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Using Layers to Reduce Wrinkles and Darken Skies

So here's, our original image. So the first thing that I see and let's say where designer in this image has been given to us, can we need to prep it for inclusion in something magazine book happy? Well, her face looks a little bit too light in places to me. Okay, so let's, do a little darkening, so we're going to add another empty adjustment layer and let's call this one darkening. So this time, instead of choosing a blend mode, layer blend, move that's in the light and category let's cheese one it's in the dark and category. Thanks. You're going to remember ok, what am I doing? I'm darkening. Then you wantto find the dark and blend mode and then you want to pop down one dilemma to multiply, which basically is going to add, like if you were to print something on a piece of paper if you print this photo and then you put that same photo paper back in the printer and you printed again it's like a double coding it's kind of what multiply mode is like gives you a double code of ink if you w...

ant to think about it that way, see what I mean when I choose multiply how the whole thing it's a lot darker. So what are we going to do? We're going to fill our later mask with black to hide the darkening from the whole photo and then we're only going to reveal it where we need it ok so I've got my brush tool active e need to be painting with white so press x two foot fault my color ships now if this point sometimes what I do when when the darkening needs to be or the lightning needs to be incredibly subtle you can either drop the opacity of your brush tool appear so that year really on ly revealing the darkening an incredibly small increments for example we could drop our brush capacity so let's say twenty percent and then as I paint with a big fluffy brush in fluffy I mean soft edges ok make sure you get a soft brush as I paint notice how subtle the darkening is and I can create a build effect where in other words if one brush stroke across the lightened the area that's too light would not be too much I need to keep painting across that area to build the darkening in very very small increments that way you don't go too far with a single brush troop c is I continue to paint across her chin I'm controlling exactly how much darkening is occurring here because I want this to be incredibly subtle this is a fabulous way to reduce shines or hot spots chins and noses and things like that okay, so let's take a peek at our before and after before there's the after subtle right now let's create actually we could probably do the iris darkening on the same layer but for the sake of good ending had its let's create another brightness contrast layer change the blend mood to multiply in the dark and category fill that layer mask with black to hide it and now with the white brush a teeny tiny white british let's see him win and let's darken the rooms of those irises see how as we age that rim lightened case and now we're gonna come over here I've still got my brush capacity set twenty percent which is fine and as I paint on that rim it begins to darken that alone will take about three, four, five years off of your subject if you're dealing with a senior okay, so now I can come over here to the other eye using the space bar in just so folks out there in you in the studio audience understand that I don't have anything against growing older I'm looking forward to because theoretically that means I will know a heck of a lot more at this lady's age than I do right now and I think that will be an awesome, awesome thing, so we've darkened those ran's just a little bit here's our before and our after makes a really big difference. So now let's continue on uncle him for all these guys away. When you're doing this at home and you're working on these extra spot exercise files after you bought the class, try to remember not to save over these original layer documents that you're getting that way. You have them to refer back, tio okay, so just I deleted all those other layers just to keep the layers painful for me and so distracting. If you do that at home, just remember not to save the document cause you override and you'll lose those layered files and you won't be able to reverse engineer. So now let's, go ahead and change this, um, layer to screen. So we're going to do some lightning now, so we're gonna go ahead and fill it with black mask and with the brush tool set to paint with white, go ahead question. You read that command. I will invert the mask real fast because it always creates a white mask command. I turns black. Absolutely command. You heard it right here. Live on creative live well for years I fasted adobe because if you to create a new layer below an active layer let's just say for the sake of argument that I wanted to create a new image layer below this layer right here okay well most people do it like this the click to add a new layer in the mug oh wait main drag it down the layer sec right if you command or control click the new layer icon at the bottom of the layers panel photoshopped will add the new layer beneath the currently active layer ok, but for reasons unknown you cannot command click any of the adjustment layers ok and make that happen along those similar lines if I want to add a layer mask to an image layer and I want that mass to be filled with black all I have to do is option or alz click the layer mask icon and it gives me a layer mask filled with black so what I want from adobe is the ability to command or control an option or all at the same time an adjustment layer but you can't anyway I'll get off my soapbox now ok, so what we're doing we are lightening the whites of eyes okay because as we age we get a few more veins in those eyes and again if you're doing this for riel you would take a lot more time be a lot more careful than I'm being right now okay so we can drop that capacity back now let's do the same thing let's duplicate this layer now ok so we can do that as well if I'm going to do a little bit more lightning perhaps on the irises aiken just duplicate the lightning layer that I did for her eyes okay? So commander control j I'll name this one iris I mean that one whites of eyes come back up here to the irish refill that massive black and now I've saved myself a couple of steps is now ready to reveal the lightning on the iris okay well screwed over here to the other eye and if you are doing selective adjustments in light room or camera rob with the adjustments brush you could do this kind of stuff there to you that you'd be making an exposure change instead of you know you don't have layers over in those other programs so it's a little bit different technique but you can't do it over there as well. It's now let's drop the capacity of this way back drop the opacity of the whites of the eyes and now let's have a go at some wrinkle lightning okay, so let's add a another adjustment layer now you're going to want to make your brush teeny tiny to get in between those wrinkles and I'm only gonna lighten the few around her eyes okay so you would go really, really small make sure you're painting with white and you can just come in here and effects those wrinkles now what I could do here is drop my brush capacity way down so that I don't go too far with this so I'll do that come appear to the opacity setting for the brush tool and now when I began to paint over those areas I can do that build effect you know so so one brush stroke isn't going to be too much when you're doing this you do you want to be careful and not brush over any highlights because you will lighten them tio for example in my wrinkle reduction I would not want to brush across that highlight right there because alec situated but if you do a flip flop