INTRODUCTION
This tutorial is for beginner- to intermediate-level photographers wishing to boost the appearance of their portraits and polish their images of people with blemish removal, gentle skin smoothing and adjustments to contrast, brightness and colour.
It isn’t essential to use every single step laid out in the tutorial. You may wish to simply smooth skin or make contrast or colour adjustments – this is fine, and your use of editing tools should be tailored to each image you create.
The suggestions and instructions in this tutorial are not intended for full commercial, fashion or advertising-style image editing and do not include information about major face and body alteration, complex retouching or changing backgrounds in photographs.
The image editing software used in this tutorial is called Pixlr, a free online service which works in your web browser through your internet connection, meaning that you do not need to purchase or download any software. The steps described in the tutorial can be applied to most image editing software, including Photoshop and Paint.net, and the majority of tools and functions appear in other programmes too.
CONTENTS
- Starting Pixlr
- Blemish removal
- Skin smoothing
- Brightness and contrast alteration
- Colour alteration
- Cropping and resizing
- Saving your work
STARTING PIXLR
First of all, go to http://www.pixlr.com and click on the Open Photo Editor link.
Click on Open image from computer
Now select the image that you’d like to work on and it will appear in the Pixlr window.
When editing an image, it’s best to zoom in as close as you can so that you can see all the details and changes as you work. To do this, click on the Magnifying Glass icon and then click on the part of the image you’re going to work on.
You may want to enlarge the image on your screen to fit the entire Pixlr window. To do this, click on the square shown in the image above.
To zoom back out, simply hold down the Shift key and click the magnifying glass again on any part of the image (the magnifying glass cursor will now have a – in it instead of a +). You can shrink the image on your screen by clicking the square at the top right of the window again.
When making adjustments to an image, it is always worth creating a new layer to work on so that your original photograph is always untouched. To create a duplicate of the original photo in a new layer, simply right-click on Background in the Layers palette and then select Duplicate Layer.
BLEMISH REMOVAL
As our model has delightfully blemish-free skin, we’re going to remove her nose piercing. To do this, use the Clone Stamp tool.
Click on the Brush link at the top of the window and select a suitable size of brush. You can edit the Diamater (size) of the brush and the Hardness (lower hardness means softer edges) in the window that appears. Work with a large, soft brush for the most natural effect.
You may wish to lower the Opacity of the brush so that you can work gradually at covering blemishes, especially if you’re just starting out with image editing.
Now, choose an blemish- or obstruction-free area near to the part that you wish to correct and hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard to select this area to use as the Clone Stamp.
Simply ‘stamp’ over the thing you wish to remove until it vanishes.
SKIN SMOOTHING
To smooth the skin, make another Duplicate Layer (this time duplicate Background Copy), open the Filters menu and select Gaussian Blur.
Set your Gaussian Blur to 150. You can play with alternative levels as you work with new images – it makes perfect sense for different levels to work with different pictures, depending on the desired effect and the original image.
The Gaussian Blur will now be applied to the entire image and the effect will probably be too strong. The first thing to do now is to reduce the opacity of the layer that the Gaussian Blur is on. Click on the Toggle Layer Settings button in the Layers palette (ensuring that the correct layer is selected) and then set Opacity to 50%.
At this point, it might be helpful to name your layers according to what they are so it’ll be easier to work with them if you have to change their order. To do this, just double-click on the layer name and type a new one.
Now, grab your Background Copy layer (the one you did the blemish removal on) and drag into on top of the Gaussian Blur layer. Then click the Add Layer Mask button (the white rectangle with a grey circle in the middle) at the bottom of the Layers palette to add a Layer Mask to the Background Copy layer. You’ll see a Layer Mask symbol appear on the layer.
To remove the blur effect from the areas of the image that you wish to stay sharp (usually everything apart from the skin), use the Paint Brush tool and paint over the desired areas, keeping them sharp while the skin remains smooth. It’s best to work zoomed in with a small, soft brush to do this. Click on the Brush in the Tools Palette and change it’s shape and size as you did with the Clone Stamp.
You can adjust the size of the brush as necessary while you work – some areas will require a smaller brush and some will be easy to work on with a larger brush. You can also zoom into or out from your image to allow you to work on different areas.
Remember if you do something wrong, you can remove the action by clicking the step in the History palette. You’ll notice that the erroneous step(s) will be greyed out and will vanish as you get back to working on the image.
Once you’re satisfied with your image up to this point, you can Flatten it before beginning any more work. Flattening an image combines all the layers you’ve used. To do this, open the Layer menu and select Flatten Image.
BRIGHTNESS AND CONTRAST ALTERATION
First of all, duplicate your Background layer and call your new layer Brightness and Contrast. Then, to make changes to the brightness and contrast of your image, open the Adjustment menu and select Brightness & Contrast.
Now, adjust the brightness and contrast by moving the sliders in the window the appears, then click OK.
COLOUR ALTERATION
Duplicate your Brightness and Contrast layer and call it Colour. To edit the colours of your image, open the Adjustment menu and select Colour Balance.
Change the colours by moving the sliders. You can create quite striking effects using this tool, so work gradually and carefully, keeping in mind the result you want. Click OK when you’re finished to save your changes.
Now, flatten your image again.
CROPPING AND RESIZING
There is a lot to consider when cropping or resizing your work. If you want to print your picture, you’ll need to know what pixel dimensions are required for your print. If you aren’t sure about this, the website for the printing service you use should have a list of pixel dimensions for each print size. For the purpose of this tutorial, we’re going to resize our image for posting on the web.
First of all, click on the Crop tool in the Tools Palette.
Click on the Constraint drop-down and select Output size. Then type in the pixel dimensions for Width and Height. We’re going to use 500px x 750 px.
Now, drag the Crop area over the whole image to resize it, or your chosen part of it if you want to crop part of it out.
SAVING YOUR WORK
To save your finished image, open the File menu and select Save.
Type in a name for your image (use a different name from your original so you don’t save over it) and select your format (JPG is fine for posting pictures online and using online printing services).
For images that you plan to email or use online, a Quality setting of 80 is fine. It keeps the file size small without much loss of detail. For print, always ensure that you save your image at the highest setting possible. When you’re happy with your Save settings, click OK and follow the prompts to save the image on your computer.
