Sarah C

Posted by Paul Wright (Wiltshire, United Kingdom) on 13 March 2008 in People & Portraits and Portfolio.

Sarah Covey - Vocalist/actress

Technique

I call this the 'bimbling along' technique. The reason for this being that I 'bimble' along until I'm happy with the result.

I was an illustrator/fine artist in another life and used to bimble through paintings. No particular formula or set pattern to my work. I just bimbled until it was time (in my opinion) to stop!

Anyway, back to the technique. Dead easy really. First of all, remember that there are no 'correct' settings. Each shot is individual. So apply your settings in relation to the pic you're working on. The same settings don't always work twice. The order of the day is 'experiment'!

Open the image you intend to work on.

Work across the image removing all sizable blemishes/marks. Use the a combination of the following tools to do this: patch, heal and clone. Also colour (color) correct and set brightness/contrast levels.

Once this is done and your happy duplicate the image.

With this 'new' layer on top go to filter > blur > gaussian or lens blur (the choice is yours). Set a level not too low and not too high. You need the effect to be clear but not unbelievable.

When this is done apply the following again to the top layer:

Blend Mode > Screen (when you apply this initially the effect will look very extreme. Don't panic, this is normal. Once you decrease the opacity it'll look more naturalistic)

Opacity > 20 - 50% (again.......experiment)

You will now need to erase (from top layer) the areas of the layer that cover the eyes, eyebrows, nose and mouth. Use the erase tool. Differ the opacity so as to prevent the effect looking ridiculous. You are effectively blending one image into another to create one final composite. Anything else you feel needs to be sharp (hair, clothes etc) repeat the erase process.

Select the lower layer and use the burn and dodge tools to darken/lighten areas around eyes, nose and mouth.

Again on this layer make a selection around the eyes (seperately). Right click and select feather from the drop down list. Set to a figure of 25. Hit ok. Now go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp filter. Set threshold between 0.9 and 1.1. Set radius between 55 and 75. Hit ok. Repeat for the lips and hair.

That's it!

Please don't feel awkward about asking questions should any of the above not make sense or work out first time. I'll do my best to answer any you fire at me.

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