Alyse French | Fine Art Portrait Photographer | Houston, TX »

It’s been a looong while since I last posted a Before Meets After, and today’s as good a day as any to break the streak! Some of you might recall my love affair with Totally Rad Actions. Lately though, I’ve sort of been cheating on TRA with Kubota’s Image Tools. For much too long, I’d been toying with the idea of purchasing from Kubota, and now that I’ve taken the plunge I can say I absolutely CANNOT believe I waited until now. The combination of TRA and Kubota has streamlined my workflow incredibly, and I’m telling you right now: If you are a photographer who has been uneasy about dropping the dough to buy these action sets, DO IT ANYWAY. 1) It will blow your mind how easy and quick it is to enhance your images. 2) The efficiency these resources will inject into your workflow is worth every. single. penny. Times 17,293,532.

This is an image taken at yesterday’s wedding, SOOC (straight out of camera). Promptly after the ceremony, Sara and Chad whisked themselves away for a quiet moment alone. I suppose I could have followed with my 50mm to get all up in yo’ grills, but instead, I stood far enough away to use my 70-200mm at its longest focal length. (P.S. I know I should have said “their grills” but “yo’ grills” just sounds cooler.) Now ordinarily, that big red piece of “art” in the lower-right might have scared me, but I also knew I loved the way Chad and Sara were framed by the trees, creating a very natural vignette. I decided I wasn’t about to try a different angle because THIS was IT. Plus, I also knew Big Red wasn’t anything my clone tool couldn’t handle. So I shot away, and am SO happy with the outcome of this image! Take a look at the “before,” and then the explanation following the “after.”

BEFORE:AFTER:BAM! My immediate reaction to the SOOC image was this: Overly Magenta. Modern art fail. Beautiful moment. Love how nature is framing the subjects. All in all, there was some good and some bad to the initial image. But I knew it was completely salvageable! The “after” image is a result of Photoshop’s clone tool, color-correcting via curves (which was also used to control image contrast and levels), Kubota’s Daily Multi Vitamin at 25%, TRA’s Grandma’s Tap Shoes at 15% to add a slight vintage feel, and finally, Kubota’s Magic Sharp – my all time FAVORITE.

Keep in mind this was a pretty extreme Before Meets After, and I only utilize the clone tool when it’s an absolute MUST. But I thought it might be fun to see something so blah become so polished. At least, I sort of think so. ;)

More of Sara and Chad this coming week! Happy Sunday!!

Hi ya’ll! This week’s Before Meets After will focus on airbrushing, and how it’s done in the world of Alyse! To start, let’s take a look at this original, SOOC image, taken a couple weeks back, at a workshop I’m planning to write about this weekend!

It’s no question that Liz already has amazing skin and a gorgeous glow about her. But you can always, always, always do something to enhance an image so your bride feels the most beautiful she’s ever felt! So let’s get to it!

Before getting down and dirty with airbrushing, a little reminder: I shoot raw, convert to .JPG in Photoshop, and use my trusty Totally Rad Actions to get the job done. What results is a much faster workflow, and good, quality images. No complaints here! After you’re done color-correcting your images, always (and I mean always) sharpen them! (It also helps to have a tac-sharp prime lens! Aka, my precious little 50mm 1:4.) As you’ll see, I’ve also enhanced Liz’s eyes just a tad using TRA‘s Select-O-Pop (amazing tool!). The trick is to never use 100% opacity. Always work in layers. And try to stay anywhere between 20 and 50%.

Now for the fun stuff! Airbrushing! Dun, dun, DUN!! This used to be SO daunting to me. (Sometimes still is.) But here is my technique. (Please note that this is only MY technique, and there are a myriad ways of getting the same result!)

First… You’ll usually want to use your spot healing brush to get rid of any blemishes or flaws. (On Liz, I really didn’t have to, but it’s a good habit of using the spot healing brush before going further!) Then create a duplicate layer by dragging your background layer onto the “Create a new layer” portion of the layers palette. (Wow, how many times could I possibly say “layer” in the same sentence?) Once you’ve gotten this far, go to Filter (in your top menu) and then Blur, and then Surface Blur.

After selecting Surface Blur, you’ll want to tweak your radius and threshold settings until you get your desired effect. This puts an overall blur on the entire surface of your image, hence, “Surface Blur.” Click OK!

After this step, it is muy importante to go back up to Filter > Blur and then select Smart Blur, as it smoothes any edges within your photograph without adversely affecting image sharpness or fine detail.

