Before and After.. Post yours..

scotthofferphotography

I'm no where near the best at this, but I would like to see some of the techniques others use on before and after pics.. to see what you started with, and what you ended up with.

C&C is always welcome of course.

anonymouscuban

Nothing special here. A quick snap I took of my nephew while having a picnic with the family over the Christmas holiday. Cleaned up the boogers and crumbs from his face and got rid of the harsh shadows on his face. Then converted to B&W. His mom liked this photo so I decided to clean it up for her.

divamum

Scott, if you hop over to the weddings forum, there was a great before/after thread over there which may give you some ideas - lots of portraits to peruse...

ZBlack

Before


After

New Hope Studios

This shot is from yesterday's newborn session...

Snowgirl

divamum wrote: »

Scott, if you hop over to the weddings forum, there was a great before/after thread over there which may give you some ideas - lots of portraits to peruse...

Hi there. I went and looked but couldn't find it. Do you have a link?

Snowgirl

[QUOTE

I'm no where near the best at this, but I would like to see some of the techniques others use on before and after pics.. to see what you started with, and what you ended up with.

C&C is always welcome of course.[/QUOTE]

Nice editing - good skin smoothing and shadow minimizing,

divamum

Here you go!

scotthofferphotography

Thanks.. What techniques do you use for problems with rotten teeth, scars, zits, moles, yellow teeth? do you just clone it all out? of do you use some other methods..?

New Hope Studios

scotthofferphotography wrote: »

Thanks.. What techniques do you use for problems with rotten teeth, scars, zits, moles, yellow teeth? do you just clone it all out? of do you use some other methods..?

I would like to know how YOU cleaned up her teeth. That was a huge improvement. I haven't quite figured out teeth yet, but I am very new to the post processing world... and photoshop does SO MUCH MORE than what I know how to do. I really need to learn how to correct teeth... I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in Oklahoma, we occasionally run into people with teeth issues!

For complexion issues or scars, etc, I use PS and run an action called Complexion Perfection from Yellow Sky Actions which works perfectly really. I got 101 actions for $50 around Christmas. Here's the link to that: http://yellowskyactions.com/complexion-perfection/

anonymouscuban

scotthofferphotography wrote: »

Thanks.. What techniques do you use for problems with rotten teeth, scars, zits, moles, yellow teeth? do you just clone it all out? of do you use some other methods..?

Call me strange, but I rarely use the clone tool for any touch up on people. I instead use the healing brush on a new layer. I zoom into to 100%, sometime larger and work away whatever scar/blemish with the healing brush. Even for teeth, but teeth are a little tough at times because they're small and sometimes, you don't have enough "good" section of the teeth to select from.

For teeth, I will brighten them with a separate curves layer adjustment mask, with the curve pulled up at the midtones so it's shaped like a little hill. I paint the teeth white with a soft brush set to around 7% until I get them to the brightness I want. Then I add a hugh saturation adjustment layer mask and desaturate the yellow channel. I then paint the effect onto the teeth to get my desired effect.

scotthofferphotography

I use lightroom to brighten the teeth, then I put the picture in cs5, and I make a duplicate layer. I then clone a tooth with the same shape, on the model above, I cloned the first tooth on the left, to fill in the cavity on her second tooth from the left, since the first tooth is so close to the lip, it cloned that too, since I have a duplicate layer as my base layer, then I take the eraser, and I erase out the cloned lip, showing the layer under it. Then I merge the two.

Thank you for the compliment.

anonymouscuban

OK... a little embarrassed by the before but here is one that's a pretty big change between the before and after. BTW, I finally ditched that stupid white muslim for a white vinyl BG. Haven't shot with it but can't wait to not have to worry about wrinkles.

scotthofferphotography

anonymouscuban looks fantastic. I love the pinup look. How are you getting the color to pop like that?

anonymouscuban

It was a lot of trail and error but here's what I ended up with, all done in PS CS5. First, I brighten the image a bit with a curves layer mask. Then use the Surface Blur filter on a separate layer to really smooth the skin. I then adjust the opacity until I get the look I want. After, I make a new layer and apply the Unsharp Mask filter... Amount = 50%, Radius = 25 pix, Threshold = 0. This give the image contrast/pop. I add a mask to this layer and invert it so it's black. I then take a soft white brush, set at 12% and paint the effect onto the image until I get to where I like it. Then I make another layer and add the Unsharp Mask filter again, but this time I have the settings like this ... Amount = 150%, Radius = 0.9 pix, Threshold = 6. This layer is going to sharpen things up quite a bit. You may have to tweak the opacity of this layer a bit to get it right.

That's how I get that painted, pinup look for the most part. There are other tweaks I do depending on the image but the above will get you 90% there.

Here is another... just the after though:

scotthofferphotography

looks really good. You do fine work sir.

Bryce Wilson

OK...

I'll play too! This was from a session I did with my niece this past summer.

Original


nicoledoor2 by Bryce Wilson, on Flickr

After


Pretty Teen Girl Natural Light by Bryce Wilson, on Flickr

Hackbone

Here are a few with minor changes.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Just some of Imogenic's Portrature and then the doge tool on the eyes.

reyvee61

Very nice examples here I must say...some quite dramatic others more subtle but all have been more appealing.....
I like to take the subtle approach as well...

scotthofferphotography

Very nice work guys and gals..