I suppose the title of this article appealed to some of you… But this article is about turning ‘regular’ portraits into portraits that leave a stronger impact and a three dimensions feeling in the frame. In this article I will explain the processing method and will teach you the tools to perform it yourselves. I assume that you are familiar with
Photoshop and despite this I’ll try to make the processing method as simple to understand as possible.
Introduction
Hesitation and dilemma… Despite this processing technique has been “circulating” the Internet for a while, few people are familiar with it. Every portrait I published with this processing technique (which was better than the basic photo) got enthusiastic responses such as “WOW! He really looks alive” “This really looks three-dimensional” “Roie! I want to have your baby!!” (well, the last one doesn’t really have to do with anything…). To disclose this technique is kind of like a magician revealing his trick, but since the knowledge came from the internet – it shall return to it.
What are the color channels?
Every photo is composed of three channels: RGB (Red, Green, Blue). In order to create a colored photo from these channels, the camera performs an interpolation and “stacks” the channels one on top of the other and so an endless array of colors is created (well, not endless, but 16.7 million to be exact). In Photoshop we have the option to isolate one of those channels and each channel displays the frame a little differently. To demonstrate this I recommend to go to the “channels” window in Photoshop, choose a channel and see how the photo looks in that channel. Generally – the red channel softens skin defects and the blue channel emphasizes these defects.
Let's get to work
You open a photo of a portrait you want to work on in Photoshop. It is recommended that the photo will not have a high contrast. A close up is best for optimal results.
Layer Duplication – You duplicate the basic layer (right click on “layer” in the “layers” window and then choose “duplicate layer”) so that now you have 2 identical layers. We will implement the blue channel on the top layer and the second layer will keep its colors and shall not be altered just yet (its time will also come).
Define the Blue channel – Now we need to define the blue channel. How do we do it? We choose Image à adjustments à Channel Mixer. A nice window will open (once you get to know it) and in it we choose Output channel – Blue (top) and mark a “v” on the Monochrome (the photo will turn black and white, and that’s OK). Now we see that the blue channel is on 100% and the black and white photo is in dark tones. We can add some percentage to brighten the photo and we can add some green channel, but notice the white areas and watch that they don’t go overboard. The final quantities can be decided according to the effect on the image. We confirm the action and close the window. You can skip the next stages of turning the photo colorful and continue working on this black and white layer or continue with the process of colorizing the image, it's your call.
Layer arrangement and colorizing – We move the blue channel layer down and define the top layer (the colorful one) under a Blend Mode of Soft Light. Now the top layer is supposedly "projecting” its color on the bottom layer and we begin to see the effects on the photos.
Levels, Burn & Dodge – Now we'll adjust the basic layer to the best using levels as usual, using the History Brush to correct area that were washed out as a result of levels, using a little well directed Burn on Shadows at 20% mainly on the facial wrinkles and the areas where we want to add some shadow and well directed Dodge on Highlights on the eyes, a bit on the hair and areas we want to light up. You can perform the fine tuning by turning the color layer off and on to see the effects.
Implementation of Blue channel sharpening – we now implement a little exaggerated sharpening to accentuate every hair and detail on our subject. This can be accomplished Unsharp Mask (USM) or by Smart sharpen on CS2. It is recommended you use a relatively small radius (for example – 0.5) and a large amount (above 150%). (I don’t add an illustration because the changes won’t be noticeable on the smaller scale). It looks much better in real size.
Color correction on the color (soft light) layer – We shall now fix the colors using Color balance. You can also play with saturation, every photo is different so I’ll let you try and see what the best values are. If the effect is too strong for your opinion, try lowering the opacity of the blue-channel layer (the bottom one) and you'll see the effect softening.
Merging layers and final touches – Now is the time for some final touches, so be brave. We merge the two layers to one (Merge Visible or Merge Down, what ever you feel like) and apply a last correction of colors and the photo according to taste and need. The final result is below (click to enlarge):
Summary
That’s it, the secret is out and the technique is known, now it's your turn to do the best you can with it. Simple portraits get a three dimensional look and faces are filled with emotion and authenticity. People who’ve seen the difference from the original photos say the difference is like “taking a hazy screen between the viewer and the subject”.
Here are some more photos I took and processed using this technique (click to enlarge):
Yours,
Roie Galitz