I know it seems like this chapter has gone on forever, but we’re almost through! The final post on this chapter will be next week. And it will even be short!!
Turning Heads with Liquify
In the last post, we discussed moving eyes to create the appearance of engagement. But, sometimes it’s not just the eyes that need to be moved – it’s a whole head.
Last week I showed how Steve Caplin used the Liquify filter to change facial expressions in his book, How to Cheat in Photoshop, 6th ed. This week a whole head gets turned as seen in the example below:
To get it done, Caplin instructs to first move the larger elements of the face first – nose, the middle of the forehead, and the middle of the mouth – using a large brush in the Liquify filter. Then, work on moving the left side of the face, followed by the right. Pay particular attention to the eyes and the philtrum (the groove under the nose). Getting these two elements to look right is key. The above rendition of actor Patrick Stewart’s head is my result after following Caplin’s instructions.
Cosmetic Makeover
The next tutorial was originally a Friday Challenge. From the 34 examples of Challenge submissions Caplin included, it is apparent that beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Here is the original and my attempt after following Caplin’s instructions:
The original model is attractive, but almost everyone can use a little Photoshop magic. Caplin instructs to first firm up the jawline using the Liquify filter. He also suggests getting rid of the bump on the model’s nose and extending her eyebrows. He then proposes getting rid of the model’s jewelry. Finally, the hair is colored and makeup added, which is done on new layers in hard light mode.
Portrait Restoration
Most of the time when people take pictures, there is some sort of flaw. A common one with bald people is the creation of a “blown out” area on the head from the lighting. In this tutorial, Caplin shows us how to fix this problem:
I followed Caplin’s instructions to make a selection from the non-flared side of the head and then use Free Transform to rotate and scale it to fit over the blown-out area. All of the areas of the patch that overran the head were then painted out using a layer mask. Finally, the tones in the whole image were smoothed out, first using the Anistropic version of the Diffuse filter (under Filter>Stylize) and then applying an Unsharp Mask to bring back some of the crispness.
Next – Heads and Bodies Part 7