Try this for a very simple initial practice procedure. It's what I
typically do for quickly handling small portraits of the senior citizens
around here who have plenty of wrinkles. The posted images are small
(about 3-1/2" square) so don't need much touch-up nor will I do any
except in extreme cases. The procedure is designed to sharpen only what
should be sharpened (eyes, eyebrows, teeth & lips, nostrils, jewelry if
worn, etc) without exaggerating what shouldn't be sharpened.
Starting from the initial image (already cropped and resized for
printing) as the background layer.
1) create a duplicate layer.
2) Sharpen the entire image however you normally do it. Of course,
this exaggerates all those crow's feet and other wrinkles.
3) Click on the mask icon to create a mask on the duplicated layer.
Note that focus is changed to the mask from the image and that
the mask is initially white (opaque). Clicking on the image or
the mask will move the focus from one to the other
4) Select black paint and then choose the paintbucket tool.
5) Move the paintbucket over the image and press the mouse button.
The paintbucket will dump the black paint all over the mask and
turn it black (transparent) instead of white (opaque)
6) Now the duplicate layer has been rendered totally transparent
and all you see is the original, unsharpened image underneath.
The next step is to paint with white (on the mask) to render
opaque just those parts that we want to see sharpened.
7) Select white paint and the paintbrush tool making sure that the
mask has focus on the layer and not the image itself. If the
image icon on the layer has the focus then we'll end up painting
on the image rather than the mask. Don't want to do that here.
8) Blow the image up to a such a size as to give you comfortable
control of paining of small parts of the image such as eyebrows,
eyes, nostrils, teeth and lips, etc. Paint with white paint to
reveal the sharpened parts of the duplicate layer that you want
to reveal. If you make a mistake change to black and go over it.
You can use a soft brush and low flow it you want to approach the
final result slowly. Also, changing layer opacity will allow you
to blend the upper and lower layers if desired. It's usually not
necessary to be terribly precise about the painting.
9) When done select "flatten image" from the layer menu tab at
upper right of the layers panel (next to "PATHS"). This merges
the two layers into a single layer with changes included.
10)In the event you want to soften the wrinkles as well then add
another layer which will be handled much the same as above
except that rather than sharpening the layer you will blur the
layer such as with the Gaussian blur tool. Perform the same steps
of adding a mask and painting it black. Then use the white paint
brush to reveal the blurred parts of the image you want blurred
which is where the crows feet and other wrinkles are. You may
find it easier to do this if you are fairly aggressive in blurring
and then use layer opacity to control the blending of the layers.
11)Flatten the layers again before saving as a JPEG or other format.
Save as a PSD without flattening if you want to preserve the layers
for later editing.
Chuck Norcutt
On 2/23/2012 9:10 AM, SwissPace wrote:
> I must apologise, it was not viveza 2 I meant but rather silver efex pro
> 2, my most used plugin. I will let you know if my mother likes it, but
> it may be a while before she gets it.
>
> I will however try and find some study time to get to grips with masks
> and layers, probably not too difficult once I find time to concentrate.
>
> Thanks IanW
>
>
> 02/2012 11:12, Moose wrote:
>> On 2/22/2012 5:57 AM, SwissPace wrote:
>> I tried the original Viveza, and quite disliked it. I seem to recall
>> posting some examples at the time. The problem was that all effects
>> had a strong center with a wide 'skirt'. Everything I tried with it
>> bled over into other parts of the image. Even some of their own
>> examples showed unintentional effects. It was also impossible, as far
>> as I could see, to have an even effect across a broad area. Certainly
>> not suited for this image. Sort of like using a hammer to drive a
>> screw. Ah yes, here's my 2008 test.
>> <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/tech/Process/Viveza/Viv_386.htm>
>> V2 may be much better, of course.
>>> - Thanks a lot I hope my mother likes the print.
>> As do I!
>>
>> Masked Moose
>>
>
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