Portrait Editing–Bad Photos, Photoshop, and Lessons Learned.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been working pretty hard at taking my photo editing skills up a notch and learning some new techniques.  So for instance, I’ve been experimenting with this kind of vintage look which I think is cool.

It’s been alot of fun.  And I have to say…I’m pretty pleased with the growth of my photography and photo-editing skills in general.

That is except for my portrait skills.  Specifically, portraits of my daughter.

I don’t know…I can take photos of hands and flowers and fences all day long.  But portrait photography…sigh…I just don’t understand why I can’t seem to get a great shot of my girl that makes me say, “wow…that’s what I’m talking about!”  Portrait photography is not for sissies I’ll tell you that.  But I’m also not one to quit or give up.  That’s why when my girl decided to come home for a visit last week, I twisted her arm to let me get some practice.

So before I share with you the actual editing part, I feel like I need to go back a little…give you a little of the back story so that you can really get a feel for the frustration I’ve been dealing with.

Aren’t you so excited??

Okay.  So Kelsey came home last Thursday…you got that.  Well so that afternoon I had promised her that I would take her to get a new phone because hers had really started to give her fits and we were finally eligible for an upgrade.  Which I know you’re probably thinking, “do I really need to know this?”  But don’t give up on me…I promise it’ll all make sense here in a bit.

Also, I need to tell you that last Thursday was a beautiful day.  When I got off work around 3:00 it was gloriously warm and sunny.  I knew Kelsey would be home sometime around 3:30, so I thought it might be nice to go to the park to take photos during the golden hour.  Which for us right now is around 4:30 ish to 5:30 ish.

Still with me?  OK good.

Well, so as planned, Kelsey got home right at 3:30.  And then, because the apple unfortunately does not fall from the tree, we sat down to map out the rest of the afternoon in order to fit in both her desire for a new phone and my desire to take pictures at the golden hour.  I know you’re probably thinking, “what’s the big deal?” but let me just add here that the AT&T store at 15th & Lewis is rivaled only by the Utica Square Post Office in it’s time-suck ability.  But employing our combined, laser-honed time management skills, we decided that it would be best to hit the AT&T store first around 4:00 and then head to the park.  Assuming the wait wasn’t more than 30 minutes.

I know…rocket science.  But just wait…it gets better.

So all was well and good and at 4:00 (per the plan) we left for the AT&T store.  But, on the way I happened to notice a line of clouds moving in from the northwest – a cold front.  And I thought to myself, “I hope these clouds hold off until after we’re done taking pictures.”  Kelsey noticed them too (I know, we’re Okies…it’s what we do) and asked me if we should maybe head to the park first to take advantage of the sunshine.  But at 4:00 it was still way too bright for the kind of backlit, sun-washed kind of shots I was hoping to get.  And so now we have a whole new dilemma…go to the park now and just get what we get or hope the clouds hold off and take our chances.  #photogprobs #makingamountainoutofamolehill

Anyway, Kelsey and I thoroughly weighed out all the options (I’ll spare you that conversation) and decided to take our chances and go to the AT&T store first.  Luckily we only had to wait about 10 minutes.  Plus, seeing as how Kelsey knew exactly which phone she wanted and we weren’t making any changes to our rate plan, the whole ordeal only took about 30 minutes.

I’m starting to think that this blog post is a way bigger time-suck than a trip to the AT&T store.

Well so I now I know you’re dying to know if the clouds held off.  And in true Oklahoma form, within a matter of half an hour, the weather changed from warm and sunny to cold and cloudy.  Lord it is so true what they say about the weather here – if you don’t like it, just wait five minutes and it’ll change.  But you know what they also say…a bad day of photography is better than a good day of work.  Or something like that.  Anyway, armed with my camera (and Kelsey’s new phone), she and I headed over to the park for some pictures and hoped for the best.

And so now you’re hoping, “Finally…some pictures!”  But before I show you my photo, let me just say that the weather sucked.  The temp dropped 20 degrees in a matter 30 minutes.  Plus there was the cold north wind blowing 25 mph.  And to top it off, big dark clouds partially covered the sun making the light funky.

So with that introduction, here is a sample shot from our photo shoot.  But I need to warn you…it’s really bad.  Definitely a case of ‘can this photo be saved?’.

Just to be clear, the problems with this photo have nothing to do with the beautiful subject.

