Creating Actions

I finally learned how to create my own "Sharp Eyes" and "Soft Skin" Actions in Photoshop.... one more step closer to being self reliant in photo editing and a huge leap farther away from relying on other people's actions or tutorials ! More on this later..... Right now I'm off to rake the leaves...

A River ran through it

Here is a shot of the Delaware River. I did a lot of edits to this one. I really can't remember all that I did at the moment, but it did involve a bunch of layers and masks.

I know I used a "selective color" layer to boost the blues and greens. I pushed the contrast slightly. And a whole bunch of other things magically happened while poking around with different layers. Last I enhanced the sun rays and clouds, to give it a more spiritual look.

I'm pleased without it came out. Not overly joyous but pleased.

A twist to a portrait

I'm not one for the standard portrait. I do not like posing people on a chair in front of a screen, propping them up like... a prop, just to get a fake smile to put in your wallet. But what I do love to do is capture my friends at total random, and at extreme close ups. Yeah they hate it, but secretly I think they like how they come out after I "work" the photos.

Anyway, here are two extreme close ups of my friends with different actions and masks applied.



This is another portrait of my good friend Jen. She is always willing to have her photo taken, and can you guess why? She’s cutie who likes to laugh and smile... See? This one I only did some simple edits. I upped the contrast by a few points, and then softened her just a tiny bit. It's perfect. It portrays exactly what it should... Jen, laughing and having a good time. Heck, it makes me smile.



Here is my friend Steve. He's crazy, but in a good way. I took this photo, with my SB900 attached but pointing off to the right. It gave it a nice bounce light on his face and kept the left side in the dark. I then ran a portrait action. I boosted the contrast and lowered the saturation. I smoothed out his skin a bit, but not too much. I still wanted that gritty feeling. Then I popped his eyes a little to give them that little punch. And there you go. I really like how this came out.

Actions and Masks

Working in Photoshop has become my new hobby... or timewaster. If you can't find me, that's where I am. Here is one of my latest discoveries. I used an action for creating a "miniature world" to soften up the background, pop the color a bit, and set the focus on me. I'm sure if I pick apart the action a bit I can figure out what they did. I believe it has 3 layers, one of those "blur" layers to "fuzz out" the background, a "color pop" layer, and a contrast layer. Now, I need to learn how to do that on my own, or create my own Action so I'm not relying on other people's hard work.

After applying that Action I masked myself out of the "blur" so I became the only thing in the shot in focus. I believe I also smoothed out my skin a bit and turned my frown upside down (Tehehe, what can I say... It was very hot in Mexico that day). I also rotated the canvas slightly, maybe 5degrees clockwise so the pyramid wasn't about to fall off the earth (Thanks Ron for pointing that out!) Anyway, this post shows the before and after using actions and masks. Enjoy.