Bright Eyes

[Guest]

As the sky was clear and the bright sun was high in the sky I had to modify the light to make this one of my Granddaughter acceptable.

 

[Guest Ron]

Paul that is just pin sharp and simply beautiful, very very nice indeed.

 

Ron

[Guest]

Thank you very much indeed Ron.

[VWGolf]

Beautiful shot, pretty girl  :-)

 

[colinb]

Another stunner Oly

[Guest]

Thank you VW and Colin.

[FUJI]

A very beautiful portrait, with the correct emphasis on those sparkly eyes.

 

FUJI

[Guest]

Thank you Fuji.

[Barbara]

Just Beautiful

[Guest]

Thank you Barbara.

[Mitch]

Very nice picture, love how you have done the eyes.....How did you do the eyes? lol

[Craftysnapper]

Very nice picture, love how you have done the eyes.....How did you do the eyes? lol

​Thanks Mitch, not sure what you mean, do you mean the catchlights in the eyes if so they are natural and down to where I had to pose the subject because of harsh lighting conditions. I have even used this image amongst others in a tutorial on another forum for shooting in harsh overhead sunlight.

[Mitch]

Not so much the catch light, just they look so clear and sharp and a natural colour, unlike some that have obviously been brightened in pp

[Craftysnapper]

Not so much the catch light, just they look so clear and sharp and a natural colour, unlike some that have obviously been brightened in pp

​Ahh you want my secret recipe Mitch. 

No secrets I usually make most of my adjustments at the raw stage in my favourite raw converter Capture One 8 Pro as shown.

Then I will sometimes brighten the iris of the eye in Elements if needed.

 

[Mitch]

That looks an interesting piece of software, under local adjustments? what does the slider do for the skin? is that for brightness or smoothing? or colour tone? . . . . .Does this software link with Adobe or is it just stand alone?....Must feel like you are playing Trivial Pursuit lol 

[Craftysnapper]

​Adding negative clarity and structure has the opposite effect and smoothes skin tones without taking the texture away and giving that plasticky look.

Here is a variant with the layers switched of on the raw file so you can compare. Subtle is always the key.

I can send the image as another file type from CO8 to any software I choose including Photoshop for further editing.

[Mitch]

How do I replicate that in LR?

[ChrisLumix]

Presumably you can also achieve that in Photoshop? By doing ......?

​

[Craftysnapper]

How do I replicate that in LR?

​Pretty much the same except it does not have a structure slider.

1-Select skin..see sliders copy or adjust to taste

2-Select eyes...see sliders..adjust to taste

3-The bags of the eyes need a little more attention so same as before.

Before and After.

[Craftysnapper]

 

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I see the quote button is working as well for you as it is me!

​Is there a clarity slider or clarity tool in PS? If so pretty much the same as LR above except you would use layer masks to select the skin and eyes.

If not I have a tutorial (one of many) on a olympus site I am a  member off for Elements that would apply to PS as well but it is not for beginners, I could copy and paste it here but it might show up as black writing on a grey background here, no way of telling as there is now no preview button.

[ChrisLumix]

I see the quote button is working as well for you as it is me!

​Is there a clarity slider or clarity tool in PS? If so pretty much the same as LR above except you would use layer masks to select the skin and eyes.

If not I have a tutorial (one of many) on a olympus site I am a  member off for Elements that would apply to PS as well but it is not for beginners, I could copy and paste it here but it might show up as black writing on a grey background here, no way of telling as there is now no preview button.

​The quote button is working fine for me. I quoted your post of 8:37 yesterday and then simply deleted the picture. Unfortunately that left no text, which is what I'd actually wanted to quote. So when I started typing, it must have still been inside the 'quote box' though there was now nothing in it (see above for my actual reply).

AFAIK there isn't a clarity slider in Photoshop, but there probably is in ACR which always launches first (ironically, iPhoto - which is a very basic editor - does have a Definition slider, but that may not be the same thing? In any case, you can only increase definition, not decrease it to give the effect you've demonstrated.)

I'd be interested in a Photoshop tutorial - it's about time I started to use layer masks! By the way, if your copy & paste doesn't work properly, you could try selecting all the text in the original, then change the colour to pale grey or white before you select it for copying.

[Craftysnapper]

Beauty Retouching for PSE 7 onwards.

I've used a really extreme example here just show how effective it can be

If you do not have PSE 9 I recommend downloading and installing layers for earlier versions here-http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pse...ermasktool.htm

Open image and use the spot healing tool on any small blemishes like spots or pimples.

Now for skin softening, this is a little complicated but much more effective than just gaussain blur as it softens but at the same time keeps the texture of the skin and looks more natural.

Duplicate the background layer

On the duplicate layer go Filter>Other>Highpass with a setting of 8

On the same layer Filter>Blur>Gaussian with a setting of 2.6

Then press Ctrl or Command(Mac) plus the letter I on the keyboard to invert the layer.

Then in the layer pallet change the layer blend mode to Linear Light.

As shown here


NowReduce the opacity slider of the layer to 33 percent or to taste.

Add a layer mask and fill with black to hide the adjustment (Edit> Fill layer>choose black>OK

Click on the mask and with a soft white brush paint on the face where you want to even the skin tone. Stay away from the eyes and mouth to keep sharpness.

Now when satisfied hold down the Ctrl,Shift and Alt key and press the letter E. 
This will place a composite layer of everything we have done so far at the top of the layer stack like so.


Now select the Smart Brush Tool (F on the Keyboard) and from the drop down menu select bright eyes.


Click on the whites of the eyes and select them, to reverse your selection if you make a mistake hold the Alt key down. Then then when satisfied go to the bright eyes layer and reduce the opacity slider to get them down to the correct whiteness.

Now you just repeat this for pearly whites and lips BUT each time you do this first click on the composite layer to activate it or you will be blending the effects all on one smartbrush layer like I did here with lipstick and eyes.

You should now have something like this.


Now when you are happy flatten layers and save under a different file name.

All setting in this tutorial can be modified for taste, I have gone a little overboard on a extreme image just for teaching so the results can be more easily seen.

Before


After

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[ChrisLumix]

It worked for me up to the 'Smart Brush' step (there's no such thing in Elements 6 sadly). The Composite Layer was created as Layer 1 but that may just be a difference between Mac and PC ?

What a shame this forum software doesn't allow bookmarking of posts - I'll never find this again!

Anyway, thanks Paul

[Craftysnapper]

It worked for me up to the 'Smart Brush' step (there's no such thing in Elements 6 sadly). The Composite Layer was created as Layer 1 but that may just be a difference between Mac and PC ?

What a shame this forum software doesn't allow bookmarking of posts - I'll never find this again!

Anyway, thanks Paul

 

Chris you will find the eye brightness is just a levels adjustment layer, fill the layer mask with black and use white to paint over the eyes then adjust the levels. Again the lipstick layer is just a fill colour adjustment layer set to red and the mode of the layer set to soft light then just fill the layer mask with black and paint over the lips with white.

Before

Thank you for the compliment Chris. All my Elements tutorials are on the Olympus E users forum as a sticky thread they have had 3600 views so far as have my tutorial on outdoor portrait lighting. I see this thread has had 246 views already

[Mitch]

It worked for me up to the 'Smart Brush' step (there's no such thing in Elements 6 sadly). The Composite Layer was created as Layer 1 but that may just be a difference between Mac and PC ?

What a shame this forum software doesn't allow bookmarking of posts - I'll never find this again!

Anyway, thanks Paul

​Creat a bookmark in your internet explorer lol