So the biggest problems with this photo are #1) it’s horribly underexposed, #2) the white balance is totally off giving it a weird gray green cast, and #3) the focus is awful.  Which was the case with most of the shots I took that afternoon.  The thing is, I know backlit photos can be a bit of a challenge and I tried to adjust the exposure to compensate.  But it obviously didn’t help enough.

And the focus…geez don’t get me started.  I had the worst time trying to lock in focus on her eyes using my 50mm lens.  Which surprised me because it wasn’t that sunny.  But I guess it was bright enough to still cause problems.  And understandably, Kelsey was starting get annoyed with my constant, “OK.  Stay right there.  Let me try it again.”

So frustrating.  And what to do…Delete them all and chalk it up as practice?  Or try to see if I could salvage them.

Obviously by the title of the blog post I decided to see what I could do to salvage them – try and flex my Photoshop muscles a bit.  And so to start with, I brought my photo into ACR to make some adjustments to the exposure.

Then I took it into Photoshop Elements for some major editing. 

I’m not going to go into detail and give you a play by play of every layer and it’s adjustment because #1) this blog post is already way too long and #2) I’m sure you have better things to do with your time.  All that being said, if you happen to have specific questions, feel free to email me and I’ll give you the run down.

So the first major step in any post-processing is to adjust the white balance and exposure and you can see where that helped matters alot.  And well any normal person would probably have stopped there and moved on with their life. 

But I just wasn’t 100% happy with it.  The blouse she was wearing was so super cute on in person, but in the photo it was way too bright.  And the background was so blah.  So I thought about maybe running some kind of action on it to jazz it up a bit.  Which I knew wouldn’t do anything for the crappy focus, but maybe it would just make it feel more…I don’t know…polished.  Yes polished.

Well so I looked at the actions at MCP and Florabella and oh my there are some gorgeous photos on those websites.  But wow – those actions are pricey.  Not that they aren’t worth it.  And I suppose if I was a professional photographer it would be a different story.  But for me, a MWAC (mom with a camera), it just doesn’t make sense to spend the money on actions.  Not when I need new running shoes.  And a rug for my bedroom.  And those cute coral capris at J. Jill.  And did I mention I have a child in college?

So then I decided that I would put all my recently acquired Photoshop skills to good use and just sit down and try to figure it out myself.  And for the past week I’ve been playing with different layers and blend modes.    Then just about the time I’d think I have it just right, I’d come back to it and tweak it some more.  Or start over.

Time suck does not even begin to describe this project.

But finally…twelve. years. later…I think I ended up with a pretty edit.  Kind of a soft, hazy look that I hoped would work with the soft hazy focus.

I’ll spare you all the details of the layers and adjustments, but once again if you’d like to know just email me and I’ll give you all the details.

Anyway, here is my final edit (for now…).

Truth be told, I’m still not 100% happy with it, but for my own sanity I think I’m going to have to just let it go.  Besides, I’ve got three loads of laundry to fold and a litter box that’s calling my name.  And when it’s all said and done, it’s a far cry from where I started.

So just a few thoughts about this whole thing and then I swear that this will be the end.

1. Exposure is everything.  Getting it right in camera is FAR better than trying to fix it in Photoshop.
2. For the most part, I tend to slightly underexpose my shots to preserve the lighter details (as in the case with flowers and landscapes).  But for portraits, I think very slightly overexposing the skin makes for prettier skin tones.
3. I researched backlighting quite a bit and the key is to spot meter for the face which will probably mean you are overexposing by as much as full stop.   Even if it means the sky is blow out.   The subject’s face is what matters.
4. Backlit photos are notoriously hard to get into focus using the camera’s auto focus.  Some things I read said that stopping down the aperture can help or to switch to manual focus.

So to wrap this up, I guess I wouldn’t call this little odyssey a complete success.  But like most things, I learned alot about photography and Photoshop along the way.  And I’m lucky to have a girl who’ll let me practice on her.  Which is all that really matters anyway.

Peace, Kelly

P.S.  I’ve spent alot of time on the interwebs searching for help and I’ve found these three places particularly helpful for portrait editing in Photoshop Elements.

• Everyday Elements
• Texas Chicks Blogs and Pics
• ClicknMoms (I actually purchased the subscription to the website which gives you access to TONS of great tutorials and post-processing information in their forums.)