How to Make Perfect Lip Lines In Photoshop

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Hi.  Welcome to my blog.  Today it is perfect lip line day.  When you are working with large prints, you see every detail. Lipstick, for example, will smudge and make it’s way over the edge of the lip.  Well, today I am going to show you a quick way to deal with this problem.

Remember there are many ways to do anything in Photoshop and in the video below, I show you one way to fix this problem.  Also, if you do not prefer an exacting straight line at the edge of the lip, forego the shift click to make a straight line.  Consider doing the same exact method as described in the video, but only free hand it. If you decide to make a free hand lip line it will still look much better than the smudges and cracks where the lipstick has migrated to.

Additionally, I want you to remember that there is no substitute for a great Make Up Artist (MUA).  If you are shooting and see there is somthing wrong, such as a smudge, stop the shoot and have the MUA fix it real quickly.  This single retouch on makeup will save hours of digital retouching.  So find a good MUA and use them as much as possible.  It will make your life easier, after the shoot.

Thanks for taking time to visit my blog. If you have any questions for comments, please don’t hesitate to ask them below.  Have a wonderful day.  Thomas Shue

Lightroom Tutorial Series. An Integrated Workflow Using Luminosity Masks. pt. 2

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Welcome to my blog.  Today, I will be sharing the part two video of the Lightroom tutorial (video). In part one, we did a basic image process in Lightroom, then handing off the file to Photoshop where I created a luminosity mask.  In this video, I show you how I use the luminosity mask to selectively apply sharpening only to the areas of the images that I want sharpened.

Notes on Sharpening.
When you apply sharpening to an image globally (the entire image) you can create all sorts of nasty artifacts. These artifacts will really show up in the sky or any other smooth area where there isn’t much texture present. So I try to only apply sharpening to the edge detail. With that said, there are two main types of selections when working with luminosity masks.  The first is a surface selection and you would use that to selectively apply, noise reduction, for example.  In our case, we are going to be using the second type of selection, an edge selection.

So, take a few minutes and watch part two. Please note I made the video at 3am, after a very long day making pictures. I am sorry if I seemed a little out of it. I hope you all learn something and you can use this information to help your photography. Have a great day.  Thomas Shue

Luminosity Masks = Serious Control In Post.

I have been studying a lot about post working images in the last few weeks. In particular a lot of things related to Lightroom, however my research involves Photoshop as well. During my studys, I ran into a some topics that I have dodged in the past because of the amount of post work involved boarders insanity at first glance. The term I have been dodging is “Luminosity Mask”, basically it is a mask based on varying luminance levels of an image. A mask is simple, anything in white reveals and anything in black conceals, however there is more, much more.

Imagine being able to select parts of an image that are all the same luminance (brightness) and make several selections so that the entire range from black to white is part of an individual group. Now think of each group as a mask. Now have full control of an image to make targeted adjustments, but only to only the selected group. For example lets say you make a picture outside on a sunny day, the sky is blown out, but you can still see most the clouds. Using Luminosity Masks you can now save this image with ease. Select only the bright sky and bring down the exposure. In the past you had to go in and use some sort of tool to make a selection but always there is always a problem when you have to deal with other objects in the scene.

A Luminosity Mask targets a light values (0-255) so you dont need to use the lasso tool or marquee section tool, a paint brush or anything else to select the area you want to change. This means you can make exact selections with no gaps and this means no halos, or jaggies or any other artifact caused from a poor selection.

The coolest thing about the Luminosity Masks is you can run them as an action, so its a one click deal. You can buy actions or make your own. I have created a Luminosity Mask Action for all of you and it is free. All you have to do is ask for it, and not distribute it to anyone. If you know someone that might want this action, please have them come here and get their own, they too can ask for it. Heck it’s a free gift from me to you. Below is a short video, (well kind of short;) to show you what I am talking about, and briefly show you how to use it.

Thanks for taking time to visit my blog, Thomas Shue

PS. Sorry for the long video. I am trying hard to get better at making videos. I think I am getting better every time I do one ;P

Please watch it to the end to see the best explanation of the Control you can get using my action, Enjoy