This week Sam invited us into the Mac Suite in room 213 in the George Wallis building. We sat in front of the Macs and struggled to get logged in, it took an age. It was simply taking a while to log in and create a profile on the local machine.
Sam introduced what we would be doing today;
- Photoshop Master Class
- Split Frequency
- Spot Retouching
- Warping
- High Pass
First up was to open up Office.com and sign in to access email to download the sample image and the photoshop action that Sam has sent through. The we had to sign into adobe photoshop but I had created my own account over the summer owing to the uni version not being available..
With the Action downloaded we could drag and drop it into the actions palette and then open up the stock image.
The idea of the first part was to use a split frequency method to break the image up into two layers, and then carry out work on both layers to remove blemishes and smooth out the skin tones.
Frequency Split
Open up the image that Sam has sent us, I stored a copy in my Sharepoint also.
It is important to take note of the differences in the tones on the woman’s face, some is shadowed and darker tone in places, use the Frequency Split part of the Workflow action to smooth out some of the skin tones.
Choose “frequency split” in the action and then press the play button to run the actions within.
A dialog box shows up with an error but this can be ignored, it is complaining about a folder structure that doesn’t exist and doesn’t matter.
In the layers panel there are now two new layers, above the background.
HF = Detail High Pass Filter that will pick up the details that need sharpening in the final image.
LF = Where we will smooth out the tones of the face.
Here we can see the HF Layer, it’s tricky to discern but there are some marks on the grey of the individual hair strands and then eyebrows, eye lashes and lips also. These will pass through to sharpen up the image but first we need to smooth out the skin tones.
This is the LF Layer, it’s basically a copy of the Background that we can alter without being destructive to the background original layer.
With the LF Layer selected in the layers panel, select the Brush tool.
Change opacity to about 9 so that it’s not an on or off operation, it’s a bit feathered if we do it this way.
When choosing an area to work on, hold down the Option key to change to pipette and then select a skin tone close by.
Using a slightly larger brush paint then reselect using the pipette for the the next area to change.
It’s obvious when you think about it but Stop when you think you’ve done enough. It’s easy to go too far and make it look terrible like I have done in this example. I will attempt it again once I’ve written up these notes and that should be in another post.
Once the skin tones have been smoothed out we can go onto the HF layer and turning the layer on increases the sharpness of the eyebrows, eyelashes and lips etc.
We then created a copy of the background for use on the retouching element of the task
Then press CMD+E whilst in the LF Layer flatten to the background, then repeat for the HF layer
Retouching
Copy the Split frequency layout by dragging layer to the + button or use CMD+J to make a duplicate.
The use the Clone Stamp tool with varying sizes of brush to clone and clean up blemishes. The Opacity is 100% on this and I think that I would rather choose a brush with a feathered edge to smooth out a little more seamlessly.
It’s best to use areas close to the affected area to clone from so that the tones are nearly correct, cloning from a shadowed part of the face will lead to darker areas being copied into the lighter areas and vice versa.
You can see below that the blemishes I chose to clone out were replaced with some odd looking artifacts and odd patches of pattern or changes in skin colour unnaturally. I will attempt a more subtle approach once I have got to grips with the process.
Warp Time
The next task was Warping, whereby some photographers, studios or agencies actively alter the dimensions or proportions of the model’s face or body. This is still actively done in many businesses and Sam said that he knows people who are highly paid and highly respected in this arena.
I’m not a big fan of distorting an image of someone away from the truth, even if it has been requested by the person in the photo. It’s my belief that everyone is beautiful and perfect and should not strive to artificially change their appearance. Obviously some conditions either psychological or physiological mean that it makes sense for some people to change themselves but there is a culture where brazilian butt lifts and huge lip fillers are almost expected to meet the criteria of the social media content consumers. Wow, sorry about the little rant, but I want to make it clear that I’m altering this photo as an exercise and not because I think the model didn’t look perfect before.
Onto the Warping, Open Filters, choose Liquify and a dialog box opens with the details of how to warp the image. It’s also a mine of tools that can make eyes bigger or smaller, faces rounder or narrower and all manner of other weird tools like Bloat and Pucker.
For this task we will use the Forward Warp Tool, using a large brush
Then if want to move jaw line, have the mouse pointer/brush circle, hover half over the jaw line and then click the mouse and drag the jaw line in the direction of preference.
From the original above, we can see that I moved the left and right sides of the jaw in, then did the same to narrow the bridge of the nose.
I even messed about with the mouth and warped it into a weird shape that doesn’t look like a smile but is obviously different to the original. Again I’ll reiterate that this version is an exaggeration of what it can do so that I can document it. Less is more in the real world and small changes will look less strange.
