Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
We were all beginners to Photoshop at some point. It’s a rite of passage with just about anything. You have to be a beginner before you can become skilled. And as beginners we make mistakes. Lots of them. But mistakes are how we learn.
This video from photographer Nino Batista highlights his list of the top 10 amateur portrait retouching Photoshop mistakes. We’ve probably all done these at some point or another. But how many of you are still making some of these mistakes today?
Content Aware Fill is one of those features of Photoshop that many users love to hate. So much so that quite a few of us have called it Content Aware Fail since it was first introduced in CS5. Personally, I’ve only found it to be really all that useful for extending clear blue skies, and even there it occasionally wants to put a branch or a building flying in the middle of nowhere.
This video from the Jesús Ramirez Photoshop Training Channel, though, shows me something I never knew about Content Aware Fill. That it respects layer masks. Something which turns it into a much more reliable and useful tool. This method makes it very easy to use Content Aware Fill where you previously might not have even tried.
Retouching skin with dodge and burn is one of the most valuable skill a photographer can learn. It can have such a dramatic effect on your image, but it does it completely non-destructively. While dodging and burning has been around since the darkroom days, the precision of a digital workflow gives us so much more control. It’s an incredibly powerful tool.
In this video, photographer and retoucher Zoë Noble talks us through her process. You’ll want to clean up the skin first to remove major blemishes, which Zoë also covers in this video. But then, let the dodging and burning commence!
The Liquify Tool in Photoshop is one of its most controversial and misunderstood features. Many see it as a response when client asks “can you make me skinny?”, but it is so much more than that. While modifying the way people look is almost certainly its most common use, it also offers up some cool creative options.
This video from photographer Nemanja Sekulic shows us the ins and outs of the Liquify tool. Nemanja goes through all of the different settings of the Liquify tool, as well as the new Face Aware Liquify options.
There’s a lot of fuss about the overuse of Photoshop and retouching these days. But sometimes it needs to be done, or you just want to. Perhaps you have to clean up a little makeup or get rid of a stray hair or two. Maybe a temporary blemish like a zit or a cut. There’s many different ways to do it, but here’s one I typically tend to avoid. And that’s the clone stamp tool.
I have a love hate relationship with the clone stamp tool. I tend to prefer using the healing brush tool, and only use the clone stamp when I absolutely have to. Mostly because I can never get the clone stamp tool to do exactly what I want. This video tutorial, though, is starting to change my mind. It comes courtesy of photographer and retoucher Zoë Noble, and it’s extremely good.
There is something amiss with the photo above. I’m not talking about the missing teeth on the left – that’s the right photo. The problem is the photo on the right.
Surely we have lost the plot when we start photo shopping an 8 year old’s gappy grin.
Swedish Photographer and retoucher Erik Johansson goes all out for his creations. They take so much work that, according to his website, Johansson aims to create only six to eight new images per year. Some of you might remember his mirrored lake project from last year. A fantastic feat of both photography and digital illustration work. Now he’s back with something equally as impressive.
Full Moon Service shows a crew in operation swapping out the moon for one showing a different phase. It’s a very cute idea, and the execution of it is absolutely superb. The project started in Summer 2016, but it’s a lot of work. There’s a lot of planning and preparation before the shoot, and a lot of post work afterwards. Johannson also released a behind the scenes video to show how it was made.
There are some things in life that are just universal rules we should all follow. Things like not cheating on your wife, not killing anyone, and not stealing. Easy enough, right? These are just a few of the Ten Commandments. So if life has Ten Commandments that are just some simple things to not do, then retouching should have them as well, right? Here’s what I see as the 10 Commandments of Retouching.
There is a problem we all face as creatives in one way or another, and that is either being too hard on ourselves, or too happy about our own work that we take critique very personally. Both of these sides are toxic and they aren’t the essential zone we need to be in to promote and nurture growth with our work and our lives.
Over the last eight years, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know photographers who I have seen become very successful. I met them on their journey and they asked for my help in improving their retouching through one on one consultations. I noticed a trend among those that made it during our time spent together, and it wasn’t just the relentless drive they had in order to succeed, but the exceptional balance of knowing their worth while also being aware that they had room to grow.
[I thought that seeing as I have a Post-Producition Workshop fast approaching, I needed a blatant excuse to promote it via an article on my site 😀 Well here it is, a look at some of the
sharpening techniques I use in Photoshop to give my images a little visual-pop before I publish them.]
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
Find my work on My website or follow me on Facebook or My page