your brush tool in um get rid of that by adding black back to the mask case nominees you mount a little bits liken see where I end and let's do a little lightning in this area to make that a shadow not quite so harsh so I'll come up and brush size a little bit try not to brush across any of those highlights that air their light in this part make your brush larger for that area smaller for this area so my mom every time I take a picture of her she wants need to completely remove all of her wrinkles like mother first fall wouldn't look like you anymore and I'm just not going tio but I will lighten I will lighten them for her, and she seems to be appeased with that. But she sure tried to get me to take him out completely. So this technique is definitely time consuming. But if you can get good at this, you will become the most popular photographer in your immediate circle, friends and family. And again, don't let him see you do this. The first time I had a professional head shot made, uh, was when I started teaching at photos shot world back in two thousand five or two thousand six. And I mean, these photographers, they're friends of mine, you know, in the rita cher's, they would not let me see what they did to my head shot. I wanted to watch them just for a learning purpose, and they made me leave the room. So that's, what you should do don't ever let anybody see you do this kind of stuff. Certainly not friends and family. Another great use for this technique is, um, reducing a double chin because what's the double chin that's a shadow, right? You could get in there and select the pixels of the actual neck area in chin area and use free, transform and manipulate them that way, but they were really doing plastic surgery, so what I like to do? For double chins, we've got just a tiny one right here is just do a little bit of lightning on that area, and all you're doing is making it not quite so noticeable and that's the whole point is just not for that to be the first thing that you see when you look at the portrait, so we'll do a little bit of lightning right here, maybe a little bit over there may be a little bit right there, ok? So now let's look at our before and are after so well option or all click the original layer so we did a little bit of skin darkening, a little bit of iris ram darkening a little bit of whites of the eyes, lightning a little iris lightning. We'll bring that up in a passive hold it and last but not least, we did a little bit of wrinkle lightning see the difference. You've not fundamentally changed the portrait you've just made the wrinkles a little less most people, and because of the eye brightening that we did her eyes or what you notice first, not her wrinkles and again, there's. Nothing wrong with wrinkles, but you don't want that to be the first thing that jumps out at you on a portrait and stacking all these adjustment layers like this. It's what she have infinite flexibility with that document so if something doesn't look right when you print it or you know I want my wrinkles lighter he knew get rid of more of them for light more of an ant can come in here and maybe raised the opacity that particular layer any questions on that technique yes yeah so thea slider in light room that I recently discovered that makes people look younger not just more macho is thea clarity if I wanted to use clarity it also makes people look seventies you know vastly another linds kind of look if I wanted you sat is a layer what would I exported out if I wanted to say layered and with this I say I don't pass I take the opacity down to have a combination of the two two techniques I'm not sure I'd have toe cnn likely to be ableto right what would it be like a j pay thor or is ah so you have to apply the attention so I do the whole fix to the same image and I would want to blend it with this image you could bring in as another layer and then just drop the opacity of that one layer on ben maybe hide add a layer mass to hide some of the other if there's some areas that you don't want to be revealed that change like you did that way yeah, infinite possibilities any other questions on our selective lightning and darkening that we've done on people we've got a couple of skies we're going to fix that we're gonna dark and a little bit okay um um a question is, um as I asked that crow carry nichols is do you ever use color mode on wrinkles? I have not I'm not sure exactly what carrie means by that, but I am not and it really is easier to do this kind of stuff in programs a lot like women camera rob but not everybody has those and if you're a designer, you dang sure don't have those programs. Okay, so maybe there's one question from ron jon india in this photo that we're looking at here what is the first layer for what was the first player? Oh, let me collapse my many bridge panel here the first layer uh darkened her skin this a little bit so that's the original and we just added a little bit of darkening with we set the blend mode of that particular layer to multiply it in the dark and category and then we went in and fill the layer mass with black and then with the brush tool sets paint with why but with the greatly reduced capacity so we could paint multiple strokes over the same area for a build effect that's how we made it so settle cool thank you. All right. So now, let's, take a look at a little bit more darkening. Let's, go backto armor main shot we had earlier. Okay, so this is what we were able to achieve using levels. Okay, so here's, our original and here's our levels adjustment layer, I still like to have a little bit more color in the sky. So instead of trying to figure out how to make that happen using levels or curves, do it manually create yourself an empty adjustment layer. Set the blend moto something in the dark and category, fill the layer mass with black and then with a white brush comeback in really big white brush. Don't forget to up your breasts. Opacity changes to the options of our state change until you change them back. I cannot tell you how many times that is bitten me. I feel pretty safe with you guys, though I will say that one time I reinstalled the fracking program because my brush was not behaving at all. And I had changed its blend mode one day and forgotten that I had changed his blend mode. So the brush tool refused to work for ever more. And so I went through zapping for the shop preferences, all the trouble shooting stuff, they reinstalled the program. Do as I say, not as I d if the tool is not doing what you expected to dio looking the options bar and there's probably something that's changed there that you forgot about oh so here's our before and after of our little sky darkening so there's before and there's after and if that's a little too dark then you can just drop the opacity that later a little bit so now here's our before and here's our after ok so it's all about knowing different ways easy ways ways that resonate with you to make the image looks like you think it should look so we'll do the same thing on our happy beach couple pay so here's where we were able to get with levels okay here's, our original here's levels that beach area is not as dark, so I added another brightness contrast adjustment layer set to multiply mode for darkening and using the brush tool adjusted the masks so that the extra darkening is only revealed where I wanted to be. We were talking about at the lunch break that the selective lightning technique that we've done with the screen mode in everything you could fix stains on shirts you know, if if you took a shot at me and I dropped a little something on a ruffle or whatever you could go in with selective lightning and you could just take that right out. Great for photos of children and babies and stuff. They're always getting stuff on themselves.