Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Preslie Cox_ CS5 Tips and Tricks


Well I take pictures for a living, mainly of high school seniors, and I use CS5 mainly for retouching photos of these people.  For example, I fix acne, smooth out skin, brighten the eyes, teeth, enhance colors, and fix backgrounds.  I use a lot of actions in these processes so I wanted to share a few. I’ll even share my process of retouching an entire photo.

First, I open the file in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) and adjust the brightness, noise levels, and adjust the colors (mainly blues and magentas). Once I finish that I open the file in CS5.  I begin by adjusting the levels (Ctrl+L), after that I remove any noise if there is any with a filter that I have called “Imagenomic: Noiseware Pro”.  I then remove any stray hairs on the face or any lent on clothing with the spot-healing brush.  After those steps is when I begin to run my actions. I start with “MCP Magic Skin” set and use “MCP Powder Your Nose” with a brush with an opacity of about 90-95% (depending on what kind of skin they have or if it’s a girl or a guy) which smoothens the skin and makes it clearer.  After that I brighten the eyes with the “Bring on the Eyes” action in the “PW Action Set2 Updated” and use a brush with an opacity anywhere between 50-65%.  Once I finish those I flatten the layers (Ctrl+Shift+E).  I then add a layer (Ctrl+J),  and change the blend mode to Soft Light with an opacity of 75%.  If the photo is underexposed I brighten it just a tad by adding a curves adjustment layer (Ctrl+M) and raise the brightness on the graph.  To complete my photo, I create a slight vignette look on the edges and corners with the burn tool with an opacity of 65%.

That is my process for nearly every photo I work on.  It’s a bit time consuming but it gets the job done and makes a brilliant photo, in my opinion.  I hope this was helpful (: Enjoy.  For other tips or help feel free to email me at pmc26@txstate.edu

Here are a few photos that I have retouched. -Before & After-


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