Actions in Action

February 22, 2017

The kind folks at SleekLens offered me the opportunity to try out their Portrait Perfection Collection actions.  I was a little reluctant as first because after over a decade in the portrait photography business, I am a little set in my ways and have done little to update my editing workflow after I found something that worked for me.  But I thought it might be fun to take a look at what they had and see how I could make it work for me. 

I used two personal photos that were underexposed as a result of shooting as the sun was rapidly setting as samples.

The first photo was one that I took at the beach and it actually popped back up on my Facebook feed recently.  It bothered me that the photo was a little dark and the girls’ skin didn’t have the warm look I had hoped for.  Because I was new to this set of actions it took a little trial and error to figure out what would work best for this photo.  Luckily, many of the actions have pretty obvious names, so I was able to jump around without having to do too much research.

beforeafter1

I used the BASE- From Golden Hours, followed by EXPOSURE-Bright.  Then I used the PORTRAIT RETOUCH-Honey Skin Brush one their skin, COLOR CORRECTION-Purple Honey on the girls’ white dresses, COLOR CORRECTION-Reduce Greens on the water, and finally I added a brown vignette, which I found under VIGNETTE-Toned Vignette. 

The second photo I chose was a portrait of my daughter.  Again the original photo was dark because the sunlight was going down faster than I had kept up with my exposure.  So I wanted to brighten up the photo and also soften up her skin and add a little more softness to the photo in general. beforeafter2

I started with BASE-From Scratch and EXPOSURE-Bright.  I used Soft Glow Skin and Honey Skin Brush from the PORTRAIT RETOUCH just on her face, which gave her skin a softer texture.  I used the LIGHT GLOW-Soft Warm to add some more highlights to her hair.  I brightened her eyes using the 20% Brush and reduced some reds using the COLOR CORRECTION.  Finally I added a brown vignette and used the Paint Effect from FROM A CANDY STORE.  Here’s what it looked like in Photoshop while I was working:

photshopinaction1

As with most action sets I have purchased, I found that there is a bit of a learning curve in figuring out what is available to you and selecting which actions will work best for each particular image.  This set covers a lot of portrait retouching needs and I’m sure I am just at the beginning of the possibilities that it offers.

If you would like to learn more about these actions offered by SleekLens you can find them here:

https://sleeklens.com/product-category/photoshop-actions/

Share on Facebook
 

Posted 7 years ago at 9:49 pm.

Add a comment

Pink Baby Bear

February 16, 2017

uph1 uph2 uph3 uph4 uph5

This was our third time around with a newborn session (I had done sessions for big brothers too 🙂 ) and baby sister was so patient the whole morning.  We were even able to replicate the family’s favorite teddy bear hat pose, this time with a little girlie flair.

Share on Facebook
 

Posted 7 years, 1 month ago at 6:46 pm.

1 comment

Back with Baby Boy

February 10, 2017

iri4 iri3 iri2 iri1

It was great to see this family again after a weeks weeks, this time with baby brother.  Big brother was very proud to show off his family’s new edition and was happy to return to the studio for more photos and a visit with my fishtank.

Share on Facebook
 

Posted 7 years, 1 month ago at 10:19 pm.

Add a comment