Photo Editing Tutorial

I have several friends getting into photography and photo editing and just getting into using photoshop as well. So because of that i thought it much easier to make a step by step tutorial for editing a picture. Im gonna make this simple as possible.

This tutorial does not deal with drawing hair and any super difficult details. 


THE SNAPSHOT

You want your in world snapshot to be taken against a solid background. For this tutorial im just gonna suggest using either black or white because we wont be going into cutting out the avatar and pasting it onto any sort of scene for this.

So hop on your pose stand and set graphics as high as you can ( no shadows for this). Keep draw distance at a minimum to reduce lag. Also lower the slider for trees, sky, particles, and physics. None of those are needed for this.

Hit the snapshot button but do not save just yet. You will need to change the dimensions of your snapshot in order get a high resolution and high quality image to work with. So set it to 6000 X 3154 and save as png not jpg ( jpg will leave jagged edges).

                                                       (example snapshot)

BRUSHES
There are some basic brushes you should have for editing purposes that will always come in handy. You can find them on many different websites,but deviant art is probably your easiest way to go for locating them.

* Hair brushes
* skin brushes
* texture brushes

To install brushes  to:
My computer-Program Files, Adobe cs6-Presets-Brushes



EDITING

The editing program i use is Photoshop cs6. You can use others but i dont have a tutorial for those.

Steps

* File-Open ( now locate the image you want to edit)

* Crop (crop button image below) You hit this button then on the image just drag the sides and the top and bottom to where you want it, then at the top of your screen where it says Image choose the option where it says Crop ( all others will be greyed out)

* Create a new layer. To do this at the top of your screen go to Layer, then New, then click layer . This ads a new transparent layer over your image.

* adding texture and design. You want to do this work to the background before you start on the avatar itself because if you plan to add hair strands and such you dont want the background pattern to be covering it. Now select a brush

                                                     Now at the top of your screen under the words File and Edit you will see this . This is where you select the style of brush you want to use. All of your custom installed brushes will be here too.

*For this tutorial im just gonna select some simple grunge brushes to use. Adjust the size if needed
Now just stamp the brushes where you want the pattern

* after that you may need to adjust the layer opacity.Click on the layer you just added the design to, then where it says Opacity and has that little box with 100%,, click that to adjust .Now merge down by Right clicking your layer then click Merge Down.

SIMPLE ADJUSTMENTS

Before getting into other ad on adjustments you should do some simple brightness and contrast adjusting.Go to the top of your screen where it says Image, then Adjustments, then Brightness/Contrast. 

Now, dont over do it or it can look over saturated or washed out.

The image below is an example of your improved Brightness/Contrast

SKIN

Want to make some improvements to the skin? Its fairly simple. Create a new layer. Select a simple round brush. Resize it so its fairly small but large enough to paint areas of the face ext.

Now is a good time to zoom into the image to be able to get details. Go to the top on your screen where it says View. Click that then click zoom in.


Now use the eyedropper tool to select the darkest shaded area of your skin.( just click this tool then click on a dark shaded area)

 

Now  right click on your new layer and click Blending Options

This box will come up.

 

Now click the area towards the top where it says Blend Mode. From that drop down menu

click Multiply. Now click ok to close the box.

Multiply is a good way to add shading to the skin, you can adjust the layer opacity after you draw the shading on to make it more subtle.

Here are some samples of areas where you can draw extra shading.

It will not look this way when we are finished. The line doesnt have to be perfect so dont worry.

Now to blend and smooth this go to the top of your screen where it says Filter, click that, then click Blur, then Gaussian Blur. You want to adjust the Gaussian blur slowly to be sure you dont over blur.

At around 20 It should look something similar to this.

If you choose you can make your brush tons smaller and go over areas like around the mouth and nostrils to add more shading.

HIGHLIGHTS

To add skin highlighting is fairly simple and can make all the difference.

Create a new layer. Set the Blend Mode option to Soft Light.

Now with a simple round brush set to fairly small in size draw over areas of the skin where highlighting would naturally occur.

Now use the Gaussian blur on this layer as well. You may go over certain areas multiple times to layer the highlighting more.

 Sample image after layering and Gaussian blur.

EXTRA HIGHLIGHTS

Those pretty little extra highlights added to areas such as the chin, the boobs, outer areas of the body, and hair.

First you want to be sure your brush size is fairly tiny ( 8-12)

Select your color option to white.

Also you want to click this button here between the Opacity and Flow areas. ( the circle) and the one on the other side of Flow ( similar button).

Now select  Pen Tool

Create a new layer.

Now start clicking around your chin in the area the highlighting will be located

 

Now with Pen tool still selected right click on the area you just selected with the pen.Click Stroke Path. A little box will appear. Be sure to check the simulate pressure option on this.

Now click on OK

It will look something like this.

To smooth the line a bit, use the Smudge Tool. 

 

Now you dont want the smudge strength set too high so  at the top of your screen where it says Strength, adjust it to 15-20.

Adjust the size of the smudge brush to around 120 ( dime size)

Now smooth any edges of the highlighting.

After you finish with that you will need to adjust the Blend Mode of the layer. Try Hard Light. If more subtle light is desired then lower the layer opacity a little.

End result:

Now you may add these highlights to other areas, such as the nose, the outer areas of the lips, boobs, arms and legs.

End result Example

End result after added highlights to the hair and body ( same way as above)

 

SPECIAL EFFECTS AND STUFF

for a little extra something to your photo. Try adding special effects, like bokeh or lights.

You can find bokeh brushes on deviant art.

Create a new layer. Select your Bokeh brush.Adjust the size so the dots are not too huge. Now paint them in random areas around your avatar.

You may leave it as is, or play with the layer opacity. I readjusted my own  much lower.

Lighting Effects

You can use brushes for this, or use the photoshop filters.

Go to the top of your screen to Filter, Render, Lighting Effects. Now play around with the settings to get the lighting you like.

End result