Glamour Shot - This two-part tutorial is all about soft subtle glamour. Part 1 covers basic steps of my technique for giving eyes and lips just a touch of drama. Part 2 (below) shows my method for taking the model from flat pigtails to luscious free-flowing curls.

Source photo is from clipart.com (a subscription stock image site). This tutorial was done with Adobe CS2. Tools are the same in CS and later versions, but the layout may look different.

Model's natural beauty means that very little correction is needed for skin tone and texture.

1. Make a Copy. Open your Layers palette if it's not already open (Window -> Layers, or F7). Make a copy layer of the original source by dragging the background layer to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, then letting go. (Most of these steps are guidelines; this one is a rule: ALWAYS work on a COPY of your original image.)

2. Skin. Using the Patch tool, make minor corrections to eyes and skin. (NOTE: This model has virtually perfect skin, so there will be little attention devoted to extensive skin repair techniques in this tutorial.) With Destination radio button selected, use the Patch tool to make a small selection on clear skin near the area you want to correct, drag the selection onto the "wrinkled" skin and let go. This is different from the way other Photoshop artists use their Patch tool, but I find this method gives me more control over the correction.

 

3. Irises. Make a selection of the irises. Because it gives me Selection immediately, I used the Polygonal Lasso tool in this project, clicking often to make small segments to get the general roundness; you may prefer to use the pen tool.
Click Add To Selection and select the second iris.
With both irises selected, click Copy and Paste (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl C then Ctrl V) to make a new layer. Name it Iris Dodge.
Duplicate the irises layer and name it Iris Blend.
Dodgetool set to Highlights and brighten the area around the pupil. For this size image, the brush size is 10, hardness 10, exposure 20%.

 

4. Click on the Iris Blend layer to activate it and reduce opacity to 75%.

 

5. Eyes. Click on the Background copy layer and reduce Dodge exposure to 10%, hardness to 0, and brush size to about 15. Use Dodge on the eye whites to brighten them.

 

6. Set Burn to 30 brush, 0 hardness, 15% exposure for Shadows and softly stroke the eyebrows, and top and bottom eyelashes.

 

7. For more intense eye color, add a Hue / Saturation layer mask.

 

8. Click COLORIZE. Adjust color to around 200 for blue eyes and adjust to your liking.

9. Click on the white mask, hold Ctrl and Delete to fill the mask with black. Size a round hard brush to about the size of the iris, 80-95% hardness, and with WHITE as the brush color. Making sure the MASK (black rectangle) is selected in the layer, paint the iris to show the blue. [Note: in layer masks, BLACK conceals and WHITE reveals. Filling the mask with black concealed the colorized blue effect. Painting the irises with white will now reveal that blue just in the eyes.]

 

10. Reverse the default mask colors in the paint palette on the left, and paint with black on the mask to clean up/hide unwanted blue color.

 

11. Lips. Make a selection of the lips using the Pen tool or Polygonal Lasso tool. Copy and paste to create a new layer and name it Lip Color. Make a SECOND lip layer and name it Lips Bright/Contrast.

 

12. With the Lip Color layer selected, use Image-> Adjustments-> Hue/Saturation, and adjust the color to your liking.

 

13. To keep some luster, click on second lips layer and Image-> Adjustments-> Brightness/Contrast and adjust to your liking. Reduce opacity to 15-20%. This is a VERY subtle effect.

 

14. Curls, curls, curls! Now that luscious HAIR! On the main background layer, make a general and irregular-shaped selection of the best, most in-focus area of curls. You can include some outer background edge, but avoid areas with the person's clothing color coming through.

 

15. Copy and paste the first hair layer, then duplicate as many more layers as you want to fill the area. I made 4 layers for the right side and one more layer for the left side. Rotate the hair layers a little as needed to create a "natural" fall.

 

16. BLEND by using a very soft Eraser tool, set to 0 hardness and varied sizes (keyboard shortcut: the left bracket - [ - makes the brush head smaller; right bracket - ] - makes it larger). Because hair and curls tend to be "sharp" with defined edges and texture, I wouldn't recommend any other blending tool because blur will occur.
If you erase too much, either Undo, or make another layer and redo! Working with layers, you can never make a terrible mistake.

