Editing Photos

I created this GIF using Photoshop Elements to show how I edited the photo for the front cover of my digipak, to create an overall more polished and professional picture.

Probably the first aspect you will notice as the GIF flicks from my starting point to the end point is the colour/lighting difference. I played with the colour balance of the photo, defining her features and increasing the black tones to create a stronger more powerful look. This also gave Katherine's face slightly more colour, giving her a healthy glow. I also slightly lightened the background, to make her stand out a little better.

In terms of adding in make-up on Photoshop. I darkened the colour of her lipstick, using the 'Lipstick' feature, to not only bring some more colour to the photo but also to make sure her lips were not lost after increasing the black tones in the photo. I also filled in her more visible eyebrow. Whilst the dark colour balance had been increased, her eyebrows were not quite dark enough to be affected, so to make sure they were also not lost and fitted in well with her hair, I used the air brush tool and the colour picker to simply fill them in naturally using another brown found in her hair. I also used the spot removal tool, to remove any imperfections or blemishes on her face, once again to create a more professional looking photograph. Finally, as you can see she had a lot of flyaway hair. I simply removed some this by using the airbrush tool, with the colour of the background. Although I did not remove it all because it would have looked rather bizarre, by having less the photo looks tidier and consequently more professional.

As you would expect when I took the photo there were some unwanted shadows. Although this issue is easily sorted it was slightly tricky. I tackled this issue in the same way I did with the flyaway hair. In using the air brush tool and the colour picker I could create a smooth finish with the right colour in place of the shadows. If i had used the paint tool, it would have been to obvious and the colour would not have blended in well with the existing background. Now looking at the final version one would not be able to tell there had been a shadow there before without knowing.