When preparing a headshot, I usually spend a considerable amount of time on the eyes. The eyes are the focus of a portrait, are they not?

Unless my subject has unusually clear eyes and the lighting is perfect, most eyes need some retouching. Because in most situations your light will not be perfect, eyes appear darker than they really are. Some retouching and brightening will make a huge difference in the final image.

So here's how I do it:

You might remember this image of Carly. I used it for my tutorial "how I retouch".  I'm going to use it again to demonstrate eye retouching.  Here is the original, unretouched image.

(1) I first use the patch tool to clone out any visible veins or blotches in the eye whites. This by itself usually makes a big difference. In Carly's case, her eyes are relatively clear to begin with, so it makes just a subtle difference.

(2) Next, I open up my secret weapon, Kevin Kubota's "Eyes and Teeth Enhance" action. You can find this action here.  You can do the job without the action, using a combination of dodge, burn and the selection tool. But trust me, the results are much better and faster using this action. I had the good fortune of having Kevin Kubota teach me how to use this action in person 4 years ago, and I'm passing that instruction on to you here.

(3) When you run the action, you will see that it opens up several new layers on your layers palette. Click on the "eyes brighten" layer first.  A soft brush will automatically be selected for you.

(4) Use the brush to paint over the entire eye white. In this closeup you can see that I've just started to paint the left side of this eye.

(5) Here are the eyes after I've painted over them at 100% opacity.

(6) As you can see, this is waaaay too bright, giving her that alien look. (note: I see this look on a lot of photographers' work - waaay overdone eye brightening!)  Here it is after I've toned down the opacity to 50%.

(7)  My next step is to desaturate the eye whites. This will remove pink/red eyes. Just click on the "desaturate" layer in your layer palette then paint over the eye whites just like you did in Step 4.

I usually leave the opacity around 75%. Why 75%? At 100% the eyes turn a bit too grey. 75% leaves a bit of the color in, giving the eyes whites a more natural look. Here are the eyes after desaturation.

(8) Now that I'm done with the whites, it's time to give a little love to the irises.  The first thing I do is to click on the "darken shadows" layer.

(9) Using a small, soft brush, I paint over the outside of the iris. Don't paint the interior of the iris, just the edges. This will darken the edges and define the iris, making it pop out. I set the opacity around 50%.

(10)  Now, I paint the inside of the iris using the "dodge" tool on the regular photoshop tools palette. This is to give some light onto the iris, as if it was well lighted with a close softbox.

(11) This is obviously way too much.  Carly looks over-the-top evil, like a werewolf in transition! I back down the opacity here to around 35%.

That's it!  So here's the "before" closeup:

And the "after" (after some sharpening as well)...

Just keep it natural. If it looks too obvious, then back off the opacity. Just remember that dull eyes make a dull portrait!

Laurence Kim Workshops

Location Lighting 101, March 20, Vancouver BC: seats available

Image Wizards is a North Carolina based lab that makes metal prints. I'm not talking metallic prints like you can get from any lab, but prints actually printed on real aluminum.

Their website asks "remember the first time you saw HDTV"?  It calls it's prints "AluminArte", and describes them as being high definition.

I decided to give them a try. Prints are offered with a high gloss, satin, or brushed satin finish.  IW recommends satin for portraits, so that's what I had made.

The print was not shipped in a box, it was actually shipped in a heavy plywood crate!

It came mounted on a black-edged aluminum frame and was ready to hang.

Okay, so what's the deal?   The print is very, very nice. It has good color, is reasonably sharp, and the mounting/framing is clean and modern.  

However, based on the marketing hype (and the high price!) I was expecting more. While it's a nice print, it doesn't look any sharper or more vibrant than the canvas prints I get from Simply Canvas.  It looks like a nicely printed Fuji luster print that I get from my regular lab. For the price (about $300 for a 16x20, including framing and shipping) I did expect more.  

If you look at the sample images on their site, most of them are of very vibrant subjects like underwater images of colorful tropical fish.  I think that this product would indeed make stunning high gloss prints for landscape, wildlife and architectural prints - but for portraits, I think I'll take a pass.

3.5 stars out of 5

Laurence Kim Workshops

Building a Profitable Portrait Business, Feb 27, Seattle:  Sold Out!

Location Lighting 101, March 20, Vancouver BC:  Seats Available

So you're determined to start shooting with off-camera flash. You've got a stand, umbrella bracket and some pocket wizards. Great start. Now you need some modifiers.

Umbrellas are a great place to start, but eventually you're going to need a softbox. Why? Because - especially when shooting indoors - you want a large light source that is directional. Shooting indoors with an umbrella, unless you're in a very large room, will result in lots of light spilling all over the place. To control the light better you'll need a softbox.

Which softbox to get?  If you're shooting with speedlights, there's pretty much one softbox of choice:  the Westcott Apollo.

The Westcott Apollo is a softbox that is mounted on an umbrella shaft. That's important, because it means (1) near instant setup and (2) you don't need speedrings or adapters - just mount the softbox to your umbrella clip and you're good to go.

You can find the 28" softbox here and the 16" softbox here. B&H sells them in various kit configurations, some including stands, umbrella mounts, etc. It'll be the best 100 bucks or so you've ever spent.

I have the 28" version.

I used this softbox for this quick snap of Shinji, one of my one-on-one lighting students.

Chris is an up and coming guitarist who needed some publicity stills.

These are a bit more processed than you're used to seeing from me, but I based my processing on what I believe my client was trying to achieve.

Gear for this shoot was very simple, a single 5D body and two lenses, my 35mm f1.4L and 85mm EFS 1.8.  I used my Lumopro flash with a shoot-thru umbrella on maybe half the shots with just natural light on the other half.

By the way, the Canon 85mm 1.8 is a great lens. It's sharp wide open, focuses twice as fast, and is 1/4 the price of the 85mm f1.2L.  

(1)  85mm, ISO 100, f1.8, 1/1250 sec, no flash.  It was a very bright sunny day. This image was taken about 10:30am. I used full shade for this shot. B&W conversion was done using TRA2 "Brooklyn" action. I added grain in Photoshop using the noise filter.

(2) 85mm, ISO 100, f8, 1/200 sec, flash camera right at about 1/2 power. Even though it was late morning I was trying to simulate night with this shot. B&W conversion in Lightroom. Grain added in Photoshop.

(3) 85mm, ISO 100, f1.8, 1/1600 sec, direct backlit sun at about 11:00am, no exposure compensation, no flash, TRA2 "Lux soft" at about 50%. A tight headshot with a telephoto lens shot wide open with backlight is an easy setup to create and always looks great.

(4)  35mm, ISO 100, f11, 1/200 sec, flash w/shoot-thru umbrella camera right. I underexposed the ambient light by close to 3 stops then set the exposure on Chris by adjusting flash power. Desaturated in Lightroom. The structure behind Chris is a crane for off-loading railway cars. I took this shot lying on my back to get it in view.

Laurence Kim Workshops

"Building a Profitable Portrait Business" Feb 27, Seattle WA: 1 seat left

"Location Lighting 101" March 20, Vancouver BC: seats available

What is the LumoPro LP120?  It's a basic, no-frills manual flash that's great for off-camera flash work.  Oh yeah, it costs $130 from MPEX.com.

No stinkin' TTL, ETTL, or whatever. Just one manual control - a switch that controls the flash power. That's it.

On the back you can see that the power setting is really simple. No LCD. No menus. Just flick the switch from 1/32 to full power.

Aside from it's simplicity, the other thing that makes this thing great for off-camera work is that it has a pc outlet and comes with a small cord that will hook this puppy up directly to a Pocket Wizard.

I'm not a real camera gear tester, so I didn't scientifically test the power. However, on a real quick test I find it to be about as powerful as my 580EXII.

Build quality is not as robust as a Canon or Nikon flash, but what do you want for $130?

So should I get one?

For on-camera flash, you'll need your Nikon/Cannon speedlight. If you want to get into off-camera flash, then get the LumoPro.  Why buy a Canon or Nikon flash for $450 when you can buy one that does the same thing, is much easier to use, and is 1/3 the price?  

Laurence Kim Workshops

Building a Profitable Portrait Business, Seattle, Feb. 27: one seat left

Location Lighting 101, Vancouver BC, March 20