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Body Shaping: Overview

Lesson 20 from: Advanced Portrait Retouching

Lisa Carney

Body Shaping: Overview

Lesson 20 from: Advanced Portrait Retouching

Lisa Carney

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Lesson Info

20. Body Shaping: Overview

Next Lesson: Basic Body Shaping

Lesson Info

Body Shaping: Overview

I want to discuss body shaping and just like everything in retouching land, body shaping is really a personal conversation and can be done badly or great depending on who you are and who your aesthetics are. There's a reason I picked Skinny Minnie here to do body shaping on, because this is what I have to do. I have to shape people who are in phenomenal, phenomenal shape and make them look unrealistic. Unfortunately, it's the business I work in, so there might be some ethical issues for people or opinions. For the purpose of this class, I am not judging. I am not saying this is good, this is what should be done. I am telling you if you need to do this, this is how you do it. I'm not telling you to do this. All right, I just want to be really, really clear about that. It's the world I live in. All right, so this is the original image and I want to kind of go through some changes and some files, some working of this file and body shaping. What I'd like to do for just a second is walk thr...

ough what's been done to this file and then we're going to talk about body shaping. So this file is in a pretty standard working condition and I'm just going to dissect it completely and we'll talk about it per layer. I'm going to go from the bottom and go up. Once again, this is the top file, this is the original. This is the file you will find online, just like this. So real quickly, I'm gonna turn everything on, I'm gonna talk a little bit about what got changed and then I'm gonna talk about how it got changed. So before and after, before and after. This is very much like catalog work by the way, and there's a reason it looks like this, and it's because sometimes we have to do extreme stuff. So she is masked out first of all. We have not talked about masking at all and it's kind of not in scope with this class. There are some excellent masking courses here at CreativeLive, but I just want to talk about, sometimes you have to mask. A lot of the corrections will then be above or below the masking, so there's a production layer or protocol to file based on that, and you have to know when you deliver the file, are you delivering it masked or not masked? And what I am doing here, is I am turning a color correction on and off and it's affecting the background. The color is affecting the background. What that might mean depending on how you have to deliver your file, is that color may have to go underneath to not affect the background. Then if that is the case, did you do your hair with color on or with color off? If you did the hair with color on and you moved your color corrections down, or excuse me, let me rephrase that. If you did your hair underneath the color correction like I told you to, and then you have color correction that goes above, and then you then move it underneath, you might have some hair that doesn't match the color of your file. So you just need to be careful with that. If that is the case, a workaround is you duplicate your color, you attach it to your hair. You do this in a separate layer, it's a little complicated. You merge that and then you have your hair floating. It's a little complicated so I don't want to do it right here, but that is a workaround. I just want to call attention to it. On this file, it doesn't really matter. All right, the color, I didn't spend a lot of time in this class talking about color because I gave you some basics and some tips, but color really depends on your job. It really, really depends on your job and where it's going. This kind of coloring and this really flat toning is very common for me in catalog work. I can't say that this is good or bad or desirable. This is what I have to produce for a lot of my jobs that I get that like exactly like this. That's just a caveat I'm saying that, as you will. I need to call attention to some stuff. Some of the colorization is masked. Some of the colorization is masked and if that's the case, then if you change the mask down here, you're gonna have to change the mask up there. So you just need to be careful of that, if and when you want to do that. Why is some of the coloration masked? Because sometimes what happens, and this happens to me a lot, I'll do a job and the client doesn't want it masked out and then all of a sudden they do want it masked out. Then they want it masked out later and then oh my god, can we body shape her? And I have to be fluid with my masking. Now I am not afraid to say okay, I did the color, now we're body shaping, now we're changing, okay, I'm gonna have to change a mask. All right, I can redo a mask. You can do that. I'm just trying to talk to you about some pitfalls that you can have. In addition, because of catalog work, I do want to reiterate I am a print retoucher so I do print work. Often I deal with issues of saturation and red is a killer. I often have to shift my reds and darken them down because the tone is too dark. Excuse me, I didn't mean to close that, excuse me. There we go. Sometimes my tone is too dark and I need to shift my reds, so I am increasing the density of my reds. Now in the color class, I talked about this before, you can increase your density many different ways. You can do it with curbs, you can do it with selective color, I just happen to use selective color on this. You can do it any way you want, it doesn't matter. That's the beauty and the crazy-make about Photoshop. You can do it any way, so which way do you like? Do you remember I talked about having three or four methods for making your change? Throw something in fast, take a look, see if you like it. If you like it great, if not try another one, try another one, and do it fast. Don't spend two hours adjusting her dress tone. Spend 15 minutes trying three different ways of addressing her dress tone, okay? And then oftentimes we have to change color. I felt there were some business questions, questions on the business of retouching. I thought I might mention something really quickly. On catalog work, this happens all the time where we actually have to change out the color of dresses and I do not know why clients think this is a nothing job. They think it's absolutely easy. Now I showed in the color class some quick ways of shifting color, but there is always the seaming section. And what the seaming section is, it's where hair is overlapping, you know how hair sometimes is translucent and it picks up the color underneath? So this would have to be hand-painted out and that's gonna take some time. And I want to let you know that so that when you have to estimate a job and your client tells you, you have to change the color of the dress, you say, "That's fantastic, "I'm happy to do it. "It's gonna take extra time, "especially where the hair meets." Now, some of us have talked about retouching, and how you do it, and when you're on set and how you determine your job flow, and what you're gonna do. If you are lucky enough to be invited on set while a job is in motion, you can say, "Great. "Are we doing multiple colors of that product?" And they say yes, at least say, "Excellent, "do you mind photographing the model "with her hair behind the dress "so I don't have overage issues?" Cool, very big deal 'cause that takes a really long time and a good hand to make that look realistic.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Brunette RAW Practice Image
Blonde RAW Practice Image
Portrait Retouching Workbook
Lisa Carney PSD Practice Image
Layered Hair Color Change Example PSD File

