Photo Retouching - - Overdoing - but for the hell of it ...

Jiger · #1 12-16-2005, 10:05 AM

Hi all !

Been a while since last, but you know - "better late than never" ...

Okay, this is classed as superflous and overdoing ( as in not really needed at all ), but - well, you know.
Got this image that's planned for a makeup commercial ( website and print ) and it's perfectly okay and approved as is right now. But still, I got this "vision" I'd like to realise just to see what difference it would make and if it would improve the feel of the image.
I'd like to add an effect similar to a shot taken with a "soft focus" in such a way that it will make her kind of glow. Hard one to get right since she's allready shot against a white background, and what I want is not just a simple over-exposure radiance, but a very subtle glow from behind her in her own skintone(s). Know what I mean ?
I've tried some various blur filters on an underlaying and slightly sized up layer and different blend modes, but I can't seem to get the right feel coming through.
As said, it's not really a needed effect, but if someone know a working techinique it would be nice to learn about it if you'd care to try your hand at it.
Of course, if you would come up with another idea/solution that could do the trick, then by all means - please go ahead.

Can't give a hi-res out due to copyright, but there's a slightly larger and less compressed image on my website in the Photo Retouch section at:

http://www.jiger.org

Thanks in advance !

-- Jiger --

leuallen · #2 12-16-2005, 11:31 AM

Hi Jiger,

Don't know what you are looking for but here are two things to play with:

1.

Dup base image. Median - used 9 on your image.
Dup base again. Place above Median layer. Set mode to overlay. Filter->Other->High pass. Used 7.3. Brings back texture.
This will pop highlights without changing mid and shadow. Group into set, play with opacity.

2.

Dup base image. Gaussian blur. Used 9.5 on your image.
Set mode to overlay or softlight. Try both.

On dup layer bring up Layer styles. Blend if - This Layer. Split shadow sliders (hold down Alt key and move right shadow slider to the right). Move to about 130. This removes the shadows and some midtones from the effect. Look at this layer by itselt and you will see what I mean - the holes for the shadows and mids that let the base layer show through. No need to mask eyes, lips, hair, etc.

Now the saturation is too high and the colors look distorted - you won't like it at this point. Use a Hue/Sat adjustment on the blured layer and reduce the saturation until it is back to where you want it.

Play with opacity if the effect seems a little too much. Try different amounts of blur, median, and High pass to see their effect.

Larry

Jiger · #3 12-16-2005, 12:01 PM

Hi Larry !

>
>On dup layer bring up Layer styles. Blend if - This Layer. Split shadow...
>
Of course - the "Blend if". Da--, I always forget that one....

>
>Don't know what you are looking for ...
>
Well, that's really part of the problem, cause I'm not really sure either ..

And as said - it's allready approved so no real need to "improve" on it.
Just kind of a fling to throw this one in on The Forum and see what comes up of suggestions if/when others approach it.
And - your suggestion no 2 looks real interesting.
Will try that.

Thanks a lot, Larry !
I really do appreciate your effort.

-- Jiger --

Kraellin · #4 12-16-2005, 11:34 PM

Quote:

I'd like to add an effect similar to a shot taken with a "soft focus" in such a way that it will make her kind of glow. Hard one to get right since she's allready shot against a white background, and what I want is not just a simple over-exposure radiance, but a very subtle glow from behind her in her own skintone(s). Know what I mean ?

nope. dont know what you mean. since her skin tone is not white, i'm not sure why the white background would be a problem. also, what kind of glow are you after. there's all sorts of glows one could effect, so a little more clarification here would be helpful. also, do you want her to glow or just from the background. there's a difference. do you want the glow emanting FROM her or from BEHIND her? how subtle do you want? how large shld the glow extend? you said a soft focus sort of glow, so i'm assuming you dont want a radiant beam type. so, do you want it regular and symmetrical or asymmetrical. do you want it around the hair or just the face?

like i said, there's lots of ways to make a glow. you could use patterns or textures or illuminations/lights or blank raster layers with paint brush and blending or gradient fills and so on. do you want the skin tone a constant hue or varying?

so, cough it up. explain this a bit more

Craig

Cassidy · #5 12-17-2005, 12:38 AM

Not quite sure what you are looking for either, however is this along the lines of what you are looking for?

This was achieved by gaussian blurring at a level of 10 on a duplicate layer then applying in screen blending mode.

Jiger · #6 12-17-2005, 03:51 AM

Hi !

Craellin:
>
>...so a little more clarification here would be helpful...
>
I perfectly understand your pov, Craig. And you're right - my description is fuzzy, to say the least.
Generally, the idea was, as you're correctly assuming, not to be the radiant beam type. I was thinking more in the ways of "aura", just about noticeable, not extending so far as to take dominance and from behind her.

But Larry came up with a nice idea I'm going to try and yesterday evening a collegue came up with another, after two - or was it the third ..? - screw drivers.
Anyways, I'm very happy you involved in this, but it's not all that important. It's more my curiosity for experimenting taking voice.

