From Zero To Hero

Small plug post here.  Some of you may know that I’m currently developing a site called Photo Super Hero (as in .com), but its still bare bones at the moment.

What it is going to be, is a photo editing service for all you aspiring home users out there who maybe don’t have the time/knowledge/software to turn your budding photographs into awesome photographs. Now I’m not saying your stuff isn’t already good, but everyone out there knows that if you produce a photo without photoshop, it’s like cooking without butter, sure you could do it, but really, why should you? (Let’s just forget about being health conscious for a second okay!?)

Here’s an example of the kind of service the site will offer when it’s …finally… up and running.

At this stage I call it the “Angelina Jolie Airbrush”, but I’m sure I’ll think of something a little more suitable nearer launch time.

So here goes:

Find a subject, frame your shot, and shoot.

Voila cute baby!!  But the above mentioned cute baby, was bitten by a small, annoying, non-threatening spider during the night (I caught the bad ass mo-fo and smashed his ass into smithereens as well), and as a result, has a few red spots that frankly, I don’t need to remember when I look back at this photo.

Let’s go nuke the bastards okay?

Using a combination of the healing brush, and the clone stamp tool does the trick. Better already hey?

Now, let’s pump up the brightness a scoche.

Oy vey – who turned the lights on!? Let’s see where we are from the beginning…

With photoshop, it’s good to remember that small changes = big improvement. If you make too many changes too quickly, or great big sweeping contrasts, more often than not, you end up with a big pile of poo that looks like crap! Right, let’s see what can we do next…. aaah yes, here comes that airbrush baby!! I wish I could do this to MY skin right before I leave the house each day!

Now we’re getting somewhere! Using an inverted high pass filter, painted onto the face (and any other skin you might like to smooth out) allows this cherub to be portrayed with the milky sweet skin that I know he has in real life, but which doesn’t come across in the SOOC (straight out of camera shot) too well.

Now time to crisp up those baby blues!

A fairly simple process of zooming up close, and using the sharpen tool on just the iris (the blue part). If your cherub has beautiful eyelashes like mine, feel free to zap those too, just remember that when the boys get older, you might want to leave out the eyelashes, as it can make them look a bit girly

Right, so now the iris’s are sharpened, now let’s put some more light in them, to make them really pop.

As camera’s progress, there is no doubt that the quality of image that they reproduce is becoming more lifelike. However, they are unable to reproduce life exactly, so it’s up to photoshop to help us to allow the person looking at the photo, to see the person AS we see them in real life. In this case, with bright happy eyes. So while purists out there cry ‘artificial’ I simply wave my paw (a la Dogbert) and say BAH!  Again, you will only want to use this treatment on the irises (blue part) of the eye, and reduce your opacity, lest you want everyone to think you have an alien child.

Now the finishing touches…

I’m obsessed with this technique at the moment and that is the ‘burnt’ edge look. I feel like it really makes the subject stand out in the photo, without too much interference with the subject.

Okay, let’s have one last look at where we came from…here’s before…and after together.

Now, tell me that *that* isn’t much better than the original?

Now tell me, what you would be willing to pay for a service like that to a single photograph. Seriously, would you consider paying someone to improve your photographs like this, on a photo by photo basis, or would you rather pay a small monthly membership fee which allows you to send up to x photos per month depending on the package?

I await your input with bated (though minty fresh) breath.

Here’s another picture of the same cherub with similar (and extended treatment).

All together now…awhhhhhh!