What can you do with this headshot?

johnnyroc · Mar 2, 2008

i'm still trying to figure out the magic of photoshop. Here's the worst untouched photo from the roll i took of an actress. Is it possible to make it look like a professional headshot? I didn't think it was that bad but my actor friends say it doesn't look like a real headshot. I'm uploading a smaller .tiff so those interested can play around with it and hopefully reveal their secrets.

JerryPH · Mar 2, 2008

Honestly, this is a photography forum, not a photoshop forum. You may get better results asking at a photoshop forum... and besides, a good photographer should know how to draw out the most from their equipment so that little to NO photoshopping is needed at all to get a wonderful shot.

There is some exposure or light sharpening needed there, but the photo itself has a few flaws that limit what most could do becuase the technical aspects are not as good as they could be.

I am sure a master of photoshop could spend lots of time and make it look good... but why? The right way (in camera), would have been to get the shot right in the first place.

Technical aspects that I speak of are things like:
- the strobes are in the wrong positions
- the exposure is not set correctly
- the pose itself is not flattering of the model
- the specular highlights on her face are not very helpful

Thats enough for a start.

I hope that helped some.

Rachelsne · Mar 2, 2008

I would say google some actors head shots like these and copy the poses, it seems alot have the head slightly tilted. I think your girl has looks slightly hunched too, so you may want to reshoot.

I would adjust the eyes make them brighter/whiter to stand out as they disappear a bit, many of the shots seem to have a dreamy effect too them.

Here is a photoshop tutorial I was recommended you may find of use,http://www.christyschuler.com/retouching.html just click tutorials on the left side. I only have photoshop elements 4 nd was able to recreate most of the suggestions she had.

TCimages · Mar 2, 2008

Jerry, I'm sure he tried to get the best shot possible, but sometimes even those who know everything are unsucessful. I personally see nothing wrong with asissting others in PS techniques, in fact we have a section dedicated to this:
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=43

With that said..OP, I used PSP for this. I simply ran the Smart Photo Fix tool and Skin Smoother tool. I spent 30 seconds on this just to help you see there is hope for this shot. I think it's a little overdone, but with minimum time it might look pretty good.

leila · Mar 2, 2008

I think anyone should be able to post on PS techniques. It's part of photography, I see nothing wrong with it. Keep posting. oh, TC... good job with the PS. i like the photo a lot now.

JerryPH · Mar 2, 2008

TCimages said:
even those who know everything are unsucessful

No one knows everything... if they did, they would not be anything BUT successfull... lol.

My point was not that they did or did not do their best. My point was that there were other more important things impeding the OP from getting a superior result, and that it had little to do with PS.

I meant no insult to anyone, and I apologize if it came acros as such.

JerryPH · Mar 2, 2008

leila said:
I think anyone should be able to post on PS techniques. It's part of photography, I see nothing wrong with it. Keep posting. oh, TC... good job with the PS. i like the photo a lot now.

I did not tell him to never post (though I knew that there is a PS specific section, and I chose not to even mention that).

Read my post above.

osirus · Mar 2, 2008

played a lil bit

johnnyroc · Mar 2, 2008

i like TCimages's look a lot. Osirus's version looks pretty good too but a little overproduced for my taste, would still love to know what he used to achieve that?

i'm a little knew to this forum, so i'm not sure if i'm asking appropriate questions, would love to hear an opinion on one more shot, which i didn't like but was the model's favorite, of course ok for others to tweak.

Jerry, i don't use strobes, i use hot lights. Are you thinking it's overexposed or under? by how many stops? I, like everyone else, obviously try to get it right on the set, but nobody is perfect.

asherexplore · Mar 2, 2008

well i've never played with a portrait before..
i lacked much of a vision so i just kept clicking.
after about an hour of mostly just sitting and thinking this is what i've ended up with.

the 2nd shot that you posted looks more promising in my opinion.. i would have much rather edit that one.. in fact i may give it a try too.
i've been wanting to try editing different types of photos so these are intriguing to me

asherexplore · Mar 2, 2008

i went much less of anything on this one...

johnnyroc · Mar 3, 2008

TCimages,

i think that's exactly what i'm looking for.
do you know of a similar tool in photoshop, like the Smart Photo Fix tool and the Skin Smoother tool or should i invest in PSP? i own Photoshop Elements as of right now.

TCimages · Mar 3, 2008

I personally like PSP and think it's money better spent. The is very little differences between the two applications.

Here is the adjustments offered with the Smart Photo Fix tool. You can make all these using individual tools, but this is normally all I ever need to apply to my shots just to tweek after the conversion from RAW and resizing.

The smoothing tool is even more simple. You just open it and apply the percentage of smoothness. THe good thing about this tool is it does NOT impact areas like eyes and lips that need to remain sharp. I guess it looks for skin colored pixels. It works great in my opinion, but not for every photo.

TCimages · Mar 3, 2008

Here is the same tools applied. I made no adjustments to the tools. I went with the PSP suggested in Photo Fix Tool and 50 % skin smoothing. It could use some tweaking.