Quick Portrait Retouching

The experts can and do spend hours perfectly retouching the photos in magazines and advertisements. The rest of us are often just interested in basic techniques for fixing up for a friend's wedding photo or something like that. So here are some steps for quick photo retouching. Thanks to stock.xchng user varyamo for the image used in this example.

1. Open the image in Photoshop and apply Curves if necessary.
2. Duplicate your original layer and clone out any blemishes and distracting details.
3. Duplicate the cloning layer and choose Filter > Blur > Surface Blur. I used a radius of 2 px and threshold of 30 here.
4. On the surface blur layer, create a layer mask and fill it with black. On the layer mask, paint white with a soft paintbrush to reveal the areas of skin. Reduce surface blur layer opacity to 40% or whatever looks good.
5. Create a merged copy of all of the layers below with the shortcut Cmd-Opt-Shift-E. 
6. Apply a localized sharpen by choosing Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. I used an amount of 500, radius of .3 and threshold of 6 for this image. Use a layer mask to hide any parts that become too sharp. (Steps 5 and 6 are tricks from Lynda.com instructor Chris Orwig—he's got some great retouching training videos in the Photoshop CS3 Portrait Retouching Techniques series.)

Tada! A quick and beautifully retouched image.

Plitvice Lakes

No words—just spectacular!

I stumbled into this photo in the Fotocommunity Galerie. The site is in German but you don't really need to know German to figure out previous (zurück) and next (weiter). This site is always worth a browse for the high quality photography.

Plitvice Lakes is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and national park in Croatia. The minerals and algae combined with the angle of the sun create some amazing blue and green shades in the water. In 1991, it was the site of the first armed conflict of the Croatian war that resulted in fatalities. Plitvice Lakes National Park was recognized as mine-free in 1998 and is one of the most popular Croatian tourist attractions today. Wikipedia has the full story.

My Work: Nritya Seva

Here's a recent poster I created with input from others (Radhanath's photography, Govinda's typography advice and Anapayini's modeling). I often design Anapayini's Bharatanatyam event posters and this was was a fun project. Nritya means dance and Seva means service—this title refers to the love and service the dancer offers through her art. I love the composition and colors in this photo of her feet—the beautiful dancing costume and painted feet just draw you in. Generous white space gives this poster a modern feel and the title treatment adds that traditional touch. Fonts used: Brioso Pro and Cronos.

Fractal Flame 7

I'm not usually a fan of abstract art but I like this piece by Matthew Tourtellot. I like the motion, the spare use of color and the wispy edges.

One Perfect Day

I've been meaning to feature this cover. I read One Perfect Day last year and found it a well written and interesting glimpse into the $161 billion wedding industry. It's so perfect that the cover is a stapled receipt on top of traditional wedding typography.

Spring Owl Tree

These owls are too cute! I like the interesting mix of colors and the style of illustration. Available from Etsy.

Sinfonieta

Sinfonieta sounds like it could be Italian for sinuous (it's not). This script is so beautiful and flowing it almost floats off the page. This quote is tiny portion of the poem "A Blessing for One Who is Exhausted" by John O'Donohue. I first heard of John O'Donohue from the Speaking of Faith podcast The Inner Landscape of Beauty and I love the way he speaks of beauty, nature and tuning into our inner self.

Beneath a Marble Sky

The colors in this book cover caught my eye. I love how the red sari contrasts with the yellow and tan and how the black from her hair is repeated across the bottom. I like the handwritten script and the decorative bar at the bottom. It's well done and appropriate for a novel about the eldest daughter of the 17th-century emperor who built the Taj Mahal.

Saturate with Lab

I was reading an old Photoshop User magazine while reinstalling CS3 and ran into this Lab technique from Dan Margulis. It was neat to see an alternative to using Hue and Saturation that actually brings out even more color. So here it is in my own words:

1. Open an image in Photoshop and change the color mode to Lab.
2. Add a new Curves Adjustment Layer. Under the Curves Display Options, make sure "Show Amount of" says Light (so your curves will match the ones I show here).
3. Bonus trick: Cmd-click anywhere on your image and a point will be added on the curve at that exact color or lightness value.
4. Adjust the Lightness curve as necessary.
5. Switch to the "a" channel and click a point in the middle of the curve. Drag the sliders as shown on the right. Basically you want the curve to be practically vertical. Ignore the crazy colors previewing in your image.
6. Go to the "b" channel and do the same thing you just did to "a."
7. Reduce the opacity of the Curves layer to 10% or 20%. I used 15% here. If the effect isn't quit right, double click the Curves layer and adjust things until you like the final effect.

I love color and this is another fun (and useful) way to play with color in Photoshop. Definitely a keeper!

Orissan Art

This enchanting little print of Radha and Krishna is done in classical Orrisan style. Orissa is a state on the east coast of India with a storehouse of mineral wealth. The bright colors in the traditional Orissan art comes from those minerals.