retouching again!

Once again I'm back at it practicing my retouching skills, while I only used one subject this time I found a more difficult image to do. A younger cousin of mine decided it would be a good idea to color in and add some buttons which I had the pleasure of removing.   

The first step I took in producing this image was to crop.  

I then used the patch tool to correct the fold marks and the black print smudges AND the white print in the lower left corner.   

Once i was happy with the cleanliness of the image I altered the levels, highlights, shadows and contrast.  

Finally I added and un-sharpening mask to sharpen the overall image to make it more crisp. 

 This was the end result. 

 

~Digital Diaries Developing~

Dig into it.

Over the easter break I found myself up to my eyeballs in work. 

I did a few photo shoots for people and decided to  share that work to my blog as a way of reminding myself to continue posting. 

  

The client wanted something light and bright for some portraits of her sons. The image may not be the ideal for some but it is what the client wanted. For this image I used masking techniques I have learned in class to make the background cleaner to draw more attention to the subject.

 I am looking forward to furthering my progress in photography, in both in-camera photography and in image processing.  

~Digital Diaries Developing~

My Favourite Part

So today in class we touched on one of my favourite areas of photoshop, retouching. 

I absolutely love taking photos and playing around with them. 

todays photos were not ones I had taken myself however. 

Firstly we started off with many hot air balloons and we chose wether or not to add more or less balloons using the various retouching tools that photoshop has to offer. I decided to remove almost everything from this image except for the landscape and the one bright balloon. There were many trucks and people lower in the image that I took the time to remove.

 

 
Secondly we were given a photo of a young boy who was ridden with chicken pox. When I saw this image I was truthfully excited because I work with a lot of people with uneven skin, and I love removing blemishes. If I had had more time with this image I would have brought more colour into the boys face in the cheekbone area as it slightly lost saturation in the editing process. 

 

 

we then moved on to my favourite retouching tool- The patch tool- I like the patch tool because I am manually selecting exactly what kind of tone and texture I want to copy to another area while also controlling the hardness of the copy. 

We were asked previously to bring in old damaged photographs from home. This is a photo of three of my dads older siblings,  The young Blonde girl on the right has just celebrated her 60th birthday. The original image was worn out old paper which I scanned onto a computer and loaded into photoshop. A younger cousin of mine had taken into the habit of colouring in older photos, however this one only has a purple pencil line through the face alongside many wrinkles. 

 

To edit this image I used the patch tool, as i did not want to alter any parts of the clothing or leave halos on my work through other tools. In areas of the background of the picture which were dirtier and darker from finger smudges I used the dodge tool with a small exposure to gently lighten. Once I had finished the small retouches I used the curves menu to adjust the highlights of my image and to make my image brighter to bring it back to life in a way. Lastly I sharpened areas which required sharpening to make the image more clear. 

 Throughout the editing process of these photos many layers were used as well as the odd mask.


Finally towards the end of the lesson we touched a little bit on adding people to images, who previously weren't there.
This is part of editing which I am new to. So please don't judge the messiness of the following work as it is my first attempt.

 

We were given the head of a young girl, the family photo of the Obama's, and an outfit. 

Then we had to piece them together to make the photo look as natural as possible.
I did have some difficulty with this image as I tried to figure out what layers to paint in and what layers to paint out. But as I continue to do this kind of work more and more I look forward to seeing my own progress.

~Digital Diaries Developing~

Digital Demons

  

Today in class we were given a selection of parts of faces which we had to learn to layer together to create a face. I ended up creating a creature which resembles a Kangaroo.  

The eyes of the face were popular within the class, so with my previous Photoshop experience I changed the color of the eyes from Grey to Blue. I also used the liquefy tool to change the shape of the mouth so I could decrease the length of the snout. 

For the whiskers on my creature I used another set of eyebrows and also used the liquefy tool to shape them into more of a whisker shape, then duplicated the layers from one set of whiskers.  Finally I horizontally flipped and aligned them to create the next pair of whiskers. 

 

 We then learned how to screenshot within Photoshop to help us remember the processes we had gone through while learning the new techniques.  

 

Once we had learned how to layer our images we began to learn about dragging certain layers above our other layers. I added in a colour block layer using the paint bucket tool to give my creature a purple background. Once I achieved this I adjusted the highlights of my creature to make the whites stand out more as a feature. 

  

Finally we learned about the gradient tool, I used the colour pallet to create a rainbow effect with warmer tones along the top, and cooler tones along the bottom as the cooler tones higher in the image took attention away from my creatures eyes. 

~Digital Diaries Developing~

Disproportionate - or not?

Today in class we began to learn about visually balancing our photographs. It got me thinking that's for sure.There are absolutely so many ways a picture can be composed, or not composed. 

I guess it all depends on what catches your eye,  

Disproportionate, or Balanced?  

 

This photo was something I took two years ago, pretty standard, simple was what I thought.  

The height of the iconic wind wand versus the weight of the walkway vegetation in combination with a horizontal horizon and areas of light and dark. I'm thinking about all of these things consciously now rather than just thinking-

"Oh that looks okay, I'll keep it" 

~Digital Diaries Developing~

My Main Model

Hey Guys, 

I'd like to introduce you to Ella, she is 9 years old and she loves jumping in front of my camera. 

Shes my little model in the making so I'm sure you'll see more of her. 

I actually made the flower headpiece for this particular shoot. 

Ella was a contestant in the Miss Taranaki 2016 and won miss personality. 

~Digital Diaries Developing~

Digital Diaries: Differences

 

I don't normally do this kind of work but I think it gives a point of difference to something which is often photographed.  

~Digital Diaries Developing~

About the Author

Hi there, 

This post is about helping my viewers understand a little bit more about me, as well as to help me find my way around how to use this site, and set up who I am so I can easily develop my blog in  future.  

As you know my name is Taylah Smith. I am 18 years of age and have just left High School. 

I have lived in Opunake my entire life,  a small rural town made up of around 1300 people and plenty of free carparks along the main street. Opunake is rich in scenic opportunities for photography as you will see in later posts. 

  

I am a dog lover, 

These are my two babies Sauce (male) and Pearl (female). They happily pose for photos, and will even photobomb because they love the attention. 

When it comes down to photography it has been a constant in my life, there has always been a camera whether I am in front of it or behind it. Early on I discovered I loved photographing people, as an experiment (and now passion) I jumped in front of the camera once again and jumped into the world of modelling, fashion, and beauty. 

So thats a little bit about me for starters, I hope to be active on this blog posting a range of my work, work I admire,  as well what inspires me that I also wish to achieve. 

~Digital Diaries Developing~

Digital Diaries: Debut

Hello and Welcome to my Blog,

My name is Taylah Smith, and I am studying Photography at the Western Institute Of Technology.

Although I am studying, I have spent many years working on my photography skills as I have always had a passion for it.

I enjoy landscape and portrait photography, {the latter being my favourite} as I have spent the last six years working around our regional modelling, fashion, and beauty industries.   

~Digital Diaries Developing~