Let me start by saying I have both sets of Totally Rad Actions and will be using actions from set 1 and 2. I know how popular they are, if you don’t have them…get them and then use them!

Working (and loving) High Pass Sharpen and Totally Rad Actions

I am working in CS3 today but I imagine that this applies to CS4 as well.

Here is the before and after of our shot today.

As you will see I shot Tanner with a little too much shadow. We are going to fix and save the shot.

First open up your image in photoshop…duh.

Then you are going to fix your shadows. For this I am going to use the YIN/YANG action from Totally RAD set 1

Run YIN (lighter) in the shadows at full opacity. Then back off the opacity slider until it  blends.

In this photo I also ran the YANG (darker) on his shirt to make it more rich and then backed off the opacity to 50%.

Note for ALL my brush applications I have a soft brush at 100% opacity and 25% flow. You will see that atop of some of these screen shots.

Next I need to clean up Tanner’s skin. I start with the patch tool. It looks like this ;

Select the blemishes and drag to a clean patch of skin. Fill in holes of facial hair. Only select slightly larger than the blemish and then drag. Stay away from light/dark contrast it will cause a blur of color.

Make sure that you are on “source” and that transparent is unchecked at the top menu or you will see no change.

Now we are going to work on his actual skin. Run the Pro-Retouch action from the Totally Rad set 1. Same thing, soft brush at the same settings. Work on his pores, under his eyes and forehead. For men, I will back this off just a touch so it’s not too soft. Stay away from contrast areas like folds of face. Go with the contour of the face and it will look more natural. I also stay away from the wiskers, they will look odd if they are too soft.

Let’s go one step further and clone under his eyes to work on that blueish skin tone. You will select your clone tool and set your brush in the 35% opacity and 35% flow. Select an area just under where you want to work on and then drag over the area to repair. You will find that working on a lower opacity and flow with the clone tool allows you more flexibility with skin. It’s a staple in my workflow.

Note: if you want more control, run a duplicate layer first so that you can play wit opacity when you are done.

Note the settings here.

Last you want to run your tone action. It can be any tone really, whatever fits the image. Today I am using LUX (hard) from the Totally RAD sat 2. (Did I mention how much I LOVE Totally rad actions!)

With a lot of my color tone actions, I drop the opacity about the layers palate until it looks good. I rarely leave it at full opacity.

Flatten Image.

Next I am going to run my high pass.

Make a duplicate layer (command +J for Mac and Control+J for PC I believe)

Then at your top menu Filter>Other>High Pass

You will want to play with your opacity. It’s a taste thing. The more you use it, the more you will learn how much you need. Make sure you are on that duplicate layer as you need to be able to work with the opacity of it.

Now I could leave it here and it has a cool effect. I want it richer and so I am going to turn to my Totally Rad Action set and run Oh, Snap!

Flatten duplicate layer.

Back off the opacity if you need, I left it at 100% here.

Flatten Image

For that last little lift, run Match Color luminance.

Top Menu find Adjustments>Match Color

Bump your slider to brighten, be careful not to blow out highlights! (This is one of my secrets to the “brightness” of my finished images)

There you are. Save and enjoy. Obviously you can apply this process to any kind of image.

For more information on Totally Rad Actions, visit their website here Get Totally Rad.

If you like me tips, leave a comment so I know to post more!

B

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