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Add Natural Looking Eyelashes

Lesson 11 from: Advanced Portrait Retouching

Lisa Carney

Add Natural Looking Eyelashes

Lesson 11 from: Advanced Portrait Retouching

Lisa Carney

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Lesson Info

11. Add Natural Looking Eyelashes

Lesson Info

Add Natural Looking Eyelashes

Eye details, eye details one, eye details two, all right. Don't worry about the color. Oh, it's me and my sad tired eyes. All right, so let's talk about eye detail. Again, this is, I really wanna be honest about this, it's about taste. It's about what you wanna do, and I keep saying it, but it's because I know there's folks out there saying, "Well, this is yes," or, "This is no," or this is the way it should be, and it's all depending on what you wanna drive. So for eyes, what do we do? We often add eyelashes because, well, they're a little thin, right? You will see here, I have a bunch of them, and I'm just gonna turn on and off what I've done. You whiten the eyes, we do eyebrows, and we do irises. So let me see, I just wanna go very much in order so I don't get this out of order. Let's start with overlay detail painting. Overlay detail painting, this is a very Hollywood thing to do. It can be overdone, I'm gonna show you this, heavy, and then we're gonna talk about gentle. All right,...

this is a really common, easy thing. Those of you doing pet photography, excellent trick to do with dogs' eyes, all right, or kitty eyes, or whatever you do. It's literally called overlay detail. You are painting in detail on the mode called overlay or soft light. Overlay and soft light modes are exactly the same except for soft light is a little gentle. Overlay's a little harder, okay. Otherwise, it's the same. What you are effectively doing is painting literally a dark color and a white color on a blank layer. I'm gonna put a gray layer underneath here just so you can see what I've done. That's some fine work, look at that. It's easy, it's smudging. This is what I love about Photoshop. I think some folks thing it's all, oh, it's all mystical, it's not. It's like smudging lines, that's all it is, but the key here is to know what you are doing, so what am I trying to do? I'm trying to draw a lid shadow. Sometimes we put a little darkening around the iris and a crescent moon to lighten. So let me do that with you. So I will select a color, I look so tired. Select a color in the shadows somewhere, and I will get a big brush. I've made a blank layer. You can either start it on overlay or soft light. It doesn't matter, I have a blank layer. It's on the mode called overlay or soft light. I select a dark color, and this is one of those few times where I actually want a soft flow brush. Low opacity, and I start painting a shadow, a lid shadow. It can make the eyes look really human and nice and pretty and soft. Duh, duh, duh. Without question you are gonna go too far. It's okay, do not be afraid. Go too far and pull back. I wonder if that makes people hungry. The other thing I did is I darken around the iris with the same color, and then, what we commonly do, it's a very Hollywood thing to do, is we take white, and we paint in over the iris. My God, that is so over-illustrated. It's not a problem, put it on soft light, see if you like it. If it's too much then again, put it at 50% opacity. It's a tiny thing, it takes two seconds, and it just adds that little (claps) je ne sais quoi on top, okay? So that is overlay detail. Why is it called overlay? It's because the mode is either soft light or overlay. So it's a way to remember, and you're painting in detail. All right, I'm gonna throw that away so we're not confused. All right, now we're gonna talk about adding eyelashes. Option one, actually I think I wanna show you option two, lower lash, add eyebrows. All right, here's what I'm gonna show you first. The first way to do eyelashes, the first way is to paint eyelashes. Just paint them. I think the painting thing really mystifies people, and it really shouldn't. There's a hair workshop we've done here at Creative Live. It talks about painting hair. It's no different than painting eyelashes. So what I'm gonna do is select a very small brush, like a three. It depends on the file size of your picture, but I can assure you it's gonna be pretty small. I don't have it on transfer. On the brush shape dynamics, I generally have it on pen pressure. That's just how I like to have my brushes set up, and then you just start drawing. Make sure your flow is back to 100%. Do you remember how I changed that flow for the overlay detail? I try to keep all my tools set to 100%, 100% because I don't generally change the opacity, and I'll be sitting there painting, I'm like, jeez, why isn't it working? And it's because I like my tools zeroed out. When I have to work at another agency and the computers all set the flows different, it drives me crazy, so when I start at a new place, if you guys have to work at other agencies, first thing you should do is reset your tools. All right, I'm just gonna start painting. So this is a really common way of doing it, and if you're good at painting, awesome. If you suck at painting, don't. I'll show you a whole 'nother way. But what I'd like you to note is that you should do it. Filling in eyelashes because as some of us get older, we lose our