The Wonderful World of Photoshop

This is the SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) picture, which I think is a rather nice shot, but I wanted to see if I can get a little more *WOW* out of it in Photo-shop.

I thought a little soft focus (Gaussian Blur) would make a more dreamy setting, I also found the excessive reflections in the eyes to be a little distracting. If you look closely in the left eye (your left, not his) you will see my camera lens (the large circular blob), a sliver of my head sticking out above it, my elbows stuck out like I'm doing the chicken dance, Calvin's play gym (the long arcs around the pupil), the blue sky behind that, and oh look, I can even see some clouds. This is what I would call, too much detail. So, I took the paintbrush, set it to black, dissolve, and an opacity less than 50% and brushed over certain areas; eliminating the "excessive" detail, but still leaving enough to incite interest.

While I was at it, I also enhanced the colors by minor tweaks here and there.

Now, I truly love this rendering but I also wanted to see what else I could do with it. So, I tried Black & White (84%).

Now, what about a full Black & White make-over?

Breath-taking...but what about Sephia? (less than 50 %)

What about a little more? (84%)

Oooh...love that vintage look.

Now what if...instead of softening the eyes I sharpen them using a tip I learned off The Pioneer Woman?

Interesting...which one is your favorite?

A Gentle Touch

These are the photos I started with:

Then I added a soft focus.

I have tried before to create this effect in photoshop but I could never get it quite right. After using several brushes, blurs, and combinations, it looked rather nice but it was not "the" soft focus I was looking for. Well, that has changed. After doing some basic research online I have at last discovered the technique, and it is surprisingly simple.


Follow these 5 easy steps and you can do it too!

1. Open your photo in Photoshop and duplicate the background. (You should now have 2 identical layers)

2. Select "Gaussian Blur" from the Effects panel and add to the top layer.

3. A window will pop us asking you to pick a radius. Select a radius of 4-10. (4.0 for low resolution photos and 10.0 for high resolution.)

4.Look like an out of focus picture? Good.

5. Make sure the top layer is selected and reduce the opacity to 50%
When I did this my jaw dropped open. This was exactly what I have been looking for! It was beautiful!!!!

Now, Experiment. Try different radius levels and different opacity levels to obtain precisely the look you desire.

On the Photo below I added one more finishing touch. I took the paintbrush, selected "dissolve", the color white, and a lower opacity. I then painted around the border of the image to lighten the shadows and bring the focus back to Calvin's face.

Now Compare:

Improvement?


I have used black and white photos for examples but of course, you can also do this on color photos, here are some more examples:











Soft Focus does not "fit" all photos but it is another tool in your toolbox for the ones that do.

Mia

Here are some pictures I took of Mia then edited in Photoshop applying a new technique. Using the 'brush tool' from the toolbar I selected a 'soft mechanical brush', the color white, 'soft light' and an opacity level then "brushed" over the entire picture. The result was a misty, 'soft focus' effect.

I also discovered that by changing the brush's settings from 'soft light' to 'color' you can create varying degrees of 'black and white' for a more vintage effect.



Soft Focus-Medium Light

Soft Focus, Black and White-Opacity 50%

Soft Focus, Black and White-Opacity 75%

Soft Focus-Extra Heavy

Soft Focus-Very Light

Soft Focus-Medium

Soft Focus, Black and White-Opacity 40%

Black and White-Opacity 80%

Editing Your Photos-Part One

Editing your photos can be much more than simply cropping, rotating, and taking the red-eye out of your photos. Though those things are helpful-and necessary skills for a photographer-there is much more to editing your photos than that.

If you are a creative person (like me :) this can be an avenue to express your creativity further.

There are endless effects, and combinations of effects you can apply to your photos, 'the sky's the limit' so be creative!

I'll start out with some basic stuff (layers and colors) and then show you some photos with more 'artistic' effects and creativity involved.

Note: All of the effects I used in the following photos came from the effects toolbar as pictured above.

Layering:
Layering is a very important technique and can be a great deal of fun to play around with. You can adjust the opacity of the photos to create a variety of professional looking photographs. Here are a few simple ones I have done to illustrate:

Color (or lack thereof):


Black and White:


Sephia/Old Paper:

(also Palette Knife on last picture)

Artistic Effects:

Charcoal:

Colored Pencils:


Emboss:


Soft Focus (I used Gaussian Blur):

In my next post I'll go more in-depth into Artistic Effects with Before and After shots.