To over exaggerate even further I used the other tools to squash the jaw line in even further then altered the neck of the t-shirt and stretched the hair out somewhat.
Stretching things too far leads to obvious artifacts, like when you stretch a photograph and the perspective changes stretch out the pixels. It looks bloody terrible and I would never be likely to do this in any of my photography, only as part of the tasks set by Sam in the class.
Smaller amounts are better Less is definitely more.
High Pass
The last part of the task was to try out another High Pass filter to increase further the parts that could be sharpened to make the image pop even more.
We had to duplicate the warping layer that we’d been playing with.
Then in the Filters/ other choose the High Pass filter.
Selec radius about 3-6 to select only the parts that need strengthening.
Once you have the greyed filter layer make sure you’re on the layer before changing the Mode to Overlay. This acts upon the underlying image with the changes. It does make a visible difference but it’s very minor at a Radius of 6. If the radius is set at a crazy high number you end up with a super artificial image. Some of these do look a bit pop-art style and might be a worthwhile addition to an editorial etc.
Saving Progress
Sam then showed us all how to save the whole document as a PSD Photoshop document, so that all the layers are preserved.
Then how to export the individual layers as separate jpg images to include in the journal/sketchbooks as I have done above.
When we duplicate and work on layers, it’s hugely important to rename the layers with the relevant names. This allows other colleagues to understand what is happening int he files should they ever be called upon to edit in the future. Not only them but you as an editor will get enormous benefit from good naming conventions.
This is true of computer programming too, comments and notes throughout the code help any follow up work and allow people to make sense of what you originally did with the files.
Summary of Exercise
You can see that this work is arduous if done correctly and more subtly than I demonstrated in the example above. The action that Sam gave us is usefull for all manner of tasks and I can see that there are other items in there that might be called upon later in the semester but it looks like a veritable toolbox that Sam has built up over the years.
I know I mentioned it already in the text above, but I’m not altering this image to make the person more (or less) attractive. It’s being done as an exercise to demonstrate the power of modern day imaging software. I’m aware that this type of work takes place worldwide and it may have its place but It really isn’t something I would do to many photos in my genres of photography.
Someone in the class mentioned “the camera never lies, well that’s obviously incorrect” and it is true. The fact that we can make these changes so easily is undeniable and useful in many cases but whether it is required for the amount of retouched images that we are presented with in the real world, that’s another thing.
Let’s not also forget that this type of work was going on long before the invention of digital photography, even in the dark rooms of old it was possible to warp images and change perspective using angles of the enlarger, even lenses and methods of bouncing the light around. It’s definitely not a new thing, photo manipulation, but it appears that almost anybody can do so using the modern and powerful tools in all image software.
Negatives
After we’d finished with this exercise I took my roll of 120 film down to the studio basement so I could load it into a paterson tank and then get it developed.
Once I’d been in the dark and transferred the negatives from the roll into the reel of the tank, I carried it carefully back into the processing room.
I drew off a 250ml of D76 developer into a measuring cylinder but I could tell that it was a bit warm. Dan the technician had only recently mixed up the chemistry. When I popped the thermometer into the dev it showed up as over 35 degrees and it needs to be around 20 degrees to work at the correct timings. Changing temperatures from the 20 degrees might extend or reduce the amount of time required to treat the film.
The same was true of the Stop and Fixer, each of these was warm too so it was time to cool them down. I had the three amounts of chemistry in the cylinders and then ran cold water over the outside of the plastic containers to acts as a heat exchanger of sorts. It probably took around 25 minutes to get the dev down to around 22, and the 250ml of cold water at a temp of 18 would mean the temp should balance at 20degrees.
For the stop and fixer I left the measuring cylinder flasks in the sink, blocked up the plug hole and then filled it with cold water to try and exchange some of the heat out of the chemicals. By the time I’d finished with the 13 minutes of developing the stop and fixer were down at 23 degrees and the working temp is 18-24 degrees so I was happy.
I finished off the Dev, Stop and Fixing then a 20 minute wash before a 30 second dip in the wetting agent and a 30 minute stint in the drying cabinet.
Once dried, I took them to the light table and cut them into fours and slid them into a negative sleeve ready for next time I’ve got time to make a contact sheet or print from individual frames. Maybe I’ll scan them in using the Epson scanners or using my DSLR scanning method at home.
Next Week
Next week consists of the following.
AM – Off Camera flash Training
PM – Working in groups to complete portrait off camera flash on Locations / Discuss Photoshop masterclass issues
I’m looking forward to seeing how we manage the off camera flash as a large group and what we do with the images from it, whether we use a light meter or is it going to be a Bruce Gilden style affair.. We shall see.
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