Weekend shooters and pros alike all have one major task when doing portrait photography, make your subject look like a million bucks. And do it without using a lot of obvious retouches. Easy to say, hard to do.
Spending countless hours in Photoshop, a master at retouching might be able to give you a beautiful portrait (or they might overdo it and ruin your work) but your life as a photographer will be much easier if you learn to do a few simple fixes "in camera".
Today let's talk about wrinkles and acne.
You won't have to do many portrait studies to realize your models all have a few traits in common. Your older subjects want to look younger, even if they don't say they do, and younger subjects want to minimize their acne.
Adults. The deeper and darker our wrinkles, the older we look. It happens to all of us eventually. If we can lighten or even eliminate our wrinkles, we look younger. Fortunately, this is a problem that is easy to fix.
What is a wrinkle? It's a crevice in our face, visually defined by a shadow. It's a 1-2-3 progression. The deeper the wrinkle, the darker the shadow, the older we look. How can we visually take years off our models and get rid of the wrinkles?
Easy, lighten the shadow!
What creates shadows? It's light skimming across the face from the sides or the top. The side light is not able to get into the wrinkle crevices and creates a shadow. The deeper the wrinkle, the darker the shadow. This can (and does) add a lot of visual years to our subject.
To make your model look younger, have your light shining directly into their face. This way the light is able to get into the "bottom" of the wrinkle. The wrinkles are filled with light which lessens their shadow effect and the years drop off dramatically. The time spent in Photoshop does too!
Teens with acne? Same thing. Acne, acne scars and other facial blemishes are at least partially defined by shadow. So, we handle it the same way we dealt with wrinkles, avoid hard, skimming side or top light. Use light directly aimed into the face and pimples and other scars will be visually minimized.
In addition to the sun, use your on camera flash or a reflector of some sort to fill in the shadows. Your smooth faced teens and young looking adults will thank you.
You now know as much as most professionals! Now it's time to make some money with YOUR camera! to see how easy this is, follow one of the links to my site... - 15437
Spending countless hours in Photoshop, a master at retouching might be able to give you a beautiful portrait (or they might overdo it and ruin your work) but your life as a photographer will be much easier if you learn to do a few simple fixes "in camera".
Today let's talk about wrinkles and acne.
You won't have to do many portrait studies to realize your models all have a few traits in common. Your older subjects want to look younger, even if they don't say they do, and younger subjects want to minimize their acne.
Adults. The deeper and darker our wrinkles, the older we look. It happens to all of us eventually. If we can lighten or even eliminate our wrinkles, we look younger. Fortunately, this is a problem that is easy to fix.
What is a wrinkle? It's a crevice in our face, visually defined by a shadow. It's a 1-2-3 progression. The deeper the wrinkle, the darker the shadow, the older we look. How can we visually take years off our models and get rid of the wrinkles?
Easy, lighten the shadow!
What creates shadows? It's light skimming across the face from the sides or the top. The side light is not able to get into the wrinkle crevices and creates a shadow. The deeper the wrinkle, the darker the shadow. This can (and does) add a lot of visual years to our subject.
To make your model look younger, have your light shining directly into their face. This way the light is able to get into the "bottom" of the wrinkle. The wrinkles are filled with light which lessens their shadow effect and the years drop off dramatically. The time spent in Photoshop does too!
Teens with acne? Same thing. Acne, acne scars and other facial blemishes are at least partially defined by shadow. So, we handle it the same way we dealt with wrinkles, avoid hard, skimming side or top light. Use light directly aimed into the face and pimples and other scars will be visually minimized.
In addition to the sun, use your on camera flash or a reflector of some sort to fill in the shadows. Your smooth faced teens and young looking adults will thank you.
You now know as much as most professionals! Now it's time to make some money with YOUR camera! to see how easy this is, follow one of the links to my site... - 15437
About the Author:
Stop working at a job you detest and for a jerk of a "boss". It is simpler than you imagine to earn a very nice full or part time income in Photo Marketing. Getting freelance Photo Jobs and assignments is a snap. You could be making money with YOUR camera as soon as this weekend!
