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As much as magazine covers would like you to believe it, nobody's skin is perfect (although Sophie's is pretty darn close). Skin retouching is the first thing I do when editing portraits. It's not difficult to do, but the results go a long way! Just check out this before and after: Some photographers send their photos off to professional photo retouchers (shout out to Solstice Retouch, a total retouching guru) to save time. But knowing some of these essential Photoshop tools should be more than enough to get you started:
Happy editing! In addition to being the home of the Indiana University Hoosiers, Bloomington, Indiana, is, as you can likely infer from its name, known for its many trees and flowers. It is, in my somewhat biased opinion, the prettiest town in the state. I instantly loved this photo, from my shoot with Destiny, but when I threw it into Photoshop for editing, I knew that some revamping would serve the image well.  Unedited image I loved the effect and the color of the bokeh flowers in the background and I wanted to try adapting the orientation of this photo from portrait to landscape to capitalize on these gorgeous flowers even more. So I expanded the canvas and got to work adding flowers to the background. It took quite a bit of time, patience, and use of Photoshop's stamp and patch tools, but I made it happen. You can check out the final result below (or on the home page of this website 😉).  Edited in Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Adobe Lightroom Photoshop is my go-to photo editing software, but the before and after shown here was done entirely on my iPhone. There are a number of fantastic photo editing apps you can download directly to your smartphone (many of them free) that make on-the-go editing simple and effective. Will you have the same robust tools on your phone that you will in Photoshop? No, of course not. But apps like A Color Story, Enlight, and VSCO offer a variety of features to make your pictures pop. Plus, there's the convenience factor of having these tools right at your fingertips. If you're just starting out with photography, I highly recommend checking out these apps to learn basic photo editing and enhancement tools. It's possible to discover your editing style just by using your phone. Take the time to explore. Happy editing!
When I want to work on my Photoshop skills, I dig up old, typically overlooked photos that I want to reinvent. The photo on the left was taken in the spring of 2016, but I didn't share it until recently - after a bit of transformation. I felt that this profile shot presented an opportune canvas to work with due to the empty background and existing color pallet in the photograph.
In the photo, on the right, you'll notice quite a few changes from the original that I felt brought the image to life. More vibrant colors, a textured background, and some tactful dodging and burning went into this transformation. And of course, perhaps more noticeable is the entirety of Sanya's head, which was moved just slightly to the right.
I think the second photo does a better job of showcasing Sanya's personality and telling her effervescent story. |