Once there, you’ll again have to tweak your settings. But make sure your preview window is zoomed in on an edge in your photograph!

You may be thinking, “Why is Alyse studying the ‘Theories of Attribution, and Fritz Heider’s Naïve Theory’?” (I was in psych class when this screen shot was taken.. Woops!). Or more likely, you may be thinking, “Why on earth would I want my entire image to be one huge blur?!” Well here’s the coolest thing about Photoshop.. You can create Layer Masks! (More about that in a second.) Go to Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All, as seen below.

By selecting Hide All, you’ve told Photoshop to replace your current blurred layer with an imaginary black layer. Woah, WHAT?!?! Let me try to explain a little more. You will not actually see any black on your image. Here’s how I like to think of layer masks… Black and white are the default colors for layer masks. A black layer mask hides all, while a white layer mask reveals all. You might also think of it this way: Black = darkness = no visibility; and white = light = visibility. Do you follow? If you check out your layer palette, like in the image below, you’ll see your current layer has black layer linked to it. This is your mask. So how do you airbrush? You select your paintbrush tool from the left, use your left and right brackets to increase/decrease the size of your brush, bring brush hardness down to a minimum via the menu underneath File, Edit, and so on, and then simply paint on your airbrush. One word of caution, you must be painting with the color white for any of this to work, because after all, white is what enables you to see your blur layer, and thus, your airbrush. As you can see, I’ve only done one side of Liz’s face so you can tell the difference.

I then tend to take my eraser tool (at around 50% opacity) and use it on most of the edges in my photo (i.e., the nose, the lips, the eyes, dimples, etc.). The final step is to change your current layer from “Normal” (within the layers palette) to “Luminosity.” And then just adjust opacity as needed (especially if you feel like you overdid it just a tad), and you’re ready to watermark and show the world!

And the final image, complete with sharpening, airbrushing, and eye enhancement is..

I know this seems like a long and tedious process. It can be. But if you do it enough, you won’t even have to think about it. If this will help just one person, I’ll be happy. If not, remember, there are tons of different airbrushing techniques, and this is just mine. :)

If you have any questions pertaining to my workflow in or out of Photoshop, or anything else you’d like me to cover, ask in the comment section, and I’ll get to it next week!

Happy Friday!!

I thought it might be neat to start documenting every so often how I use my Totally Rad (Photoshop) Action pack to edit my images. Who knows if any of you are actually interested. But blogging is fun, and so is shooting and editing. So I thought I’d share a bit of my post-processing with you all. :)

Here is an image straight out of camera (SOOC from here on out).

I happen to LOVE the candid emotion of this shot, and the beautiful light pouring onto Ryan and Molly’s faces. BUT, it could still use some work! The lens I was using at the time could only stop down to an aperture of 2.8. I typically like to shoot wide open, because I love the creamy goodness that results from shallow depth of field (DOF). Another great thing about shooting wide open (meaning, shooting at your largest aperture, which is the same thing as shooting at the lowest numbered f/stop on your aperture ring) is the natural vignette it helps achieve. However, here, a 2.8 zoom lens didn’t really cut it, vignette-wise. Here’s where post-processing comes into play!

Before doing anything else, I must always first convert my .nef (RAW) file to a .jpg in Photoshop. (There are many advantages of shooting RAW, but maybe we’ll get into that some other time.) Then, with my trusty little Totally Rad Actions, I am able to achieve my desired effect in a matter of 60 seconds. First, I bump up the color using TRA‘s “Punch Out!!!” at 20%. The key to TRA‘s is NOT using effects at 100% opacity. You have to play with it until it looks natural. Second, I’d like for an even greater vignette to highlight the light on my subjects’ faces. I use the “Burn Out” action at, get this – 70%. I like, NEVER use this action at anywhere near over 30 or 40%. But for this image, I wanted as much of a vignette as I could get without it feeling artificial. Third, I throw “A Better Web Sharpen” into the mix (100%), and then do a little airbrushing (more on my airbrushing technique at some point if anyone is interested). The last step (although, it could have been done at any step in the game, is knocking down the exposure of the entire image by -0.15. Although I love the light in the photo, there’s a bit of harshness that can be controlled by decreasing exposure in post-processing.

And voilà!! Here is the final image!

Recap: Punch Out!!! – 20%; Burn Out – 70%; A Better Web Sharpen – 100%; Exposure (not TRA) – -0.15

I hope this is helpful to those of you looking into different post-processing techniques. To check out Totally Rad Actions, go to: GetTotallyRad.com!!

Happy Wednesday! :)