Bonus Materials

Outline Cards

Ratings and Reviews

Tab
 

If you were like me and had no idea on where to start and feared that the editing process would be too destructive and would have to start all over again if the client didn't like your completed work - then this is the class for you. I watch this class often for review and to make sure that I maintain these good habits Lisa suggests to do. If you follow all of her helpful commentary on her how's and why's you will end up in a far better place when that time comes that you have to re-edit your edit. I cannot say enough great things about her work flow and how it not only enhanced my images to the result I was looking for but also decreased my editing time(bonus!!!!). I also on a whim sent her a email through her personal site and she replied with a massive helpful technique for enhancing freckles on a job I was working on. She is amazing! She is a true teacher who is there to show you how to use photoshop for you to find and gain your own editing style. Far too often i find myself in retouching classes that only demonstrate how to make your images look like who is teaching the class... Workflow and Style are very different, you can have the same workflow but your style is determined by your taste. Her workflow is solid and delivers time and time again. This class should be in everyone's dashboard hands down.

Kristine Pye
 

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question and take us through your "delivery" process, I found that extremely helpful. I have purchased two of Lisa's classes immediately after the live stream during Photoshop Week 2017 and was very excited to stream another set of lectures from Seattle. I will be purchasing the last two courses of Lisa's within the next 24 hours as I did just over a month ago. I find her classes to be absolutely brimming over with useful information--everything from the technique, her process, what other professionals in her work are doing, and **why** she chooses the methods she does in retouching. She is relatable and genuine, and her knowledge of the program and how to maximize efficiency while "skipping the actions" really reinforces the educational part of her courses. There are "easy way outs", but she emphasizes that you should understand the ways in which any adjustment effect the entire photo. These courses have helped me to move forward in my education, helping me to realize that with enough practice and good habit formation--such as naming every single layer every time-- that it is not irrational for me to make an effort in building a portfolio and a Master's degree with little-to-no- previous experience with the software. I am very appreciate. I hope to see more from Lisa in the future, but I have plenty to practice with for now! Thanks again, Kristine Pye kristinepye@gmail.com

Jeff Robinson
 

Lisa Carney is amazing! She has a depth of knowledge of Photoshop, retouching techniques, and compositing that she shares in a fast, but straightforward, easy to follow, step by step manner. No matter what your level of expertise, you'll find gems, shortcuts, and methods in her teaching that you can practice and put to use to make your work stronger, faster, and cleaner. And with the bonus materials she graciously provides, including workbooks with her detailed steps, practice files of the images she uses in class, and before and after comparisons, you'll be on your way to improving your skills immediately. She's an accomplished retoucher and gifted teacher. If you have the opportunity to take one of her classes, take advantage of it!

Student Work

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