Adding dimension to your Portraits

Let's talk about Portraits a bit. When you look at an image, your eye is automatically drawn to the lightest area. Many times our lightest area is the background. When this happens you tend to get a flat image and the person you shot get lost in the image. There is an easy quick fix for this that will change the look of your Portraits.

Process your image in your normal fashion. When you are finished you will want to merge your visible layers together or use the shortcut Ctrl, Alt, Shift, E to merge all of your layers into a new combined layer. (this is my favorite shortcut)
In Elements open a Levels adjustment layer and click OK without making any changes. In Photoshop you would create a new layer mask. Now you want to change the blend mode to multiply. Changing your blend mode to multiply will darken the entire image. Click on your layer mask to activate it. Pick a soft round brush and make sure your foreground color is black. Here is the fun part... pain over your person. This will leave your background dark and your person will revert back to the normal processing that you did earlier. That is it! You have now used a layer mask. I am so Proud of you! :~)

For my examples I give you this image of Grace. This image is straight out of the camera. I have a horrible red/orange color cast. You may be drawn to her eyes for a moment because they are just gorgeous but then you eye tend to be pulled straight to the background.

before

Here is my image after processing and using the multiply blend mode on the background. I actually duplicated my multiply layer again and reduced the opacity of the second layer to about 50%. When you look at this image, it looks like she is coming towards you. You get a more 3D effect. Yes you go straight to her eyes but now you spend time looking around her face and hair. The background becomes just a background and the flatness is gone!! Yippee!
Do you see it? Did I explain so you understand?

after

This tut was kimi's Kreative homework #65 Take a look at some of the images that were done.
I hope this gives you a better understanding of how to work a layer mask. Now go and give it a try!

Happy 4th of July Eve.
Check back for a holiday freebie tomorrow.
{{hugs}} ~kimi~

Comments

Elizabeth said…
I do understand. Wow! What a difference the darker background makes. Grace is a lovely child, you are fortunate she poses so often for you.
July 3, 2009 at 9:38 AM
Anke said…
it's amazing Kimi! I thought the first one was pretty cool itself and then I saw the second and wow, are you ever right! You are amazing GF!
July 3, 2009 at 9:42 AM
Linda said…
Kimi - Thanks for telling us EXACTLY how to achieve this effect. It does make an amazing difference.
July 3, 2009 at 10:16 AM
Joanie said…
As always-DARLING GRACE! I love how you explained this. I was just working on an image yesterday and discarded it as a choice for my blog because of the light sky background. Now I am going to go back and play with it and see if this works the same magic as you did!
Thank you for always sharing your knowledge.
Hugs,
Joanie
July 3, 2009 at 10:17 AM
marcie said…
Another excellent tutorial! And little Grace is so beautiful! Thanks for sharing and teaching.
July 3, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Anonymous said…
OH this is beautiful. I just love that effect. Now I know how to do it and you explained it beautifully. :)

Marcie
July 3, 2009 at 12:09 PM
Anonymous said…
Kim
Your tutorials are great.I love the last two and can't wait to try this one.Thanks
July 3, 2009 at 5:00 PM
JMCS said…
What a great tutorial Kimi. Thank you so much. It is so easy and makes such a BIG difference. Gorgeous photo of Grace and gorgeous processing too. Happy 4th of July!

Hugs,
Jonni
July 3, 2009 at 5:03 PM
katieFLapple said…
Great tutorial! TFS!
July 3, 2009 at 9:56 PM
lovely laurie said…
This is a great tip. Thanks for sharing. I can't wait to give it a try!
July 4, 2009 at 7:23 AM
Jane said…
Awesome! Thanks for the tutorial.
July 4, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Claret Belle said…
Wow! That was such good information, Kim. I have some fresh 4th pictures and going to try it out. Thanks again and thanks for the paper freebie!
July 4, 2009 at 11:55 PM
Lynn C. said…
Thanks for this tutorial Kimi--I am definitely going to do this one!
July 5, 2009 at 6:54 AM
~Kristie~ said…
WOW! I LOVE IT. You always suprise me. I'd never seen this one.
July 5, 2009 at 9:27 AM
Kristina said…
what a great tutorial, thank you very much!
September 4, 2009 at 8:04 AM
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