Last night finished up the Working with Models II module at BU CDIA. It was heavily focused on photoshop and high end beauty retouching, honing in on every little detail so images can be usable for advertisements and magazine printing and the likes. Our instructor, Chris Alvanas, walked us through skin softening, eye enhacements, hair and makeup tips, and overall shaping using only Photoshop CS5. Plugins and additional software do make it easier, especially for skin softening, but it’s good to know there are other ways around it. Chris has a series of tutorials posted on youtube that are very helpful for retouching and other photoshop tricks, and are definitely worth checking out. Click here for the link.
Below are the before and after images of the photo I worked on for this class. One of the most signifcant changes I made was the tilt in her head. You can see if the after image that her head is a little more straight on. I really liked the pose and her expression, so I made it work by tilting just the section that I needed. I removed the freckles from the skin and softened up some of the lines, not completely removing them though because I didn’t want it to look unnatural. You can see in the before photo that her eyes are a little cloudy. This is mostly due to the fact that Allison had a fan blowing in her face for a good twenty minutes and her eyes were getting very red and irritated (who can blame her!) Whitening up her eyes and enhacing the color just a smidge was enough to really bring this photo to life. The final touches included adding a little contrast to her hair and very minor reshaping on the nose and shoulders. Allison is naturally pretty as it is, so all that’s needed with a photo like this are a few refinements to make it look its best. Allison is an actress in the DC area and you can see some of her work on her website by clicking here.
I hope you enjoy the before and after images! Stay tuned on more to come by becoming a fan on facebook! Click here!
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Jessica Veltri Photography 