Eye-Popping & Sharpening Tutorials

Thanks to a tutorial shared by Mark I re-edited these 2 photos below to make my eyes "pop."

You'll find this "eye-popping" tutorial from Parc Cruz on FLICKR: through the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/parc/sets/72157603471515529/

In addition to enhancing the eyes in the photo I also boosted the contrast and tweaked the curves in photoshop to get the final result shown below.

Try this tutorial - it's very easy to do and once you get the hang of it only takes an extra minute or so in your post processing.

BEFORE


AFTER


The photographer named Parc Cruz that created the eye-popping tutorial on FLICKR also created and shared a sharpening tutorial for the eyes. If you'd like to try the eye sharpening tutorial click the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/parc/sets/72157594375402709/

I tried the "eye popping tutorial" along with the "sharpening" tutorial and these are the results:

BEFORE
No retouching done at all...as you can tell by my skin (ick):



AFTER
Skin retouching with the clone tool, Noise Ninja applied, curves adjusted, and the 2 tutorials used for eye enhancement and eye sharpening:



Both photos in the examples above were done with completely natural lighting coming through a window.

Parc Cruz also shared some of his Before and After's which are quite amazing. He doesn't share how he does it but they are unbelieavable and I admire his work. See his Before & After's through the link below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/parc/sets/72157602106578038/

Later in the day (after I got used to these tutorials) I worked on the following photo, edited the original, and then applied 4 other actions to it that I just LOVE!

Original with NO EDITING:



Colored edited and tweaked as well as the eye popping & sharpening tutorials applied:

The Eyes Have It...And Some Captivating Trees

The other night when I did my self portraits I asked my husband to sit in the seat so I could focus on him and then once it was focused I would be okay to sit there and shoot away.

It worked for a lot of the shots but then eventually became unfocused....so the process had to be repeated.

Why I was focusing I got to shoot one shot before he got antsy and wanted to depart before I started taking more photos of him....LOL!!

Anyway, the one shot I got....I love it because I love his eyes. :)

HINTS ON ENHANCING THE EYES:

With eyes like this I bring the photos into Photoshop and I use the dodging tool on the eyes to brighten them on a very low opacity (around 1-15%) with a small brush.

Then I use the burn tool (also on a low opacity) to burn the edges of the eyes and also burn back a little texture into the eyes so that they have some depth to them.

If you only dodge the eyes they sometimes lose their texture a bit so I just play around and enhance what is there. I like them to look realistic so I only slightly adjust what is already there to make them "pop!"










Now onto some trees! Trees seem to have been my thing lately...these were taken the same day that I took the tree I wrote about a couple weeks ago in my blog post called The Story of the Tree. I found 4-5 great trees that day on my way home but with the lack of light I had to bump up the ISO and try to hold the camera very steady.

When I edited the photos tonight I saw a lot of noise in the photos so I decided to embrace it and add more texture to the shots. Not sure if it works....need opinions (be sure to click on the photo to view larger):





For this one, the noise in the sky really bothered me so I decided to burn the entire sky! Normally we would scoff at what we call "blown out skies" but I purposely make the sky look like this and I like it. Who's to say we can't have a bright white looking sky like this in a Black & White? Why do these perfect photography rules need to always be followed? Who's to say what the rules are? Isn't photography and artform? Aren't our photos our own personal artistic creations? I think so!

Sorry for the rant...I just really feel this way sometimes. I sometimes see photos critiqued in a negative way that don't follow the "rules" that I think are beautiful so I just make sure speak up with my own opinion when this happens...



Just food for thought....

To view more of my landscape shots click here: http://jenweaverphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/2750159/1/249268735