I agree that the color contrast is nice, and you could play with the blues as you like to mute that or leave it as-is.
I did have one question for portrait shooters (editors...) after seeing it in this portrait: How are you all dealing with fly-away hair? I discussed this with Matt (fuzzykeys) the other day and he had some good ideas, but wondering how others handle it as well.
I tend to use frequency separation to the point where these can be cloned out as texture, but it sure does get tedious. And when you have to do any major work on the background, selecting and masking for the hair is a nightmare.
I am more and more determined to have the model's hair be perfect before I take any shots from now on. But that isn't always realistic in the moment.
p.62 #2 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
abadger wrote:
I agree that the color contrast is nice, and you could play with the blues as you like to mute that or leave it as-is.
I did have one question for portrait shooters (editors...) after seeing it in this portrait: How are you all dealing with fly-away hair? I discussed this with Matt (fuzzykeys) the other day and he had some good ideas, but wondering how others handle it as well.
I tend to use frequency separation to the point where these can be cloned out as texture, but it sure does get tedious. And when you have to do any major work on the background, selecting and masking for the hair is a nightmare.
I am more and more determined to have the model's hair be perfect before I take any shots from now on. But that isn't always realistic in the moment....Show more →
It was windy and I had no MUA. And I made the mistake of not putting her a bit further and some sun did sneak in as reflections on the hair. Would love to learn how to fix all those things.
p.62 #3 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
bobby350z wrote:
It was windy and I had no MUA. And I made the mistake of not putting her a bit further and some sun did sneak in as reflections on the hair. Would love to learn how to fix all those things.
There is exactly zero judgment from me on this re: your photo here (I have had the same experience!), I was more just curious how to handle it generally. I think it is a very nice portrait, and because I notice this in my own photos, I just wonder how best to handle it from others that might have good advice here.
p.62 #4 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
Flyaway hair - I use the patch tool a lot - it works surprisingly well. You have to work on individual hairs or very small sections. Lasso and drag to an adjacent clean area. For finer work I clone the immediate adjacent tone on a micro level. I also have a technique for using the clone tool to actually paint in hairs to fill empty "holes" on a blank layer - then maybe blend back with gaussian blur. The brush is usually 1px-2px or so and/or sometime pressure sensitive. for size or density. All of the above requires a tablet to make it realistic to perform.
p.62 #5 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
KE_Photo wrote:
Flyaway hair - I use the patch tool a lot - it works surprisingly well. You have to work on individual hairs or very small sections. Lasso and drag to an adjacent clean area. For finer work I clone the immediate adjacent tone on a micro level. I also have a technique for using the clone tool to actually paint in hairs to fill empty "holes" on a blank layer - then maybe blend back with gaussian blur. The brush is usually 1px-2px or so and/or sometime pressure sensitive. for size or density. All of the above requires a tablet to make it realistic to perform....Show more →
Thank you for sharing your process. That is much of what frustrates me actually, not the easier to remove parts but those that have 'holes' between the hair and the head where it is more difficult to color replace. I'm not so great at knowing how to blend, so will look into that technique.
Some more to share from a shoot in February. A 'Speed Portrait Challenge' actually, where we had 5 minutes with each model, had to use available light at night. That 5 minutes included scouting a location with decent lighting...so it was a bit harried with a lot of running back and forth. But still a fun exercise and taught me what things I might forget in the moment.
p.62 #6 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
abadger wrote:
There is exactly zero judgment from me on this re: your photo here (I have had the same experience!), I was more just curious how to handle it generally. I think it is a very nice portrait, and because I notice this in my own photos, I just wonder how best to handle it from others that might have good advice here.
I have same concerns as I had to fix a few stray hairs and it was pain for me. So I would like to know answers to the questions too.
p.62 #8 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
bobby350z wrote:
Adam - Love the colors and backgrounds in your shots.
Thank you! Tried to make it colorful and vivid. My editing and color are not quite up to par with some people on this thread but I am learning more each time. It’s really been a great resource for portrait shooting thanks to everyone who shares techniques and advice.
p.62 #9 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
abadger wrote:
Thank you for sharing your process. That is much of what frustrates me actually, not the easier to remove parts but those that have 'holes' between the hair and the head where it is more difficult to color replace. I'm not so great at knowing how to blend, so will look into that technique.
Some more to share from a shoot in February. A 'Speed Portrait Challenge' actually, where we had 5 minutes with each model, had to use available light at night. That 5 minutes included scouting a location with decent lighting...so it was a bit harried with a lot of running back and forth. But still a fun exercise and taught me what things I might forget in the moment.
p.62 #10 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
Looking good Adam!
I kinda showed you the ten second version of what I would normally do for flyaways on our Skype hang, but for really tough situations where the body of the hair itself is kind of messed up, I may do frequency separation to clean up flyaways -> liquify to reshape it -> one more frequency separation pass on top to clean up liquify artifacts. Quick and dirty pass here that I could do a bit cleaner if I didn't rush it. Hope you don't mind me using your image here (Flickr private) to help demonstrate what I mean.
