Photoshop Photo editing Tutorial

I have a confession

I LOVE my new Blog design!.  I also LOVE my blog designer – Jessica from Southtown Creative.

I had been contemplating switching from Blogger to WordPress for a.long.time.  I was scared, but decided to take the plunge as soon as I found Jess.  I contacted her and she was so prompt in her reply and was very attentive to my needs.  She was just as excited as I was to do my design and move me over to WordPress.

Jess is SO easy to work with and we have formed a beautiful friendship.  I’ve learned *so* much from Jess and she’s here today to teach us a little bit about easy photoshop photo editing.  she’s offering a BIG discount to all new customers.  If you are thinking about a new design or switching to WordPress – utilise this discount while you can!

 

Hi Miss Mommy readers!!!

I am so excited to be here with y’all today! If you don’t know me, my name is Jessica and I am a Graphic Designer (I design lots and lots of blogs, like this pretty one you’re on right now, yep, did it). I own a little business called Southtown Creative and I love my job, it’s the best thing ever, seriously. I’ve been designing for about 6 years now, I was freelance before starting my business last year and I don’t know why I didn’t start the “official” business earlier (well, really I do, I was working full-time, life, you know, the usual distractions)! Oh, I have a personal blog where I keep all of my creative and crazy posts at, you should check it out too (there’s a free chevron Photoshop brush laying around there somewhere).
Oh, you wanna stick around and scroll to the end because I’m giving y’all a little surprise…eeek!
Nicole wanted a tutorial on how to maximize your photos with Photoshop. Now, I am no Photoshop genius, but I’m definitely not a DSLR genius and, although I TRY and use my camera in manual mode all of the time, I OFTEN mess up my settings and get dark photos. The photo I’m going to use to demonstrate today is from when I first got my new camera (DSLR) and I was playing with manual mode but I just HAD to save this photo because, I mean really, it’s TOO CUTE!
The following tutorial is done in Photoshop CS4 but should apply and be relevant for all current versions of Photoshop. I have never really messed with Elements much but, from what I understand, it basically works the same way.
Also, you can completely customize the way your Photoshop pallets are set-up so don’t refer to mine for the location, if you don’t see a pallet I talk about go to WINDOW and click on the appropriate pallet selection.

I’m going to show you step-by-step how I got this photo from before to after…

Just a quick note for completely Photoshop newbies::Photoshop works in layers, so be sure you have your layers pallet open and you have to make sure the correct layer is selected.

Step 1: Open in Photoshop and adjust the curves to lighten the photo a tad.

The CURVES adjustment is in the “adjustments” pallet, if you don’t have that open you can view it by going to Window/Adjustments.

I have to say, at this point in my life I LOVE over-exposed photos, I love making photos light enough that they just glow so as you’re going through this tutorial adjust it to what you like, editing is VERY subjective and it’s all on what YOU and YOUR clients (if you have clients) like.

Step 2: Use adjustment pallet to correct color balance (notice is has a green tint, even on his skin).

Another quick note, there are TONS of free photoshop actions out there that will help with these steps so that you don’t have to do them piece by piece everytime, when you get really good, you can even create your own to help with time on editing.

Step 3: Flattened layers (I can’t stand for my adjustments to bunch up over in the layers pallet) & applied a Photo Filter (Adjustments pallet) – warming filter.

I chose this particular filter because it warms up the tone a bit and takes out the blues and greens that are still left even after adjusting the color balance.

Step 4: Grab the BRUSH TOOL in BLACK and brush away the parts of the photo that you DON’T want to have this filter applied to.

Make sure that your layer with the warming filter is selected (this applies anytime you use an adjustment and only want it on part of the photo), then brush away (make sure it’s a black fill color) the parts your don’t want to have this “orangy” tint (eyes, shirt, grass, etc).

Step 5: I flattened and lightened using the curves, again

Step 6: Make the eyes “pop”

I love my little man’s eyes and I love making them “pop”. So, here’s what I did…

• Grab the “brush tool” and hit the “quick selection” button.
• Make sure your brush is very “soft” and small enough to not go into the whites of the eyes, just the colored part.
• “paint” the colored part of the eyes, it will turn them red.

Step 7: Press “Q” to release the quick mask tool and select the eyes.

Basically, the quick mask tool/mode is for quickly selecting an area of the photo (the red makes it easy to see what you’ve selected).

IMPORTANT NOTE: CS5 automatically ‘selects’ the area “painted” and CS4 ‘selects’ everything BUT that area. If you see “marching ants” going all the way around the image once you hit “Q” then you’ll want to go up to your menu bar and do “Select/Inverse” so that the “marching ants” are JUST around the part you colored.

Step 8: Apply the action for the eyes.

I used an action to make the eyes pop, I created the action a while back and call it “I heart Eyes” and it’s basically a little sharpening and a little curves adjustment, nothing major but something I didn’t want to remember every time. And, just because y’all are awesome, CLICK HERE to download it (unfortunately it won’t work with Elements).

This particular action creates a new layer with the adjustment in it so you can increase or decrease the opacity to the setting you like.

Here’s a before and after of just the eyes…you can see that there’s just a tad bit of difference, you don’t want to make them look satanic, haha.

Step 9: Flatten and use the Clone Stamp tool to remove the stain off of the shirt.

For the purposes of this tutorial, I didn’t spend a lot of time of this so it’s not the best job but, hey, the stain’s gone

Step 10: Duplicate the photo (layer) and apply a Surface Blur to the top layer (make sure the top layer image is selected).

Once you’ve duplicated the layer and it’s selected, go to Filter/Blur/Surface blur. Adjust settings accordingly, you DON”T want it to be too blurred, the “subject” will look like a non-realistic porcelain doll.

Step 11: Use the eraser tool to erase the areas of the blurred layer that you DON”T want to be blurred (eyes, mouth, shirt)

You don’t want the photo subject to look unrealistic but you want their skin to look “flawless” so you’ll want to select the top layer (the blurred layer) and erase what you don’t want “blurred” with the eraser tool. See, what you’re doing is erasing that layer and everywhere you erase, the layer below is showing through and it’s not blurred.

Step 12: Flatten and Lighten ONE MORE TIME.

Like I said, I’m all about overexposed photos so I lightened just one more time and flattened again and wa-la. Donzo! The only other thing I did was apply my watermark, but that’s another tutorial.

Listen, I get that this is a lot, especially to new-Photoshoppers but you’ll get the hang of it and you don’t have to do all of these steps to get the most out of your photos, just take a piece here or there, use it to your liking.

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Now, for the good stuff!

I’m giving you guys a discount to ANY of my services.

What kind of discount, you ask?

Well, how’s 20%? Is that good enough for ya? Oh yeah!

Just enter the code “MISSMOMMY20” when you fill out your New Project Form and I will send you a quote LESS 20% of the normal cost!

This applies to anything: logos, business cards, buttons, custom designs, marketing, print designs, etc.

So, GO! But wait, hurry, because it’ll only be valid for one (1) week from today!

 

Thank you, Nicole, for having me over here today!

Told ya she was awesome!.