Raymond Chou Photography Blog | Vancouver Headshot & Commercial Photographer

Beauty Retouching Step by Step

Posted on August 15, 2010 by Raymond Chou

This is the unretouched image

I realized I’ve never made a post about photo retouching so for this entry I thought I’d share a few of my own tried and true methods for beauty retouching.

*Note that I don’t apply all of the following techniques for retouching actor headshots since the industry standard for beauty retouching tends to give the subject a porcelain doll kind of look. Actors on the other hand need to look real.

Some of these steps you’ll be familiar with and some might be new I won’t spend time focusing on what each tool does since there are countless instructional videos for each one. This isn’t so much a tutorial, rather I’m simply sharing what I do.

The first thing I typically do is remove all the blemishes. This I perform with either the spot healing brush, healing brush, or patch tool. If you’re used to just using one, give the other two a shot and see what results you get.

The hair is usually the next thing I retouch is hair. Stray hairs are the bane of many a photographer’s existence and I HATE RETOUCHING THEM WITH A PASSION. Okay I’m exaggerating a bit, but it can definitely be a challenge depending on your model’s hair. To retouch hair, I switch between CS5′s spot healing brush with the “content aware” filter on and the cloning tool, depending on what I’m trying to achieve. I also alternate between the opacity, flow, and hardness of the brush. With all that being said, do your absolute best to correct it on camera. This is something for more your hairstylist or assistant to watch out for.

The next thing I do is create a three-point S-Curve for BOTH the highlights and the shadows so I can control each separately. I achieve this by creating two duplicate layers of my image, set the blending mode of one to “lighten” and the other to “darken” and plant the points in each. If you don’t know what an S-Curve is it’s the single most effective way you can make your image “pop” in an instant. Click here for a tutorial and read the first part.

Step number four is SKIN SKIN SKIN! Oh there are just so many ways to do this. You might have come across the technique of applying a gaussian filter to a new layer, applying a black layer mask to that layer, and painting back the blurry skin. If you’re taking your photography to a more professional level, I suggest you stay away from that technique as the results you get are quite amateurish. The first thing I do is to select just the model’s skin. There’s many ways of doing this so find out what works best for you. After that, select it and make two duplicate layers. Use the surface blur tool found under the filter -> blur -> surface blur on one to create the smooth skin that you want, and on the other layer apply the High Pass filter tool by selecting filter -> other -> high pass, choose a value under 10, and set it on either soft light or overlay–this will bring back detail into the skin.

Sharpen just the eyes, lips, and nails with the Unsharp Mask tool: filter -> sharpen -> unmask. I keep my amount low and radius high for most images.

So that in a nutshell are five key steps I apply to every beauty image. I did do some further retouching with the image above, but hey even I need to keep a few secrets.

Final Result

Posted in Photoshop Technique | Tagged beauty retouching, photoshop technique | 3 Comments

Pro Bono Work: When to say Yes or No

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Raymond Chou

This morning I read a post on Freelance Folder that I found interesting. The author quoted an email she received from a company with “a very small budget” contacted her and offered her a barter exchange for the products they offer. I won’t get into it so if you click on the link above if you wish to check it out.

I thought I’d do something similar and quote an email I received in the past and how I responded in the end. Changes, in order to hide the sender’s identity, are indicated in italics.

Dear Raymond,

My name is Jane Doe and I represent company abc. I am in charge of an event known as Event ABC, which is presented by Organization ABC, a (Insert description of how company started off).

We are in need of a photographer who can take some portraits of some models for our website which will be used for promotional material. Unfortunately, we are a non-profit organization so the work would be done on a pro bono basis, but what we can do is present your company logo on the event website and offer you free advertising in our program on the day of.

(There’s more to it but the rest is irrelevant.)

Here’s my response.

Hi Jane,

Thank you for finding me online. I’m glad that you like my work. Unfortunately, I’m currently not in a position to accept any pro bono assignments. You might be able to find a photographer on Craigslist if you haven’t tried already.

Best Regards,

Raymond Chou

I’m willing to bet that in the past many of you have received a request that’s very similar to this.

While it’s true that non-profit organizations generally don’t have big budgets to work with, the fact is that unless the company in question is one which consists almost entirely of volunteers, it’s not fair of them to ask photographers to give their time away freely. Okay, well, maybe not exactly free because you’d be getting advertisement, but a word of warning: in all the assignments I’ve done over the past few years in which I received advertisement as compensation, I’ve never gotten any work as a result, and I guarantee that other working photographers will tell you the same.

Generally the only circumstances in which I would accept pro bono work is if the organization/event consists mainly of volunteers and if it’s for a cause I strongly believe in: fighting against mental health or the elimination of homelessness/poverty. Help Portrait is one of the them.

I believe that saying no to all forms of pro bono work period is not a good thing and can lead to a calloused soul where vanity takes over. Whatever your choices are, don’t let that happen to you.

Posted in Food for Thought, Freelance & Business | Tagged Food for Thought, Freelance & Business | Leave a comment

2010 Celebration of Light – Guest Post by Jeffrey Chan

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Jeffrey Chan

As a Freelance Photographer in Vancouver I always find a lot of places and events to shoot. One is the Celebration of Light. This year I challenged myself to take my fireworks photography to a whole new level, and this is something I’d like to see more amateurs and professionals go through as well. I notice that with a lot of photos, one thing they lack is feeling, or meaning. To me, taking a photo is all about capturing a moment and telling a story to others. Here’s the story behind my photos.

A month ago before the 2010 Celebration of Light started, I was going through photos of previous fireworks shows and I found what really amazed me were the vibrant colours. As I was flipping through photos, it was one thing to see an amazing design or volley, but another to see the sun setting against the background, which I felt gave the photo a beautiful touch. Usually we relate fireworks against a pitch black canvas; black canvases are nice sometimes, but art has no boundaries. So after nourishing my muse, I went out on a journey to find the perfect spot to take photos.

After having shot fireworks for several of the performances, here are some tips I offer for taking amazing fireworks photos:

Composition is everything. Instead of taking the easy approach and shooting against the sky, find a nice background canvas and paint with all the colors and light available.
Always use a tripod (You are taking long exposures and your images will be blurry if you don’t use a one. If you don’t have one find a flat surface for your camera)
Invest in a cable release or a wireless remote (This will add towards keeping your camera from shaking when you press the shutter. Again if you don’t have any of those options use a self timer mode.)
Use the lowest ISO (You will be taking long exposures and you don’t want to be overexposed)
Experiment with your aperture. Since your taking long exposure you don’t need a lot of light to come in.
Experiment shooting with Bulb mode. Cover your Lens with a black card, when a sudden burst occurs uncover your lens to capture it.
Pre-Focus if possible that way you can your picture can look its sharpest
This may be obvious, but shoot in RAW
On the day of the shoot I like to go to check the weather forecast to determine the wind direction. You want to shoot up wind otherwise they’ll come out really hazy.

Here’s are some of my favorite photos from this year’s shows: