August 29th, 2008 by Sheba Wheeler
08.29.08
Original, originally uploaded by Sheba Wheeler.
Here is an example of a “before and after” of an image from a recent senior portrait session. Jordan’s mother requested I remove her daughter’s piercing above her right eye.
To achieve this effect, I used some healing to erase the piercing above Jordan’s right eye, smoothed out the dark circles under her eye and around her neck. I sharpened her eyes so they would pop. Then I used a plug-in filter called Portraiture for the glamour affect which softened Jordan’s skin to a flawless glow and evened out her skin tone. Further selective adjustment editing in Curves brightened her face.
If you use this type of processing, I like to apply it in a separate layer and then lower the opacity to about 60 to 65 percent. A little of this kind of touch-up goes a long way and keeps the subject realistic. This image was Jordan’s mother’s favorite from the entire session.
August 19th, 2008 by Sheba Wheeler
08.19.08
There’s a Rainbow in the Sky All the Time, originally uploaded by Sheba Wheeler.
Always be aware of your surroundings. A momentary drizzle forced my senior portrait shoot with Jordan inside to wait out the rain. But I would have missed this incredible opportunity to photography Jordan with the rainbow in the background if her little sister, Donovan, hadn’t grabbed my arm and dragged me to the window.
“Look! A rainbow!” I wasn’t sure if I would be able to capture this natural phenomenon before it disappeared. So I rushed Jordan to a balcony and started shooting.
To get this shot, I had to meter for the sky and rainbow, which left Jordan underexposed. To compensate, I used a bit of fill flash to lit up her face and body, but she was still more shadowed than I wanted. So in CS3, I used a quick mask to select Jordan’s face and a Curve to adjust the lighting in just that area. I think it works because I still want Jordan to be the main focus of the image, but the rainbow in the background gives the image depth.