Post Your Best Portrait Shots!

[bouwy]

(I am not a pro, just an amateur. Photography is my passion together with sailing.


So unfortunately I have never been paid for shooting, I just spent a lot of money.)


And a very good one. Nice work, Please keep the shots coming.


(Here

[Gian Luca]

Another portrait in studio.
1Ds MkIII + 70-200L f2.8 ISII. As usual a HD version is available in my portrait gallery:http://www.juzaphoto.com/index2.php?l=it&pg=profile2&mode=viewgalle rie&idutente=1156&gal=749

[Rob Gardner]

OK, let's get this party started!


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[Steve U]

Really nice series rob, like the grittiness of the first and the casual feel to the last one, must have taken some setting up.


Beautiful pic Gian, has everyone got perfect skin where you are? LOL.


Very inspiring submissions on this page.


Steve

[Gian Luca]

Thank you Steve. They have good skin but I have my way to clean the skin maintaining a natural touch, not too clean as with most filters.

[Steve U]

I like whatever process you are doing with the skin tones, very complimentary. And the lighting is pefect in these studio shots, well done.

[Gian Luca]

My system with the skinis very simple and pretty standard, it takes less than 5 minutes. I use CS5 but can work also with CS3 and CS4


1) Remove pimple a marks with Spot Healing Brush tool
2) I duplicate the layer with the new result and I apply a surface blur quite aggressive, to eliminate any imperfection. This looks very artificial, but it is just the base for the final result.
3) Now I create a layer mask and I pass with a black brush all area that must have the maximum definition like eyes, eyebrow, lips and hair.
4) At this point I duplicate this layer with the surface blur + layer mask; I call one layer Lighten (generally the top one) and the other layer Darken
5) I change the fusion method in Lighten for the layer called lighten and Darken for the layer called darken (this is an important part as it allow to give different values of blur for dark problems and clear problems)
6) At this point I change the opacity of the "Lighten" and "Darken" layers, typically Lighten require a value between 50-65% and Darken between 40-55% (these are just indicative values but it is easy to adapt them looking at the photo)


I hope this help.