eyelashes. Actually I never had eyelashes but that's not important now. All right, so that is option one, painting eyelashes. You can also smudge them when you're done if you wanna get points. Extra credit points I think is what you get, and you can pull them out, so sometimes if you haven't quite drawn them correctly, you can smudge them and get them a little bit pointier, if you like, this is fun, you should have fun with painting. Painting is fun, all right, so let's get rid of those. That's option one, painting eyelashes. Option two, which I should actually call two now, three, whatever, another option, brush. What, a brush? A brush, I have, one of my favorite things I ever discovered are eyelash brushes. Ahh, look at me now. You select a color close to the eye color. They're huge, thank God they're huge. They are huge so you can use them on high res files. Oh, look at that, and once you've done that, I'm gonna, actually you know what I'd like to do? I wanna make sure I don't have any eyelashes on. I have no eyelashes on. Command + T to transform. These are some crazy ass eyelashes, but that's all right. I might want them a little darker. Command + M to get a curve. Darken it down. I love these brushes. I bought these brushes. They're a company, I believe it's called Obsidian Dawn. You can do Obsidian Dawn, do not ask me to spell it because I cannot spell. Do a search for eyelash brushes on the internet. It'll come up, you can also make your own by doing a channel pull. I love these, I use them all the time. They are my absolute favorite thing, and buy them, please buy them. Don't steal them, these folks make them, they use them, it's cruel, they're cheap. It's three bucks, it's three bucks. Look at these brushes. I know I'm speaking very quickly. I've got a lot to go through. Look at all these lovely, beautiful, crazy, wonderful eyelash brushes, whatever you need. So I have two samples here, and I often for my clients will let them pick. You'd be surprised, maybe you wouldn't. People have really strong opinions about eyelashes and what they should look like and what style, and there's a client I have who, she has a very, very, very, very particular style she likes, and it's always one that I have not picked. I kind like this fat look. She doesn't like the fat look. She likes the skinnier look. So you will find the look that your client likes. What I would like to stress when you're doing your eyelashes is please remember the Command + T or warp function because they're rarely the right size or warpage. Warpage, that's a word. So you can slide them over if you need to. You can pull them up. You can pull them down, you can do whatever you need to do to make it look the way you'd prefer them to look. I'm gonna Command + Z that for a second. Eyelash brush, pick a color, it's paint. It's nothing, it's nothing exciting. You can make your own, they're beautiful, and they're really handy. Now, first eyelash I painted by hand. Second eyelash, I used a brush. Third one, I used a brush. I'm just picking different brushes. Now on this third one, what I like to do, it's a little trick, is you copy, I'm just gonna throw this away. You copy your eyelash brush. Command + J, you turn the lock key on, and you fill it with white. You turn the layer lock off, you move it underneath, and it gives you a little bit of a bevel. I'm gonna slide it over, and then I put it on maybe 50% opacity. I know this sounds crazy, but when you're doing something on the side of the sunset wall, or you're doing a retouched image that is on a bus shelter that's this big, this kinda detail's gonna show, and then you put a mask on it, on that new highlight layer, and you just paint it in behind. I'm gonna make it a higher opacity so you guys can see it for this demo. You can sometimes do it with a flesh color, and that helps. What it does, it just gives little bit of a hair, no pun intended, of dimension, and it's that one extra step that takes it to not look like a flat illustration because that brush was a monochromatic brush, just a dot, and it just gives it a little dimension. On a higher res image, not this low res of an image, but a higher image, do you remember how big that brush came in? You can actually put an effect of a bevel emboss on it, and you just painted it. Yeah, it works really well. It just gives it some dimension because, you know what I'm saying, I think, okay. Isn't that cool? Pretty fun, little eye look. I look so much better, I look awake. Please don't forget the lower lash when applicable, and on the lower lashes, the density becomes an issue. Do you see how that's black on flesh tone? Not so pretty, so what you might wanna do on the lower lashes is, once again lock it, find a lighter brown color from the flesh, from the flesh, so somewhere around the image, and fill it, Option + Delete, and chances are it's gonna look a little more realistic. You know how it is when we put black mascara on, and we're really fair, and it's like jeez, girl, tone it down a little bit, pick a brown? The guys are looking at me funny, kinda. I don't know, they don't understand what I'm talking about. Anyway, someone knows what I'm talking about.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Brunette RAW Practice Image
Blonde RAW Practice Image
Portrait Retouching Workbook
Lisa Carney PSD Practice Image
Layered Hair Color Change Example PSD File

