Post Production

In this post i'm going to attempt to explain my workflow in post production, and my own thoughts on the matter. I shoot in RAW format, so everything i shoot gets processed in some way, for this i use Lightroom 2. Lightroom for me, is mostly used for changing colour temperatures/contrast/exposure. I use photoshop to smooth skin, brighten eyes, darken backgrounds and add texture layers if i feel like it. I get the feeling that with retouching, and processing images a lot, other photographers think of it as a lazy and 'i can fix that later' attitude. With me, this is not the case at all, i always try and get lighting, white balance, exposure etc right in camera, but some things simply cannot be done using just a camera. I have my own 'signature' style, and the look of my images cannot be achieved without post-production. I want to be open about how my images are made, and for me this is part of the whole process of creating an image, the end result is the only one that matters. Personally, I am not interested in photographing reality, as Man Ray once said "I do not photograph nature, I photograph my fantasy"

Below is a typical example of my editing:

As said before, i shoot in RAW, in this case - i'm not sure why, the body paint showed up blue when i imported the files, so my first step was to correct this and make it green again like it was in real life. I upped the reds to give some 'umph' back into the red wig, which was looking a little lack-luster in the raw image. I also added much more contrast. I then exported the file into Photoshop CS5, my first step is to remove any blemishes and distractions, for this i use a combination of the patch and clone tool. Next, i duplicate the background layer and set it to mutliply, i then add a layer mask and paint over the background.. this makes the background darker, which in turn makes the subject stand out a lot more. Next i do some more colour tweaking, lighten the eyes and darken the eyelashes. For this specific set of photos i added a Radial Blur filter and masked off important areas, and then lowered the opacity. This creates the blurred look around the edges, i know i could've used my lensbaby for a similar result, but i wanted the flexibility. My last step is to add a texture, i add it into a new layer, and then mask off the centre of the texture (by using the selection tool with a very high feather - usually 250) and then change the opacity of that layer to taste.