My son

Evertking · Jun 1, 2019

Derrel said:
under-eye work= removal/smoothing/lessening of naturally-occurring under the eye creases or bags.

Ok, thanks.. I am trying to figure out how to achieve this look. Paulina Duczman (@paulinaduczman) • Instagram photos and videos i used frequency separation on the first one and that got me pretty close. I'm not sure how she does it but it's gotta be frequency separation, or noise reduction with a round of sharpening. I have tried but just never get it nailed down. I know it's a look that some don't like but I love it and would love to create pictures like this of my children. If you have any thoughts on how this look is done, I would LOVE to hear them.
Her photography is so SO amazing.. some look like a painting. I need to take the time and get the color palette of the image worked out and plan accordingly. Clothes, backdrop and props.
Color is a big part of the images
Anyway, thanks.

And I wanted to come back and show you some more from another photographer that I really admire his work with color and just his style. I want my Images to be that good.
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smoke665 · Jun 2, 2019

Evertking said:
it's gotta be frequency separation, or noise reduction with a round of sharpening. I have tried but just never get it nailed down. I know it's a look that some don't like but I love it and would love to create pictures like this of my children.

As an artist the photographer's choice of finish is a personal one. Overly smoothed skin is a hotly contested subject with strong opinions for and against. I might disagree with the "some" don't like it, changing it to "many" especially as it relates to children. I personally fall in the latter category, but again that is a personal choice.

I've had the good fortune to photograph many children over the years and marvel at the wonderful color and texture of a child's face. Maybe it's because I'm older and also see first hand the effects of aging. Maybe its because I tend to lean more toward realism. Recently I posted two images of my granddaughter eating a snow cone, one color with minimal correction and one B&W with several corrections. The color version with all her skin flaws was the pick, hands down.

I started out with frequency separations but was never happy with the results, to plastic. There is an extremely fine line between to much and to little. Fortunately (for me) I discovered https://www.amazon.com/Skin-Complete-Digitally-Photographing-Retouching/dp/0470592125 The surface blur method and other editing techniques Varis explains allows so much more control over smoothing and correction without obliterating skin detail. Since reading his book I can't tell you the last time I used frequency separations. Here's an example using the technique. I Wanna Be A Cowgirl

Evertking · Jun 2, 2019

smoke665 said:
Evertking said:

it's gotta be frequency separation, or noise reduction with a round of sharpening. I have tried but just never get it nailed down. I know it's a look that some don't like but I love it and would love to create pictures like this of my children.

Click to expand...

As an artist the photographer's choice of finish is a personal one. Overly smoothed skin is a hotly contested subject with strong opinions for and against. I might disagree with the "some" don't like it, changing it to "many" especially as it relates to children. I personally fall in the latter category, but again that is a personal choice.

I've had the good fortune to photograph many children over the years and marvel at the wonderful color and texture of a child's face. Maybe it's because I'm older and also see first hand the effects of aging. Maybe its because I tend to lean more toward realism. Recently I posted two images of my granddaughter eating a snow cone, one color with minimal correction and one B&W with several corrections. The color version with all her skin flaws was the pick, hands down.

I started out with frequency separations but was never happy with the results, to plastic. There is an extremely fine line between to much and to little. Fortunately (for me) I discovered https://www.amazon.com/Skin-Complete-Digitally-Photographing-Retouching/dp/0470592125 The surface blur method and other editing techniques Varis explains allows so much more control over smoothing and correction without obliterating skin detail. Since reading his book I can't tell you the last time I used frequency separations. Here's an example using the technique. I Wanna Be A Cowgirl

Thank you. This is the help I was looking for! So this method is surface blur? That Cowgirl image is beautiful! I will check into it. I love all kinds of photography but I really like the.. I dont even know what it would be called but one thing I have noticed, it's dominated by Russian photographers. Beautiful BEAUTIFUL Images. Daniel Venter,Annie Mitova, Paulie Duckzman, Elena Shumilova. Yeah, Russian photographers are really good. I'm trying to type this from my phone and is a pain in the rest end hope this is readable. Lol

smoke665 · Jun 2, 2019

Evertking said:
This is the help I was looking for! So this method is surface blur? That Cowgirl image is beautiful! I will check into it.

Thank you. Yes it's called Surface Blur - Filter>Blur>Surface Blur. I prefer the surface blur method because of the fact that it retains edges. The adjustment available is virtually unlimited. You can set the amount of blur in the filter, and if you first set the layer as a smart filter, you can go back and change it later if you like. Then add a black mask to the layer, which lets you go in and brush areas you want to apply the blur to, and lastly you can adjust the opacity of the layer to alter the effect. For sharpening I use a layer with Filter>Other>High Pass with the mode set to soft light and a black mask that lets me brush in the effect. Another thing you might be interested in is a way to boost your midtones in Ps without affecting your Highlights or Shadows. I described the technique here Enhancing Midtones Only In Ps Finally would suggest you look into Lut's - Adjustment layer>Color Lookup (if you haven't already) as a finishing tone.

Again the flexibility of Ps allows multiple ways to edit. I'm not saying my way is better then yours, just different. For me I found the methods easier, more flexible, and faster then frequency separation.

smoke665 · Jun 2, 2019

@Evertking again not being critical if this is the choice you made, but in the first image on my monitor there is a gray/black cast to the image, that I couldn't decide if it was underexposure, or something else. When I downloaded it, this was the histogram.

There's a little data there on the upper end but not a lot. I went to the link of the photographer you referenced an pulled a few. There were a few of the dark and moody, but I found one that seemed to have a better overall tone, here's the histogram on it.

Again not much out there on the highlight side, but it's not crushed to the left either. One thing I do when I first start to emulate someone is to study everything about the image as possible, to bring as much information about what they're doing to the table before I start. Second, I've used this method to duplicate the color grading many times