foto Priority

© Don Smallwood

In Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) make the curves adjustment (strong contrast) and back on basic tab check for blown highlights. These shots were pretty good so no worries there.

Opened image in Photoshop, first thing I noticed was that the hem of her dress on her right thigh was a little high and showed the dark elastic at the top of her tights. Not very attractive. So I cloned the hem in to hide this.

Next I lengthened her legs a touch. Now Olivia is tall and leggy but probably my perspective was wrong. To do this I made a large selection using the rectangular marquee tool. I select a large rectangle from one side of the screen to another (starting just below hem of dress) and as far down the pic as possible whilst still leaving me a little room to crop within that bottom line later. Then I selected free transform and dragged the bottom of the box down a touch.
I then cropped the picture to my liking, cleaned up the skin (not that she need much) and take away one or two creases in the skin(around the armpit) Sharpened her eyes and mouth and saved.

© Don Smallwood

Open image in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), adjust the curve to strong contrast. Back to the basic tab and adjust the temperature to ‘flash – 5500′ Then open image in Photoshop

Cropped to get the perspective I wanted.

I then cleaned the skin on the models face and leg using the clone tool.  Whilst on the skin I then run a small home built action called high pass that smooths it a little.

I also used color efex pro to add a little glamour glow.  

Next I cloned the background a little to added a little smoke and to hide a little more the leg of the background light.

If her eyes had been more open I sometimes run an action to increase contrast but not in this case.

Last thing I do is size and then sharpen. I only sharpen selectively on a separate layer so I can see the effect.  Normally with a feather @20-40 I select eyes/eyebrow area and the mouth and then run a little action I got from the world famous ‘Manny Librodo’  If you want to build this the steps are:

Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp mask:18/40/0

Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp mask:150/0.3/0

Edit/Fade Unsharp mask:Darken 100%

Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp mask:150/0.3/0

Edit/Fade Unsharp mask: Lighten 50%

by Don Smallwood

Before you capture that exact moment, remember to take the lens cap off!

In the creative field, a little bit of humour goes a long way. Below is a link to 78 Photography rules for complete idiots with a hidden meaning of lets not take ourselves too seriously!

78 Photography Rules

These “rules” were originally created by created by latvian photographer Ivars Gravlejs, check out his funny yet quirky website

If like myself, you post, email or Flickr lots of images then it’s probably handy to know the shortcuts for a photographers most commonly used symbol, the Copyright ©.

Mac - Opt+G , hold down the option key while pressing G. If for whatever reason this doesn’t work on your machine, here’s a link to a universal but much longer method. Then just cut and paste it as many times as required.

PC (Windows) – Alt+0169 – hold down the Alt key while typing 0169 in the numeric key pad. Note: make sure your Num Lock is activated

Now there’s no excuse not to © ALL your images, either before or after your name.

Daniel Linnet