Family Portraits photography/art/design

[Bubblegum Bandit]

My wife wanted to do some family portraits to be able to send out to grandparents. So I set up the tripod, hooked the camera to the laptop via Nikon Capture Control (I think that's the name of the software) and we had our own little photoshoot. Here's some of the better ones:

 

 

 

 

 

[Fatty]

Very nice!

 

I like this last one here.

 

Nice backdrop, what is it? Tablecloth? Sheet?

[All Kill3r]

The last pic is priceless.

[Chief]

I like that last one too. I took the liberty of downloading it to Photoshop--I put a quick mask around you and your wife and adjusted the depth of field. I basically pulled a little bit of the focus off of the background just enough that the wrinkles started to wash out. You still get the textures in the background, but it puts more emphasis on the couple.

 

 

Animated to show difference:

 

[Bubblegum Bandit]

Looks great Chief. I know a way of getting to that point, but I'm curious of the steps you took when doing this? I have a feeling the way I would do it is much more time consuming than you would. I would end up cutting us out of the main picture to get us and the background on different layers, and then putting a blur on what was left of the background. Is that what you did, or was it something different.

 

From your description it sounds like you used more of a masking function which I'm not really familiar with. Either that or I just don't know my terminology well enough.

[J. Dunlavy]

I'd post pictures of my Christmas, but I think that too many of you would find a desperate, sobbing person lying face down in the gutter, blanketed by empty bottles of wine too depressing.

 

But yeah.

 

The baby looks JUST like the mom.

Edited December 29, 2005 by J. Dunlavy

[stutters]

ps - bub, my feelings are hurt that our portrait didn't make it into the "family portraits" thread. i did get contaiminated by your little girls runny nose, afterall. doesn't that make ME family?

 

 

The baby looks JUST like the mom.

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[Bubblegum Bandit]

<cough>date on original post<cough>

[Brillow_Head]

Very nice Bub. I do like the lazy eye in the last one (I'm not the only one who has one now )

[Bubblegum Bandit]

er....that's more an injured eye. Its blind after having a piece of metal get shot through it.

[Brillow_Head]

Ouch, my bad.

[Bubblegum Bandit]

Ouch, my bad.

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no reason to be sorry. Just fun to see people's reactions when I tell them. I do have a bit of eyelid sag (that obviously shows up in that image) from the 5 surgeries they did.

[Chief]

I wasn't thinking through things and I was taking a couple of screenshots for a tutorial and I had all of my tool windows on my left monitor! lol I just plugged my $3.99 DVI adapter from newegg in today.

 

Anyway, I'll edit this with a link to some pix, but for now instead of cutting you guys out, we're going to keep the image on the same layer and work with selections within the layer. I have Photoshop 6, CS, and CS2. What are you using? 6 is on my old computer, so I'm hoping that you're using CS lol.

 

1. Open the jpg in Photoshop

 

2. Ctrl A (select all), Ctrl C (copy), Ctrl N (opens a new document with the specs of the last thing copied to the clipboard--just make sure transparency is on), Ctrl V

 

 

3. Now you're working with all of the pixels from the jpg but in a native PSD--so save the photoshop document now as a .psd not a jpg

 

4. Use whatever tools work best for the image to make a selection. This image is very heavy on the gray midtones (not much close to dark or white) so the magic wand was tough. The goal is to jump start your selection just like you would have done to cut you guys out. The lasso tool is pretty consistently the easiest tool to start your selection

 

Lazy lasso effort (could have gotten closer, but you'll be doing more in a second so it's find):

 

5. Now click on the "edit in quick mask mode" This will allow you to make selections that are shown in red. Just make sure that you are using a pen and not a brush or you will get pixels partially selected. The idea is to draw everything you want selected red. So use the pen and eraser tools to get pixel specific on your selection.

 

HINTS about quick mask mode. Use black ink on your PENCIL; do not use brushes or soft edges; do not adjust layer transparency; anything that is not completely painted or erased will be a partially selected pixel and that stinks!

 

Notice in this shot that the brush tool is showing, but I haven't used it:

 

Then use pen and eraser to perfect the selection. I'm not doing the whole thing perfect again!:

 

 

6. Once the area is selected, click back to editing in standard mode.

 

This is close to final. And notice that I used the PEN tool:

 

7. Everything that was red is now a standard selection with the dotted ants showing you what is selected.

 

Then back to standard mode, notice how everything red is NOT selected:

 

8. <Select Inverse> as needed to make the appropriate area selected. Mine above is fine, but just so you know!

 

 

9. Now you can fill, add filters, cut copy paste, whatever with the selection.

 

Here I added a stained glass filter, then liquified it:

 

10. For this image I added a blur with pretty low pixel distortion. Depends on the size of the selection, the resolution, and the desired effect, but you can see it in preview as you're going. There are a variety of blurs available, so play around with the types and options to get what you want. Motion looks good for most outdoor pix. Gausian blurs are a bit more like the traditional effect you would get by changing the depth of field on a camera

 

Motion blur:

 

Gausian blur with 1.9 pixels. It would be different if it was a different resolution etc. so play around:

 

11. save the image once your done, then save it as a jpg or whatever.

 

12. If you're taking it to get printed, you'll get better results if you Image>Mode>CMYK then save a second version. Just keep in mind that CMYK mode images (even jpgs) won't work on the web.

 

Voila! Presto chango!

Edited December 30, 2005 by Chief

[Bubblegum Bandit]

Thanks Cheif, I'm using CS2

[Chief]

Thanks Cheif, I'm using CS2

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LOL you snake! Well, I think that everything should be similar. I'll post it up again or make changes once I compare to CS2.

[k-wix]

Very nice work - good portraits - they came out really well.

[Bubblegum Bandit]

Thanks for taking the time to do the screens to further explain the process. The quick mask selection will make a lot of things I mess with in photoshop easier. I usually end up doing like 30 different cut and paste jobs on different layers and try lining them all up and merging layers back together which enevitably creates loss at some point. This will make it much easier.

 

Here's another image I applied the same technique to:

 

I also used this technique to get rid of the shadow.

 

Before:

 

After:

[Chief]

Cool, glad it's working for you!

 

For that picture there of your girl, three tools can really polish it off. Have you worked with

 

dodge/burn tool - this can be used to carefully lighten (simulates controlled over/under exposure to lighten or darken areas) the shadows along your daughters head and clothes on the left

 

 

rubber stamp tool - this can be used to nearly undetectably remove the shadows from the wall and floor by selecting a "source" and target for you clone pixels en masse

 

 

spot healing tool - this can be used to clean up the wall in a couple of spots

 

 

If you go back and use those tools before the blur, it will look more like the shot was set up with lighting.

 

I was a little sloppy around her top left forehead and the left vertical rise on the box, but with a blur added in, it would hide...or you could be more careful!

 

It's also cute as a button with a little artistic twist:

 

Then, here's the depth of field with gausian blur. I only did the wall because the floor sticks out into the foreground like the box does:

Edited December 30, 2005 by Chief