Bonus Materials

Outline Cards

Ratings and Reviews

Tab
 

If you were like me and had no idea on where to start and feared that the editing process would be too destructive and would have to start all over again if the client didn't like your completed work - then this is the class for you. I watch this class often for review and to make sure that I maintain these good habits Lisa suggests to do. If you follow all of her helpful commentary on her how's and why's you will end up in a far better place when that time comes that you have to re-edit your edit. I cannot say enough great things about her work flow and how it not only enhanced my images to the result I was looking for but also decreased my editing time(bonus!!!!). I also on a whim sent her a email through her personal site and she replied with a massive helpful technique for enhancing freckles on a job I was working on. She is amazing! She is a true teacher who is there to show you how to use photoshop for you to find and gain your own editing style. Far too often i find myself in retouching classes that only demonstrate how to make your images look like who is teaching the class... Workflow and Style are very different, you can have the same workflow but your style is determined by your taste. Her workflow is solid and delivers time and time again. This class should be in everyone's dashboard hands down.

Kristine Pye
 

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question and take us through your "delivery" process, I found that extremely helpful. I have purchased two of Lisa's classes immediately after the live stream during Photoshop Week 2017 and was very excited to stream another set of lectures from Seattle. I will be purchasing the last two courses of Lisa's within the next 24 hours as I did just over a month ago. I find her classes to be absolutely brimming over with useful information--everything from the technique, her process, what other professionals in her work are doing, and **why** she chooses the methods she does in retouching. She is relatable and genuine, and her knowledge of the program and how to maximize efficiency while "skipping the actions" really reinforces the educational part of her courses. There are "easy way outs", but she emphasizes that you should understand the ways in which any adjustment effect the entire photo. These courses have helped me to move forward in my education, helping me to realize that with enough practice and good habit formation--such as naming every single layer every time-- that it is not irrational for me to make an effort in building a portfolio and a Master's degree with little-to-no- previous experience with the software. I am very appreciate. I hope to see more from Lisa in the future, but I have plenty to practice with for now! Thanks again, Kristine Pye kristinepye@gmail.com

Jeff Robinson
 

Lisa Carney is amazing! She has a depth of knowledge of Photoshop, retouching techniques, and compositing that she shares in a fast, but straightforward, easy to follow, step by step manner. No matter what your level of expertise, you'll find gems, shortcuts, and methods in her teaching that you can practice and put to use to make your work stronger, faster, and cleaner. And with the bonus materials she graciously provides, including workbooks with her detailed steps, practice files of the images she uses in class, and before and after comparisons, you'll be on your way to improving your skills immediately. She's an accomplished retoucher and gifted teacher. If you have the opportunity to take one of her classes, take advantage of it!

Student Work

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