Hi
I`m a Newbie and I hope, not to be in the wrong NG or not to do something wrong.
I`m using Photohop 7 and like Portraits very much. Some days ago I came to this Newsgroup first and I`m deeply impressed by it and want to thank you all in advance for your very interesting articles and - I hope so - your advice and helo in advance as well.
I found a very nice photo under
http://leona.narod.ru/photos/portrait/classica/1.html#image
and I constantly ask myself how such a wonderfuil portrait can be "manipulated" by Photoshop ?
Can somebody give me an hint how this can be arranged

Thanks very much for your help...

Albert

Note to those who click on the link to the example site:

It takes a *LONG* time for the first image to load and a *LONG* time to move to subsequent images. They are very nice, however.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Albert:

To me these portraits do not look manipulated with plugins or actions. I would not be surprised if they were touched up using common retouching techniques, like skin smoothing and adjusting color tones. But these enhancements are typically applied "by hand," not by using actions or plugins.

~Danny~

The portraiture is very nice, very old world, romantic and dreamy. However, Danny is correct, they take a very long time to download. The technique would be a good one for a challenge somewhere.

Thanks very much for your replies. I was "afraid" that these wonderful shots are made with softboxes etc....it`s a pitty, but however it was worth it to ask, could have been possible that actions could have cause this kind opf image as well.
Anyhow thanks for your opinion...

Albert

That is nice work, too bad it takes so long to view. I think that the author of that is an accomplished photographer and yes does use light modifiers to get the basic image. Then follow's up with some great retouching.

One has to remember that to get a great product, one has to have quaility ingrediants. Most photographers quickly realize that it is far easier to enhance a good image than it is to try and create a great image from one of low quaility.

Remember, one cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Mike

Albert,

You have to consider three types of effect

(1) Those that are captured "in camera" and are down to the conditions under which the photograph was taken -- for example, the quality and direction of light and the exposure settings used.

(2) Those that are added subsequently in Photoshop by analysing the image, determining what is needed for this particular image, and carefully selecting and applying the right techniques to just the right extent.

(3) Those that are added subsequently in Photoshop by running an action or using a straightforward plugin.

In this case, the original photographer has clearly used quality lighting -- probably either a softbox or a very large umbrella, with a fill light or possibly a reflector -- that she's spent time setting up and getting just right. You are not going to be able to create that same effect from a snapshot-quality picture, or one taken using an on-camera flash, whatever you do in Photoshop. You could, however, get close to the same approach when taking a portrait photograph without having to use softboxes through careful use of natural light and reflectors. There are various good books on this -- for example, Professional Secrets of Natural Light Portrait Photography by Douglas Allen Box.

Now, she almost certainly has also done a fair bit of post-processing work in Photoshop to further enhance the quality of the image she captured in the first place. Given that you've captured a well-lit portrait in the first place, there are various techniques that could be applied to enhance it, and even some plugins that might help. If I were trying to create an effect like these, I would probably try some of the Xero filters combined with some careful by-hand work. But it would depend on having a pretty good image to start with, and it wouldn't be the sort of process that could be broken down into an easy 1-2-3 set of instructions or settings to punch into a plugin.