How to; Fix Your White Balance

Okay, so the first thing most people start doing when they are trying to improve their photography skills is to turn the flash off at every possible instance, which is completely the right thing to do but can also create a lot of white balance issues.

If you are taking images indoors,with the room light on, you can get pictures where your subject's skin is orange. Today we're going to be discussing how to remove an orange cast from your image and thus make your subjects skin a more normal color.

This is an image that's SOOC (straight out of camera) and it is of a wee man named Grayson.

Open the image in photoshop. At the top of the screen select "Image" from the drop down menu select "Adjustments" and then "Photo Filter" .

This window should appear. You'll notice that this image is a bit "warmer" (more orange or gold toned) then the previous image. That's because the top filter is selected and the effect is automatically shown on your image.

Since we want to remove the excess orange we'll need a cooling filter. There are three cooling filter options, for this image the cooling filter 82 works best. You'll note that the image now looks quite blue.

It is always better for an image to be warmer rather then cooler. Think about it; healthy humans sometimes have a tan glow, and warm images in the proper setting (sunsets, sun flair) are very appealing. However blueish skin generally denotes oxygen deprivation or coldness, so you'll want to be careful about fixing your images. Less is more! Slide the density slider to the point where the skin looks corrected.

That's it! You're done with the white balance correction! Easy right?

Here is the complete edit on the image.

College Station Photographer; Rowan

I did a shoot the a short while ago for a lovely little family with the sweetest little 6-month-old. Seriously, I had trouble getting a picture of Rowan that he wasn't smiling in!



























As per usual, click on any image you want to see larger :)

Tagged

So I got tagged to list my 5th picture in my 5th folder of images.

This is that picture.

It is not the best of pictures, but I kept it because I thought it was funny. These two are my neighbor's twins, Reese (in green...two E's in green, two E's in Reese) and Riley is on the right.

From looking at this picture you would think Reese is the loud, feisty one and Riley would just like more sleep. However as they are 1-year-old now, I can assure you this is almost completely opposite of their true personalities (at least as far as one can stereotype 1-year-olds).

Here are a few more from that shoot that I kept on my computer (for over a year now!) to add to my website. In these Riley is on the right/bottom and Reese is on the left/top.

Edwards Family

I currently have 12 shoots to finish up in the next 3 days.

Whew. *Is tired just thinking about it*

At something like 100 pictures a session, that's 1200 images to edit, which explains my absence in posting on this blog. Additionally, I am currently blogging images from sessions that haven't been delivered, so if you have recently gotten a CD from me and are wondering why your kids aren't on the blog yet, that's why. (They will be on it as soon as I catch up.)

This is the Edwards family, we had a great shoot about 2 weeks ago!




This is the oldest daughter Neely. She was very easy to work with and I really like a lot of her images. Check out those big blue eyes!





This is Macky, she's 13. Doesn't she look much older?



Brayli is 7, and was the only one willing to wear a hat for me. :)
Recently I was gifted with a reflector set and man, does that ever make a difference! This was the first shoot I used the reflectors on and I love them! Of course they would be virtually useless with a crazy busy two year old, but with older, slower-moving subjects they work excellently. (This is my favorite image from the session).





Last, but not least, is Mr. Jaxon, who was one of the easiest to shoot 4-year-olds I have ever photographed!



Jaxon's dad used to play for the Aggies, back in the day when we were good, and thus has a championship ring that they wanted to incorperated into some images. It was really cold, and the jersey was short sleeved so we worked really fast and Mr Jaxon was so tough and smiled for the entire time. I was really impressed.

In fact, I told my sister when I got home, "That Jaxon was tough like Hickory wood! He stood fast like a Stonewall!" which earned me an eyeroll. (And if you just got that, you should probably get out more...maybe get a hobby...like photography.:P)

Christmas Cards

So I have a little early Christmas present for a few of you! If you have had portraits taken by me in the last few months (and thus I still have the images on my computer) and you would like one of the cards below, e-mail me and I'll send you the file.

Please specify the image file name that you want in the card (and if you want that image in black and white or color), the card you want and the text you wish to have added to the card.














Kristen, since these are your images, let me know which one(s) you want and I'll get them to you! :)

How I Edit; A Photoshop Tutorial

Interestingly enough, most of the families I shoot for have Photoshop on their computers, nice cameras and rather adorable children :) So I thought I would throw together a quick tutorial on how to make your pictures look their best using Photoshop. This tutorial was made with Photoshop CS 2, but I tried to use only the basic tools so people with Photoshop Elements could try this too. Click on any image to make the screenshot larger and easier to read.

Today we are going to edit this picture of Lucas. The image below is straight out of the camera (SOOC) it was taken at 4:30 on an overcast day. The sun is behind and to the right of the subject.

First open the selected file in Photoshop. Your screen should look something like this.

Bring up curves. On a PC you do this by hitting Ctrl and M in conjunction. The gridbox seen below will appear. Place your cursor on the grid and make two points as shown below. Pulling the top dot upwards will make your entire image lighter (adjusting the exposure) pulling the lower dot downwards will make the image have more contrast. Adjust your image until you are happy with the results. This will obviously vary with each image.

Next we are going to adjust to the saturation. First hit Ctrl and J, this will make another layer appear. You can see this in the right bottom corner. We will work with this background layer.

Hit Ctrl and U in conjuntion and the screen shown below will appear. With the middle slider (labeled "Saturation" and circled in red below) pull the point towards the right, this will make all the colors in the image brighter. Adjust until the colors appear natural and true to life.

Now we are going to erase the color off parts of his face that are too bright because shadowed areas show more color then needed with this technique. Click on the eraser (shown in red below) then adjust the opacity of the brush the eraser will use (also shown in red) to about 30%. Erase the color off the ears, hair, nostrils and lips as needed. (When the screenshop was taken, this had already been done.) Now, you will close the layers. Go to the tab at the top of the screen called "Layer" open it and select the option called "Flatten layers".

Now, we are going to make his eyes a little brighter. Click on the "Dodge" tool. Then select "Highlights" from the top dropbox, and set the exposure to 5%. Run your tool over the iris of the eye once or twice. Be very careful not to overdo this! Over use of this technique will make your child look possessed!

Now, we are going to make the entire image look sharper. Click on the tab called "Filter" then on "Sharpen" and then "Unsharp Mask". (See screenshot.)

Now blow your entire image up. You can do this by hitting Ctrl and the + button at the same time. Blow your image up to 100%. You will see this value at top of the screen. Now more the sliders for "Amount" and "Radius", move amount to about 100 and radius to about 1.5 (this will vary for individual pictures) at 100% magnification you will be able to tell when you have sharpened too much as the picture will start to look grainy. Less is more here!!! I have deliberately over sharpened in the screenshot. Once you are done hit OK and then use Ctrl and - to back out of the magnification.

Voila! You are done!


Let me know if any of that was confusing and I will try to simplify it for you!