17. For the far left side, the erasure will take a finer hand. My favorite technique is to lower the opacity of the hair layer to around 25% so that I can see the face profile and - with the hair layer selected - erase with a low opacity, medium-hard eraser of varying sizes to conform to the contours of the face, and in this picture, the hand.

When you're done and happy with the erased edge, set the opacity of that layer back up to around 88%.

Finished! :)

 

For your convenience, here are the instructions without pictures:

ENHANCE EYES AND LIPS

1. Open your Layers palette (Window -> Layers, or F7). Make a copy layer of the original source by dragging the background layer to the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, then letting go.

2. Using the Patch tool, make minor corrections to skin under the eyes and on the face. With Destination radio button selected, use the Patch tool to make a small selection on clear skin near the area you want to correct, drag the selection onto the area of skin that needs repair, and let go.

3. Make a selection of the irises. Because it gives me Selection immediately, I used the Polygonal Lasso tool in this project, clicking often to make small segments to get the general roundness; you may prefer to use the pen tool.
Click Add To Selection and select the second iris.
With both irises selected, click Copy and Paste (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl C then Ctrl V) to make a new layer. Name it Iris Dodge.
Duplicate the irises layer and name it Iris Blend.
Dodgetool set to Highlights and brighten the area around the pupil. For this size image, the brush size is 10, hardness 10, exposure 20%.

4. Click on the Iris Blend layer to activate it and reduce opacity to 75%.

5. Click on the Background copy layer and reduce Dodge exposure to 8-10%, hardness to 0, and brush size to about 15. Use Dodge on the eye whites to brighten them.

6. Set Burn to 30 brush, 0 hardness, 15% exposure for Shadows, and softly stroke the eyebrows, and top and bottom eyelashes.

7. For more intense eye color, add a Hue / Saturation layer mask.

8. Click COLORIZE. Adjust color to around 200 for blue eyes and adjust to your liking.

9. Click on the white mask, hold Ctrl and Delete to fill the mask with black. Size a round hard brush to about the size of the iris, 80-95% hardness, and with WHITE as the brush color. Making sure the MASK is selected in the layer, paint the iris.

10. Reverse the default mask colors in the paint palette on the left, and paint with black on the mask to clean up/hide unwanted blue color.

11. Make a selection of the lips using the Pen tool or Polygonal Lasso tool. Copy and paste to create a new layer and name it Lip Color. Make a SECOND lip layer and name it Lips Bright/Contrast.

12. With the Lip Color layer selected, use Image-> Adjustments-> Hue/Saturation, and adjust the color to your liking.

13. To keep some luster, click on second lips layer and Image-> Adjustments-> Brightness/Contrast and adjust to your liking. Reduce opacity to 15-20%. This is a VERY subtle effect.

ADD VOLUME TO HAIR

14. On the main background layer, make a general and irregular-shaped selection of the best, most in-focus area of curls. You can include some outer background edge, but avoid areas with the person's clothing color coming through.

15. Copy and paste the first hair layer, then duplicate as many more layers as you want to fill the area. Rotate the hair layers a little as needed to create a "natural" fall.

16. BLEND the edges by using a very soft Eraser tool, set to 0 hardness and varied sizes (keyboard shortcut: the left bracket - [ - makes the brush head smaller; right bracket - ] - makes it larger). Because hair and curls tend to be "sharp" with defined edges and texture, do not use any other blending tool because blur will occur. If you erase too much, either Undo, or make another layer and redo! Working with layers, you can never make a terrible mistake.

17. For hair that falls behind the face, lower the opacity of the hair layer to around 25% to see the face profile underneath and - with the hair layer selected - erase with a low opacity, medium-hard eraser of varying sizes to conform to the contours of the face. When you're done and happy with the erased edge, set the opacity of that layer back up to around 88%.

Finished! :)