Mikes Photography

creators · Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:47 pm Post subject: Bold as brass vibrancy.

In my never ending quest for image enhancements, I was playing about the other night and put this together.

First off, my thanks to Blue for allowing me to use one of her images to demonstrate this and to show it works on the young and mature alike.

This involves some heavy duty processing so probably best for personal portfolios and collections rather than submitting as stock photos.

I've used my old work horse Paint Shop Pro, but it will work equally well in Elements or Photoshop, however the step where I apply infra red will need to be done in two stages in Elements or PS, a B & W conversion and then applying a Diffuse Glow.

First off open the image and do all the skin care and enhancements to a finished quality.

Duplicate the image and change the blend mode of the new layer to Soft Light. Click back on the background image (layer 1) and select Effects > Photo Effects > Infrared Film (Elements and PS, B&W conversion and Diffuse Glow). This bit is entirely subjective, so have a play. I have grain set to zero and Flare to 10, but the Strength can be anything from 10 to 80, it just depends on what looks good on the image. For this image I like Strength 10.

Click on layer 2 and duplicate it. Set the blend mode to Lighten.

Click on layer 3 and duplicate it and set the blend mode to Hue (Legacy) in PSP, Hue in Elements or PS. This brings back the skin tone which becomes rather pink from the Lighten layer.

Click on layer 4 and duplicate it and set the blend mode to Soft Light and set the opacity to 50%.

Click on layer 3, the Lighten layer and select, Adjust > Brtightness and Contrast > Brightness/Contrast. Set both at anywhere between 5 and 10 depending on what looks ok. For this image I set both at 10.

Flatten the image and check to see how degraded the image is after all that.

In PSP all it may require is Adjust > One Step Noise Removal. In Elements or PS, try reducing the noise or soften the image slightly.

And that's it. Thanks again to Blue.

_________________