EDIT: Far more complicated is removing or replacing hair within the main body. I need to get better at clone stamping and then warping the clone stamp. I knew a few folks who are super fast at that, but I usually just rotate the clone source when I need to do that. Hair sucks.
p.62 #11 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
AGeoJO wrote:
Adam, those are lovely and wonderful images! I like the vibrant colors and the background as they convey a story, the night life there.
.
Thank you Joshua! It was an interesting scene to be sure. No one would know that a giant McDonald’s backlit sign was the lighting on several of these, for example. But...it worked well enough.
p.62 #12 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
abadger wrote:
Thank you Joshua! It was an interesting scene to be sure. No one would know that a giant McDonald’s backlit sign was the lighting on several of these, for example. But...it worked well enough.
p.62 #13 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
fuzzykeys wrote:
Looking good Adam!
I kinda showed you the ten second version of what I would normally do for flyaways on our Skype hang, but for really tough situations where the body of the hair itself is kind of messed up, I may do frequency separation to clean up flyaways -> liquify to reshape it -> one more frequency separation pass on top to clean up liquify artifacts. Quick and dirty pass here that I could do a bit cleaner if I didn't rush it. Hope you don't mind me using your image here (Flickr private) to help demonstrate what I mean.
EDIT: Far more complicated is removing or replacing hair within the main body. I need to get better at clone stamping and then warping the clone stamp. I knew a few folks who are super fast at that, but I usually just rotate the clone source when I need to do that. Hair sucks.
Yes no problem and thank you for showing the result, looks great! This is helpful to document. I didn’t think to clean up liquify artifacts, good call. I feel like someday there will be software AI that can make life easier in this respect. I still have to try the masking plugin you mentioned as well and see if I can’t pick up the individual hairs that way. I have casually seen topaz mask AI also does something like this perhaps. Last I tried topaz software it crashed my old system.
Maybe I will just bring a can of hair spray with me actually and label it “frequency separation for hair.”
p.62 #14 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
KE_Photo wrote:
Flyaway hair - I use the patch tool a lot - it works surprisingly well. You have to work on individual hairs or very small sections. Lasso and drag to an adjacent clean area. For finer work I clone the immediate adjacent tone on a micro level. I also have a technique for using the clone tool to actually paint in hairs to fill empty "holes" on a blank layer - then maybe blend back with gaussian blur. The brush is usually 1px-2px or so and/or sometime pressure sensitive. for size or density. All of the above requires a tablet to make it realistic to perform....Show more →
I just the little Wacom Intuos in the mail today. I’m hoping that it can speed up my dodging and burning but I very much intend to try drawing in some artificial hair as well. Unfortunately, I am terrible at drawing...
p.62 #15 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
fuzzykeys wrote:
I just the little Wacom Intuos in the mail today. I’m hoping that it can speed up my dodging and burning but I very much intend to try drawing in some artificial hair as well. Unfortunately, I am terrible at drawing...
I have this and gave up because it was too laggy when drawing. Just enough delay between drawing and it registering to drive me crazy. But I think perhaps my laptop is too old. Going on 6 years now. Hope it works out for you. I know a lot of people seem to like it.
p.62 #16 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
Thank you for sharing your process You're most welcome - the liquify trick is also helpful - and you can use the freeze tool to determine borders so you don't touch areas that need to remain as is.
You don't have to be good to draw in hair with a micro clone brush - it's quick lines and for some hair not even straight- they can be wild. It takes hundreds of strokes to do - sometimes even more - I go so fast occasionally PS can't keep up. :-)
Wacom Intuos in the mail today.
A tablet is the most important tool in retouching IMO. I couldn't live without it.
Loved the Speed Portraits - fantastic models and locations. Not sure how one even "finds" such an event, but well done!
p.62 #18 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
KE_Photo wrote:
A tablet is the most important tool in retouching IMO. I couldn't live without it.
How do you have yours setup in PS? I have been messing around with it and trying to find the settings that feel most natural to me. On the pen itself I have one button mapped to "precision mode" (great for sloppy drawers like myself) and one set to right click. I can't decide whether I'd like pressure to control flow or opacity. Thanks!
p.62 #19 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
How do you have yours setup in PS?
I have the Intuos 3 - same one for many years and just used to it.
4 buttons - Command, Shift, Option and Pen/Scroll (for sliding the image around as I go)
On the Pen itself 2 more buttons - Right Click - for quick swapping of brushes/sizes etc) and Double Click. I love being able to swap/change brushes right on the pen tool without another hand/finger.
There is also a ribbon controller/touch strip I have assigned to Auto Scroll/Zoom - good for zooming way in to pixel level and back for fine editing and review.
The result is I can navigate around anywhere on an image quickly - make a pen selection and get to work fast. Learning keyboard keys to compliment this makes for a nice workflow. Example - did you know "X" flips your color selection from foreground to background? Very handy especially when painting masks (black/white).
The power and control of brushes and tablet pen tool PS parameters is amazing. Lots there to learn but worth it IMO.
(This whole tangent should be in the retouching area! ha ha)
