portraits & lighting

In this assignment we learned how to take good portraits with lighting angles that flatter our subject. After taking the pictures, we edited them to enhance the colors using tools learned in previous assignments, then we also used lens flare, photo filter, surface blur, spot healing, and other tools with layer masks on our photos.

This photo was taken with natural and side lighting, and I used an orange photo filter to create a warmer look.

This photo was taken with natural back lighting and edited with spot healing and surface blur using a layer mask to smooth out the skin and make it look "flawless". I also added a lens flare to this to make it look like the sun hit the lens and created circles in the bottom right hand corner.

This photo was taken with natural side lighting that was also reflected to get rid of harsh shadows. To edit this photo I enhanced the colors and used spot healing and surface blur with a layer mask to even out and smooth the skin. I also used the paintbrush on overlay with her eyes to make them a little darker and "pop".

Overall I feel this assignment went really well. I had a very fun time taking these portrait shots and editing them to look their best. The only frustrating thing that would happen was sometimes the overlay brush wouldn't work too well and would turn lips a grayish tone, but otherwise everything went really well. Some of my strengths in this assignment I would say was capturing the subject's personality in the photos. A weakness would be when working with the studio lighting it was pretty dark so it was very difficult to get a clear, crisp image, but I did manage to get a few that worked out.