Jacquelin Vanderwood

August 2005

Here's a digital photograph fresh out of the camera. The settings were on Auto. As we can see, the main subject of the photo is really very dark and barely shows any color. Let's manipulate it so we can see it much better.

Let's start by using the Shadow/Highlight filter. I've played with the various sliders to get the most optimal settings.

As you can see it dramatically improved the lights and darks and gave us real color.

Very sparingly, I applied Exposure to the photo.

It's definitely brightened up the colors.

To tone down the reddish feel of the skin, I chose Hue/Saturation and selected the Reds channel.

I then lowered the saturation amount of the red tone.

Next I duplicated the layer and then opened the Filter Gallery and applied Colored Pencil.

Then I selected Layer Mask and Reveal All.

Hit the X key to default to black and white and get a large soft brush. I used a size 90 for this. I then painted back the main subject's face to reveal the original.

And then I applied the Layer Mask.

Then choose Merge Visible to make the two layers one.

Here's the finished piece. 

Copyright (c) 2005, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved