The secret of creating striking portraits lies in natural-looking, seamless manipulation. Through hands-on work using five unique portrait edits, you’ll take a dive-deep into portraiture specific adjustments such as skin, body shape, eyes and hair enhancements. You’ll also learn how to work with light to create depth and intrigue in your images. Together we’ll study the way your subject is affected by light and its direction, and explore how advanced photo editing techniques can significantly enhance the the balance and beauty in your work.

Sharpen Your Skills

• Non-Destructive Workflow

Learn how to combine masks and adjustment layers to achieve your creative vision while at the same time maintaining tremendous flexibility. You’ll be able to create alternative versions of one photo in no time, or revisit your artwork in the future to bring new ideas to life with just a handful of strategic adjustments.

• Essential Portrait Enhancements

Establish a solid base for any portraiture edit by first performing a quick clean-up and body shape correction with the Liquify tool, and then a background fix with the Stamp tool. You’ll immediately add impact to your portraits by bringing up the detail in the frame, including hair texture enhancement and intelligent eyes brightening.

• Counter Balance the Visual Weight

Learn how to increase the distinction between your subject and the background. Draw your viewers into the frame and add a strong visual punch to get their attention. By bringing up the textures in the environment, you’ll create more dramatic, effective artwork.

• Master the Classic “S”-Shaped Curve

Discover this extremely useful technique to target flat areas in your images. You’ll learn how to quickly and precisely add contrast to the scene. And you’ll also experience how to gain more control of your light and shadow contrast by combining “S”-Curve with Layers and Masks.

• Low Key Portrait Technique

Play with balancing shadows and lights to build a moody, nostalgic atmosphere. You’ll work with complementary colors to create subtle grading with Curves, and discover how to inject a desired shade into selected luminosity ranges.

• Recompose Your Scenes

Explore recomposing your frames so you can get your desired canvas ratio. And get creative by cropping images shot in portrait orientation to square, or recreate missing background elements to achieve a more compelling and seamless composition.