And so it begins...my blog

March 01, 2015  •  1 Comment

It's March 1 and a Sunday, the start of a new week and a new month.  Seems like a good time to start a new habit; specifically, blogging about my photography work.

The weather this weekend didn't lend itself to a lot of actual shooting.  (Well, it wasn't inspiring to me anyway.  I'm sure there was someone else that was out there making beautiful images.)  Instead, I spent a fair amount of time in front of the computer studying various sources of information to improve my photo techniques, photo processing, photo business/marketing, etc.  Of particular note, I spent a fair amount of time working on my retouching skills in Photoshop.  As I endeavor to make special images of people, or people and their four-legged companions, the ability to make adjustments to skin tone and texture become much more valuable.  After practicing a bit, I set out to apply all that I had learned to just one image today.  You can see it below.

Now Chera is a beautiful woman and Bram is a gorgeous young boy, but studio lighting can bring out every flaw and, frankly, I don't always catch every bad shadow that's being cast while shooting.  So, unlike photographing the fur in dogs, which is fairly forgiving, human skin typically needs a little "help" to look its best.  I'm far from being a retouch professional (there are people who do just that, full-time, for high-end glamour photography) and I'm sure the changes I've made here could be made even better, but I think they get the job done.  My goal is to make adjustments, but NOT to the extent that I completely change the look of the person or eliminate distinguishing features.  Of course, what woman doesn't want to lose a few wrinkles and look a little younger?  So there is some of that involved.

You can see the before (left image) and after (right image) below.  Feel free to give me your own critique!

 


Comments

Chris Smith(non-registered)
Congratulations on the new blog! I hope you enjoy writing and sharing it. Nice start with this post -- I love the difference in how her eyes seem to sparkle more in the retouched version, even if you didn't actually touch them at all!
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