Cassidy:

Thank you very much for your contribution! I appreciate it.
This is one of the things I initially tried out myself and though useful as such, and as modified variants, it's not really what I was going for.
You see, although you've got a very nice effect there it's blurring out the skin texture too much and preserving the texture left after my initial "correction" is important. It may be hard to see any of it in the small, screen res image, but it's there in the print res image.

Still, thanks a lot all for getting involved in this "fuzzy" thing here.

-- Jiger --

Cassidy · #7 12-17-2005, 04:00 AM

Ok Jiger, how about this then, a little less etherial using the last pic as a luminosity layer of 30%

Cassidy · #8 12-17-2005, 07:11 AM

Thinking about the 'aura' bit. Hmm selected the white and inverted copy to new layer, heavy gaussian blur (27), set blending to luminosity and drop the opacity to 22%, erase all areas from the blur layer other than the outer edges. Conversly the same could be done with the white background, but I found it made it look feathered

NancyJ · #9 12-17-2005, 07:20 AM

Had a couple fo goes at this, but as you say - a pure white background is a problem for the effect you're looking for.
The first is the original gaussian blurred at 10px, overlayed, the original 20% luminosity and the original again at 100% color.
The second is the original blurred at 5px and set to lighten, with a bit of masking in detail areas

Cassidy · #10 12-17-2005, 07:32 AM

Like the 2nd one there Nancy

Kraellin · #11 12-17-2005, 07:40 AM

jiger,

ok, 'aura' i sort of understand, oddly enough. when i get home i may give this a shot. and as for not taking it too seriously, that's fine; i'm not. just seemed like an interesting idea and effect and just wanted to clarify what you were thinking about. i love playing with this stuff and your idea intrigued me a bit, so just wanted to duplicate what it was you were after.

Craig

1STLITE · #12 12-17-2005, 09:52 AM

Jiger, is this somethign like what you are invisioning? lol I guess you have stirred a curiossity in a few of us. I hope after you realize your vision you will share it with us.

Dawn

Jiger · #13 12-17-2005, 10:28 AM

Jes--.... !

Some have been busy here while I've been busy elswhere ...

1STLITE:
That's something in the way I was thinking, yes, and you've got it pretty close. Think you see my point there with the white background making things more difficult.
>
>I hope after you realize your vision you will share it with us
>
Sure will - if I ever come to that...

Kraellin:
>
>...i love playing with this stuff and your idea intrigued me a bit...
>
I'm most happy to provide something to inspire your imagination.
And, I forgot to mention, it has been OK'd by the project manager that I put this image up for you all to play with, so go right ahead good people and go wild with it

.

NancyJ:
Agree with Cassidy, there. The second one is a goodie.
I like what it does to the hi-lights and that it preserves the skin texture in midtones and lo-shadow areas. Keeping the skin texture is an important parameter in the project description which rules out "simple" retouching tech's as airbrushing and/or painting and definitly no blurring of image parts holding such information...

However, all in all you people have done some terrific work and shown great creativity here. I've sure got some pointers and fresh approaches to concider for future projects. Unfortunately I probably won't have time enough to try them all out - or what they do in various combinations - but valuable they are, indeed.

Thanks for all your efforts !

-- Jiger --

1STLITE · #14 12-17-2005, 10:51 AM

I assume you are referring the hair? Since I was not sure exactly if its what you were looking for I didnt really take my time on it. BUt I went back and tried something different that made it easier. See if it hits the mark for your vision.

I totally know what it is liek to be able to see it in your head and not be able to describe it exactly. You know what you want, even if noone else knows what the heck you are talking about. lol That is SO like me. Although I guess that is all of us, huh?

Dawn

Jiger · #15 12-17-2005, 11:58 AM

1STLITE:

Well, primarely I wasn't reffering the hair, but rather the whole girl - kind of...

>
>I totally know what it is liek to be able to see it in your head and not be >able to describe it exactly. You know what you want, even if noone else >knows what the heck you are talking about.
>
Are we related in some way .. ?
If not, this is the closest I've come to a twin soul in a very long time !

Oh yes, it's very frustrating not being able to express what you see with your "inner eye", but have to get your hands on a comp with Photoshop to give people at least a clue of what you're trying your heart out to describe.
But on the other hand, there are not two people who apprehend the colour red the same ...

Another positive effect from posting this thread is my website stats have rocketed the last two days. Lots of visitors from USA but also UK, Poland, Australia and Argentina, and very many with this thread as referring link. Hope you all have found something you liked and got inspired by.
And thank you very much for taking time to check it out !!

I was thinking, perhaps I can inspire your creativity even more with posting a sample of what the original project has come to up to this point. I can't use the real brand name (for obvious reasons) so I'll put in a proxy.

Thank you very much all of you for your time and contrubutions.

-- Jiger --