’s opacity to where you like it.  Flatten BEFORE you return to RGB mode.  When satisfied, return to RGB mode by going back to Image/Mode/RGB.

Enter into the CMYK mode the same way.  Make a copy, put the copy in “soft-light” and lower the opacity to taste.  This will basically just brighten up your image quite a bit.  Flatten & return to RGB mode.

I popped the background by adding a texture (Seafoam, I do believe….) from my Gallery Collection. I also selected the background and adjusted the hue just a tad.  I ran portraiture and erased it just a bit over her eyes as well, as I always do.

I popped the eyes by just doing an overlay copy (technique outlined in my last tutorial) and added a few adjustments with the dodge/burn/saturate tool.  Are you all familiar with dodging/burning & saturation?  Oh, if not, you truly must meet.  You will fall in love.

Oh, and in case you haven’t figured it out…this is how it works:  leave more comments, get more tutorials.  I love hearing from you guys, and just can’t imagine keeping this up if I don’t know that someone is benefiting from it, so let me know what you think!

Signing off now on what may actually be the world’s longest blog post.  Happy hearts day & happy Photo-shopping!

xoxo – PB

Since you all have been enjoying my little Oil Painting method so much, I thought I’d share another B&A.  I’ve written an action for it, and it’s testing beautifully.  Best of all, the action will be available for FREE very soon, so check back.

Okay, here’s the B&A.  It’s of my BFF  & her husband.  He’s an actual Rocket Scientist, she’s one of my favorite people ever, and I love them both to death.  Plus, they look like they just walked out of a J. Crew catalog, which is pretty fun from my camera’s perspective.  Although it won’t look like it compared to the “after” the “before” shot is actually pretty well lit & properly exposed to begin with.  It may be a little hot, but that’s it.  His eyes are out of focus, but I’m going to show you how to fix that.

This is exactly what I did.  Ran my Oil Painting method which I detailed for you all a few posts back.  Then I popped their eyes by using a soft light layer & a reverse layer mask.   I painted over their eyes a little in the soft light layer to get them to pop, then I lowered that layer to around 60%.   Here is the screenshot.  I lowered the opacity after I did the screen shot – sorry.  ALWAYS  lower the opacity of your eyes just a little lower than what looks good on screen, otherwise they’ll look totally weird when you print.  For print, I would have actually popped their eyes a little less.  I wanted to emphasize it for this tutorial though.

Then, to pop their skin and add just a touch more contrast, I just did a brightness contrast layer and painted it off their skin and eyes, at varying degrees of opacity.  This screenshot may help.

This is where you just have to sort of paint until it looks good.  Afterwards, I made a copy and ran portraiture on the copy only.  Then I erased off the portraiture copy from their eyes only.

Before putting it on this blog, I ran the MCP “Finish it” action, which is why my images look like they are jumping off the screen sometimes.  LOVE, love that action.  You could also just do a high-pass sharpening, but I like finish-it better.  I do not sharpen for print – ever – just for the web.

I also ran a “multiply” action to darken the edges again.  Do you all know how to do a multiply layer?  If not let me know and I’ll try to write a quickie action for that too.  It will be another freebie.  I don’t think I want to get into charging for actions.

What I think you’ll like about this vs. the ultra-super-sharp & contrasty looks that are floating around a lot these days is that it will print beautifully.  You will have a print that will look like an amazing, deeply saturated oil painting (hence, my clever name – ha, ha) rather than an over-sharpened ad in a magazine.  It will look as lovely 10 years from now as it does today, and isn’t too trendy.

Anyhow, I hope that was helpful!  If it was, please feel free to leave me a comment sharing your thoughts.  More soon.

x0x0 – PB