How I did it: lounging
Make it stand out
I often get asked how I create some of my work, especially in post, so I thought it would share some of my tricks. I’m going to use my photo “lounging” since it turned out really well and I just did it so i can remember what I did.
I’ll explain what I did in post using photoshop to combine two shots to clean up some problems, add a tiny bit of detail and get the look just right. I won’t cover the pose or the camera work I did in Black Dragon. If you don’t like photographers that use post production then this isn’t for you but for the rest I hope I have some handy tips you can use.
What I’m using
First things first, here are my tools:
Adobe Photoshop CC 2022
A Microsoft Surface Pro 4 with Stylus (this isn’t required to do any of this, it’s just a lot easier with a stylus)
My Avtar is using the following basics:
Lara Maitreya v5.3 body
Catwa HDPRO Head
Stealthic Sultry Blonde hair
YOSHI Adi Eyes - Cobalt - BOM
[DK] Pulsate! 2018 - Golden Diamond Bracelet
Pretty simple.
The final photo is a composite of two shots. In total for this shoot I took about 6 shots, all sets of two with each set using different lighting or slightly different angles. Why a set of two? Because one had my hair and the other didn’t. That’s because the hair I am using has a very noticeable alpha layer.
Alphas against water suck when using DoF
You can see that I have used a Depth of Field setting to take the background out of focus, but with an alpha against an out of focus background of water the Alpha gives me a horrible sharp halo that doesn’t work at all.
But without the hair there’s no problem
With my hair removed you can see the same background is back to being out of focus again, the way it’s supposed to be.
To fix the problem we can combine the two images, and while we’re there we can add a layer of realism.
Lets get both shots on one canvas. Just hit Control+a to select our one with hair, go to the shot without hair and hit Control+v to paste it. Select the layer with hair and click on on the White Square with the dark circle just below the layers panel to add a vector mask.
Next We’re going to select the paint brush tool. Make sure the palate primary color is set to black. We’ll need a big brush with low opacity, around 10-20%
Once you’ve selected the brush you can start slowly adding to the layer mask and you will see the top layer of hair getting transparent and letting the out of focus background show through. Be patient and go slow. you don’t want to make the hair too transparent or you won’t see it al all.
And here’s how it should look
You can see the sharp alpha is almost not there anymore. The hair is transparent now and much lighter, but that actually ads a very subtle element of realism. Take a close look at hair IRL. Fine hairs, especially lighter hair, in a well lit environment blend with the background or get overpowered by light. The end result is a subtle detail that make the foreground fit with the background and look natural. You can also use it to show details that would have been hidden by the hair itself not just the alpha. In the final image my left nipple is visible through the hair but in the original it was hidden. That’s the kind of details I know my fans want to see too ;)
Next lets look at some more subtle details.
The scene is bright and sunny with lots of light. But normally you would see some of that light reflected back on glossy surfaces. The glass on my glasses, my eyes and my lips all look flat and they don’t look like they belong on a brightly lit set. Subconsciously it doesn’t quite look right because it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the scene. But the good news is this is a really easy problem to fix in post.
Start by creating a new layer.
That way we can avoid making changes to your main photo.
Select the brush tool and make sure the color selected is white and use a brush with hard edges set to a small size and about 10-20% opacity.
By adding a little white near the edges of my glasses it adds a soft but defined reflection of the light in the scene. It even fits with the shadow I set up when I did the shot.
For the smaller sharper highlights in my eyes and on my lips all I changed was to make the brush a pixel or two wide.
The Effect is subtle, but it adds that little extra detail that second life can’t always capture. If I wanted to I could add more shine to my glasses frame or to anything metallic if shiny that I’m wearing (like the bracelet). Often you can also just brighten some of the existing shine that just doesn’t pop in the original by going over them with your brush to lighten the white pixels a little.
Next we’re going to add the finishing touch.
Select the two images you have combined in the first step by control clicking them both then right click and select “merge layers”. You should end up with one layer which you can right click again and duplicate.
Select the duplicated layer and go to “Filters” then “Blur’ and select “Gaussian Blur”. Set the blur to 10 pixels and it turns out looking like an out of focus version of the original.
Keeping this layer selected we’re going to blend it with the layer underneath.
For the blending mode select “Overlay”. You’ll see straight away that it will make the contrast pop a little bit and soften the edges. It’s probably still too much so we’ll turn down the opacity to 50%.
Lets see what the difference
That’s it! We’re done!
If you want to you can flatten the layers again and make some adjustments to things like vibrance, contrast and color balance till you feel it’s just right but the end result is looking much nicer than what we started with.
Hopefully you’ve picked up some tips that you can use and if you have any comments or questions add a comment below.
Have fun creating and if you can’t be good be very naughty ;)
xoxo
Nikiblonde