Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies, Second Edition

Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies, Second Edition

Released August 2010
Publisher(s): Sybex
ISBN: 9780470592120

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Book description

Revised and thoroughly updated, this practical guide to photographing people is better than ever!

What is the color of skin? You may think you know, until you enter the world of digital photography and try to reproduce what you see. Differences in software, lighting, computer calibration—everything has an impact on color. And that's all before you get into differences between people in terms of skin types, ethnicities, age, gender, and more! Hollywood-based photo-illustrator Lee Varis guides you step-by-step through the maze.

This new edition covers the very newest trends and techniques in photographing, lighting, and editing skin—and offers plenty of tips, examples, and valuable advice from the author's own professional experience in the field.

  • Shows you how to digitally capture all skin types: male, female, young, old, different skin tones and ethnicities, with makeup or without, wrinkled, tattooed, and more

  • Covers a wealth of topics in addition to photo editing, such as how to obtain model releases and compose shots, how to shoot groups, and how to create promotional headshots

  • Incorporates the latest on working with Photoshop and Lightroom

  • Showcases exceptional work from a variety of photographers and artists

If you're photographing people, you'll want this valuable and unique guide on your shelf.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
  2. Dear Reader,
  3. Acknowledgments
  4. About the Author
  5. Foreword
  6. Introduction
    1. Who Should Buy This Book
    2. What's Inside
    3. The Companion Website
    4. How to Contact the Author
  7. 1. Digital Imaging Basics, Workflow, and Calibration
    1. 1.1. Chips and Pixels
    2. 1.2. Your Monitor and Calibrator
    3. 1.3. Basic Digital Capture Workflow
      1. 1.3.1. Setting Up a Lightroom Catalog
      2. 1.3.2. Calibrating for Digital Capture
        1. 1.3.2.1. Establishing Lighting
        2. 1.3.2.2. Shooting to Bracket the Exposure Range
        3. 1.3.2.3. Importing Shots and Evaluating Exposure
        4. 1.3.2.4. Building a Camera Calibration
        5. 1.3.2.5. DNG Profile Editor
        6. 1.3.2.6. X-Rite ColorChecker Passport
      3. 1.3.3. Using Camera Profiles
        1. 1.3.3.1. In Lightroom
        2. 1.3.3.2. In Adobe Camera Raw
      4. 1.3.4. Editing Camera Profiles for Better Skin Color
      5. 1.3.5. Working with Your Calibration
      6. 1.3.6. Calibration Review
      7. 1.3.7. Testing Procedure Overview
    4. 1.4. Putting Color Management in Context
  8. 2. Lighting and Photographing People
    1. 2.1. Lighting Technology
    2. 2.2. Basic Portrait Lighting
      1. 2.2.1. Beauty Light Variations for Dark-Skinned Subjects
      2. 2.2.2. Rembrandt Lighting
      3. 2.2.3. Natural Light
      4. 2.2.4. On-Camera Flash
      5. 2.2.5. Breaking the Rules
    3. 2.3. Advanced Lighting Techniques
      1. 2.3.1. Ring Light
      2. 2.3.2. Combination Lighting: Daylight Plus Flash
      3. 2.3.3. Controlling Natural Light
      4. 2.3.4. Action Stopping Lighting
    4. 2.4. Experimenting with Light
  9. 3. The Color of Skin
    1. 3.1. White Points, Black Points, and Places In-Between
    2. 3.2. Zone System: Contrast and Tone
    3. 3.3. Neutral Color: Using Balanced Numbers
      1. 3.3.1. Curves: The Basic Color and Tone Tool
      2. 3.3.2. Contrast Control: The Basic Curve Shapes
      3. 3.3.3. Info Panel: Reading Basic Numbers
    4. 3.4. White/Black Point Correction
    5. 3.5. Adjusting the Numbers for the Color of Skin
    6. 3.6. The Family of Man: Cultural and Psychological Issues
    7. 3.7. Cultural and Personal Color Bias
  10. 4. Tone and Contrast: Color and B+W
    1. 4.1. Converting to B+W
      1. 4.1.1. The Channel Mixer
    2. 4.2. Split Channels: Layer Blending
    3. 4.3. Luminosity Blending
      1. 4.3.1. Instant Tan
      2. 4.3.2. When Color Overwhelms: Look for the Good Channel
    4. 4.4. Hue/Saturation Toning Effects
      1. 4.4.1. Split-Toning
      2. 4.4.2. Gradient Map Colorizing
    5. 4.5. The Power of B+W
  11. 5. Retouching
    1. 5.1. Basic Image Repair
    2. 5.2. Hue/Saturation Color Repair
      1. 5.2.1. Skin Smoothing
    3. 5.3. Beauty Retouching
    4. 5.4. Subtle Retouching
    5. 5.5. Figure Thinning Techniques
  12. 6. Special Effects
    1. 6.1. Soft Focus
      1. 6.1.1. Basic Diffusion Effect
      2. 6.1.2. Screen Diffusion
      3. 6.1.3. Multiply Diffusion
      4. 6.1.4. Overlay Diffusion
      5. 6.1.5. Depth of Field Effects
      6. 6.1.6. Lens Tilt Effect
    2. 6.2. Film Grain and Noise
    3. 6.3. Cross-Processing
    4. 6.4. Grunge
    5. 6.5. Tattoos
      1. 6.5.1. Enhancing Existing Tattoos
      2. 6.5.2. Faking Tattoos
    6. 6.6. Final Notes
  13. 7. Preparing for Print
    1. 7.1. Sharpening
      1. 7.1.1. Unsharp Mask
      2. 7.1.2. Smart Sharpen
      3. 7.1.3. Multiple Sharpening Layers
      4. 7.1.4. Octave Sharpening
        1. 7.1.4.1. Creating the Ramped Halos
        2. 7.1.4.2. Masking Multiple Layers for Sharpening
      5. 7.1.5. Overlay Sharpening and High-Radius Effects
    2. 7.2. Color Management for Print
      1. 7.2.1. Translating from RGB to CMYK
      2. 7.2.2. Profiles and Look-Up Tables
    3. 7.3. Soft Proofing
    4. 7.4. Desktop Printing
      1. 7.4.1. Print Options
      2. 7.4.2. Output Simulations
    5. 7.5. Creative Print Finishing
      1. 7.5.1. Background and Canvas Options
      2. 7.5.2. Edge Treatments
      3. 7.5.3. Last Minute Fixes
  14. 8. Parting Shots
    1. 8.1. The Creative Workflow
    2. 8.2. Future Developments

Product information

  • Title: Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies, Second Edition
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: August 2010
  • Publisher(s): Sybex
  • ISBN: 9780470592120