Photoshop Tutorial: HDR Images

I think amongst photographers, HDR is a bit like marmite, you either love it or hate it. I have seen some amazing landscape shots enhanced with the use of HDR but it's never been something that has massively appealed to me…. Until now!

HDR stands for High-Dynamic-Range imaging and to put it simply, it gives you a better range of highlights, shadows, colours than you can capture with real world scenes.

I read a couple of tutorials on it after looking at some album artwork that I thought looked really cool and that I wanted to have a go at recreating (The Amazing Snakeheads, Amphetamine Ballads to be precise).

The technical bit:

• You need to take 3 images, one a stop or two under exposed, one correctly exposed and a third image one or two stops over exposed. (In order to get a seamless free image, it's best to use a tripod, unless you want a more ethereal, dreamlike or ghostly final image.)
• Open up Photoshop and click on file, then 'automate' and 'Merge to HDR pro'

• You'll then get a pop up box with your HDR image and now the world is your oyster! Play around with the settings and see what you get!

NB If you can't see the the save or OK button if you edit on a Mac, move the toolbar to the left or right (apple -> Dock -> Position on Left/Right) and it should come up. For some reason, on mine, the bottom of the box gets cut off meaning you have to force quit and lose your lovely image!

Like I said previously, if you want a crisper image, you'll need to use a tripod, but I was so eager to try the technique out I didn't bother! Serendipity prevailed once again and I love the softer edges and the more eerie feel of the photo by not using one.

And just to add a bit more spookiness to the image, I did another edit but this time I made the eyes completely black. Thoughts?!

Photoshop Tips! Reducing shine through simple retouching.

Thought it was about time I posted something a) not about Cuba b) that other people mind find useful (!). As much as I want you all to look at and appreciate my photos, always good to mix it up with some handy tips (and still looking at my photos!!).

In this post I am going to give you some simple Photoshop tips for removing those annoying areas of shine on a face! So, here's the original photo:

I love the high contrast of the lighting in this image. As my lovely model Dorian said, it represents the way he see's his only personality, with a very dark side! There isn't much call for retouching with this image but I wanted to get rid of the slight shine there is on the left of his face from the lighting and you'll be pleased to hear this is really, really simple to do.

First, create a new layer in Photoshop (Layer -> New -> Layer) and name it 'Retouch'.

Next you need to click on eye dropper tool icon. Move your cursor over to the an area of the skin that isn't shiny, but close to your problem area and click. In the photo I'm using, I clicked on the skin just below the cheek bone. It'll bring up a big round circle with two colours in like the picture below:

Then change from the eye dropper tool to the paint brush tool and reduce the opacity to around 10% (you can play around with this but I think no higher than 10% works best, otherwise it can end up looking unnatural).

Zoom in to your photo (cmd/ctrl and +) to about 200% so you can make small, accurate adjustments a little at a time.
Paint over the area of shine, a little at a time and toggle on and off the layer to check your progress and see if you need to go over the area again.

When you move to a different part of the skin, repeat the process of finding the nearest area of skin without any shine, using the eye dropper tool to match the skin tones, and then changing to paint brush to paint over the area.

And here is my final product. Just a teeny tweak here and there which improves the overall image!

All content ©FeistyFotos. Please do not copy or use without permission. With thanks to my model Dorian Payne.