I’ve been processing so many photos this week and I’ve gotten so much done! I had put up black sheets all over my windows in order to have a “darkroom.”  Yep, believe it or not, the best way to edit photos on the puter is to have a dark room.  Brings out the truest colors on your monitor (given that your monitor is calibrated correctly).

I’ve had some inquiries about my photos in regards to editing.  So I thought I’d take a break and give you a little bit of a break down just for fun.  Yes I edit all my photos. It is very rare that I post a picture unedited.  As a long time retoucher and photographer, I “always” see something that needs to be retouched.   It’s horrible I know, but what can I say? Photoshop corrupted me!  Sometimes I do only use photoshop to process my photo for color correction, sharpening, cropping, and all those other magic things that photoshop can do.  I never hide this from people who hire me. I tell them straight out, “I started out as a retoucher and became a photographer.”

There are certain photographers that have years of experience and can take a picture of a can of coke and make it look like a work of art SOOC (straight out of the camera, photography lingo ;)).  But even those photographers probably photoshop a little here and there to make it even better.

Y’all know I’m starting out as a photographer and I don’t know my camera inside out.  I’m far from that, but what I do know is photoshop like the back of my hand.  You should see me work on my mac.  I know almost every freakin’ shortcut in photoshop (and even have created some on my own, i’m geeky like that) and I hardly ever go for my mouse or wacom tablet.  It is definitely my comfort zone!  I use almost every single tool in photoshop. . .except the tragic wand (magic wand my ass!) I hate that thing!  That’s my crutch when it comes to photography.  Hopefully my photography skills will catch up. . .

So here’s the jist of what I do (alright, so they’re not really secrets, but that’s such a catchy title).   I retouch up everything and anyone I photograph.  Even cute little perfect babies, yep, even them.  Newborns always have dry skin or baby acne, they may seem perfect, but when you zoom in 100%, oh u see the dry skin!

I’ll use my friend Sil because I love this picture so much! This is what her picture looked like SOOC.

I shoot in RAW so I do all of my color corrections, white balance, contrast and brightening in RAW.  Then I’ll open this in CS3 and duplicate the background.  I always keep the background unedited so I can go back and see my changes.  It helps so you don’t over do it.  I edit all the skin, remove scars, pimples, uneven skin tones, and remove any fly away hairs from the face or background if possible.  Always edit at the highest zoom you can to catch everything.  You’re going to see nose hairs people. . just accept it! HAHA  I don’t like to remove too much of the dark under the eyes.  I use to all the time, but now i just lighten it so it’s not too obvious and the persons “look” doesn’t change.  For some reason, some people’s facial expression changes a bunch when you do this.  Whenever I “airbrush” someone, I make sure that anything else that’s not their skin stays sharp.  I don’t like softening and giving it that angelic-like a dream look.  Yes I know how to do it, but it’s not my style. I also warm up the skin, just cuz that’s how I roll. If the warming causes the background to change to a color I don’t like, I do a layer mask and remove that from the background.

Then I work on the eyes and darken certain areas to bring out facial features.   Eyes are very important to me. I always try to shoot from a position where I can get really good catch lights in the eyes.  That’s my favorite. ;)  I was addicted to catch lights for months years ago.  I learned a lot of do’s and don’ts.  It takes time to get it just the way you want it too, so don’t give up.  Just keep at it!

Then I take one last step of sharpening the eyes even more so they have an extra pop.

Here’s a closer look, the change isn’t that big, but it does make a difference.

Last but not least, I do my black and white conversion, because as you all know, I’m a black and white kind of girl.

So that’s it.  That’s what I do. Depending on what or who I’m editing it can take me anywhere from 10-45 minutes.  Yep, it’s bad I know.  I think it’s because I’ve never really done it for money so I take my time.

You know, I still remember the day I realized I wanted to study photography.  I was bored as heck at home and wanted to edit a photo and try out this action I bought online so I made my sister change and put on some make up. It was July 2006 and she was cranky since the weather had been so hot in Texas.  But because of the shot I took that day and the processing I did that night, this whole new world opened up for me.

Here’s the famous before and after picture that made me realize I wanted to be a photographer.  i took this with my canon s50, a little point and shoot that i still use to this day.