WW- Before and After Editing

Today I'm sharing a little before and after from the senior session I shot last week. I just sent out this gallery the other day. For seniors, I do more hand editing than for most family sessions. I tend to shoot more portrait-style work for seniors, with slightly more posing. 

I try to keep it pretty natural, but do smooth skin, whiten teeth, and dodge and burn to bring out highlights and add depth.  

 I also removed umpteen flyaway hairs from the close up shots in this session.  While I did try to keep an eye out and have her smooth & comb her hair before I clicked the shutter, shooting with backlight can make for an editing nightmare with stray hairs. All those finite details take a lot of time to correct in post-processing!

I did learn a new trick though, by duplicating the background layer in PS and adding a dust and scratches filter, I was able to use a layer mask to help paint over many of the flyways. Here's a link to a tutorial of this method if you're interested: Editing in PS.

Thanks for stopping in!

WW - Before and After Photos

It's been a while since I have shared a before and after, so I thought it would be fun to do so today- since I always mention that I'm up to my eyeballs in editing :) Here is an example of my process.

I import my RAW files directly to my external hard drive through Lightroom. I then select my favorites - usually 25-30 for a one hour session- and do a clean edit in Lightroom, adjusting white balance, cropping if necessary, and giving the image a gentle pop with the tone curve panel. I also reduce clarity a touch to smooth skin on portraits. I will sometimes remove small distractions, but usually do most of my cloning in Photoshop.

I then export to PS CC for the final edit, which is determined by the mood of the image and, frankly, just my instincts on what it needs. For this image, I warmed it up and painted some color on the foliage. I added a slight vignette and also cleaned up the green on the wood, which I found distracting. Then I sharpened and that's it. Of course, for some images, I do additional artistic editing if I feel moved to do so - but, I try to keep it simple and batch process to save as much time as possible.

These are screen captures of the process: 

It has taken me many, many hours to develop my editing skills and I still have a long way to go. But, I am getting more efficient and learning new things all the time and I love that the creative possibilities are endless. Lightroom is a huge time saver and I love the ease of organization. PS was very daunting at first, but I am getting more and more comfortable with it.

What's you favorite way to edit your images?

WW- Beach Fun and a Colorvale Template Giveway

Summer is coming to a close, but I am hoping we'll have nice weather for a while yet, so that I can continue shooting at the beach. I love shooting sessions on the beach and this summer I have had several. The wide open space, soft colors and fun opportunities for creative compositions are a great recipe for interesting portraits. 

During a session last week, I was even lucky enough to stumble upon this fantastic sand castle someone had built and left along the shore. When I saw the summer and sand template on the Colorvale site, I knew it was a match made in Heaven. I added a portion of my image to the globe and this is the result. 

The globe template is currently on sale for $7 in the Colorvale online store, but I have one to give away* to a lucky reader! The template works in Photoshop and Elements and a tutorial for use is listed on the site if you need help.
You can see more of my recent work on my photography site: Melissa Bliss Photography and my business Facebook page.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Linking up here:

*This giveaway is sponsored by Melissa Bliss Photography & Serendipity is Sweet. Thanks for visiting!

Wordless Wednesday - A Little Dream

Greetings friends! Some of you may remember that last year I won the honor of being in the top 5 Photography Blogs in the Circle of Moms contest. One of my lovely readers has nominated my blog once again this year (thank you so very much!), and I would be most grateful for your vote. If you have a moment, please click the link below to vote. You can vote once per day until July 16th. Thank you!!! I truly appreciate your support :)

On to Wordless Wednesday: I played a little bit in Photoshop just for fun. 

This is very different from my usual style, 

but it can be refreshing to go in a different direction now and then,

 just to see where it leads...

This is where I started:

Thanks for visiting! Have a super Wednesday!

Creating a Composite Image in Photoshop

After several people asked how I created the image from my WW post this week, I thought I'd post the steps here. I must warn you that I am not a Photoshop expert and there is very likely a better way to do this. This is just the way I have learned and it works for me. 

For my original image, I asked my son to jump across our couch which was situated in front of several windows with late afternoon light streaming in. Here's what that image looked like after a clean edit in Lightroom.

In Photoshop, I opened both the image of him and the sky image I wanted to use as my background. I floated the image of my son in a separate window so that I could easily move between the two.

Next, I used the quick selection tool to outline him, being careful to make sure my edges were clean. Here's the rough draft. You want to be careful to not have any of your unwanted background selected.

Then I used my move tool to drag him over to my sky background.

This is what I got once I dropped him where I wanted. 

 I pulled the edges of the selection to resize his image and adjust the angle to my liking.

Then, by double clicking on him, I merged the two images. (Here you see some rough edges where I wasn't as precise as I should have been because I was lazy in recreating the process for this tutorial. Sorry, I had whining children at my heels. Make sure your selection is precise or it will be noticeable when you merge your images.)

Next I added the sun flare layer by going to File> Place and selecting the flare overlay I wanted to use from my hard drive. I placed it over my merged image and resized and moved it where I thought it would look best. Then I tried different blend modes (available in the layers palette in the drop down menu above your top layer) to see which looked best. For this imaged I used "soft light".

I then flattened my image and ran an action to add some pink haze and soften the finish. 

 I finished up tweaking the edits to my liking, added my watermark and resized it for the web. 

Here's my final edit:

 The most difficult part of the process is the quick selection mode, which is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. It helps to have a clean background with contrast to work from. Trying to select a dark item from a dark background or any item from a busy background can be very tedious!

I have only done a couple of composites but they can be lots of fun to play with. Give it a try!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. There are many video tutorials on you tube that can be helpful as well.

Thanks for visiting!