AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY + DIGITAL SEPTEMBER 2015 AUSTRALIANPHOTOGRAPHY.COM 57
COLOUR AND TONE
Rather than optimising the tonal and colour values of the image
I’m more interested in creating a stylised, illustrative version of the
image. In the Basic panel dragging the Highlights slider all the way
to the left and the Shadows slider all the way to the right. Now, up
the Contrast to +50 and the Exposure to +0.50. Reduce the colour
palette by dragging the Vibrance slider to -60 and the Saturation
slider to +20. This has created a rather distinctive colour and tone.
We can take it a step further using the Split Toning panel.SMOOTH SKIN
At this point I’ve used a technique called ‘Frequency
Separation’ to smooth the model’s skin. It’s a great
technique but it’s a subject worthy of a tutorial in its
own right so I’ll leave it for a another issue to cover
in detail. In the meantime, if you do want to have a
go at it, there’s a good explanation on YouTube at
https://youtu.be/ldhG9fmgC7o. Otherwise, skip to
the next step without worrying about retouching the
model’s skin.10
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CAMERA RAW FILTER
If you have completed the Frequency
Separation process from step 10,
select all the layers in the stack (shift
click to select multiple layers) and in
the main menu go to Filter > Convert
for Smart Filters. Now choose Filter
> Camera Raw Filter. If you didn’t do
step 10 and you just have the one layer
in the Layers panel, just select Filter >
Camera Raw Filter.
The advantage of using the Adobe
Camera Raw filter as opposed to
double-clicking the Smart Object
to open the Raw file, is that all the
settings are zeroed.12