Online portrait workshop between photo and painting and portrait retouching

Description

Preamble:
This workshop, entirely dedicated to portraiture, will enable you to discover numerous retouching techniques. Whether you're looking for a natural rendering of the skin, a highly softened style or a painting effect, you'll discover how to achieve the results you want in Photoshop.
These 2 courses will also teach you how to make complex selections. This is often the case in portraiture, when small elements such as hair need to be cropped.
At the end of this workshop, you'll have learned to use a wide range of tools and techniques, enabling you to work easily with portrait retouching, and give your images an artistic style.

Workshop content :

Portrait between photo and painting :
(Sunday, March 19, 2023)

This style of portraiture is commonly referred to as "Fine Art", or "painterly portrait effect" for the technical designation.
This course will teach you how to create this style of image, and achieve visual renderings somewhere between photography and painting . You can see some examples under the course thumbnail (click on images to enlarge). Atmosphere, colors, backgrounds and luminosity create a whole that is characteristic of this style of image.

Prerequisites:
This course is aimed at users with a good knowledge of Photoshop (intermediate level).
Mastery of blend masks and dynamic objects is required to follow the course easily.
With regard to selections, the technique (which will be just about the only one required here) for separating the subject from the background will be an integral part of the course, and will be explained in detail.

Course content :

• Introducing this image style:
  We'll take a look at the characteristics regularly found in these images.
• Shooting:
  Although we start from a file that will be supplied to you, the shot used as a starting point for this style of image also has its own characteristics. These will be explained.
• Trimming the subject:
  This is the essential technical point I mentioned earlier. In this course, you'll learn how to precisely crop the subject. The idea is to place a new background behind the portrait. Selecting a character is usually a complex job, because of the small elements such as hair.
  The technique explained here will be clipping using layers, and working on an alpha layer (also known in this case as a separation mask).
  There are several methods for creating layers as a basis for preparation work. These are described in detail below.
• Contour enhancement :
  Trimming often requires fine-tuning. You'll learn about the different techniques available to achieve a precise result.
• Paint effect :
  Several effects will be studied. Insofar as these are intended to be subtle, and to remain somewhere between photography and painting, they will be applied in a localized manner, using different techniques.
• Atmosphere:
  This is a very important point. As you can see from the examples, the mood of these images is always very special.
  Once all the elements are in place in the image, the next step is to create the mood. Several techniques and tools will be studied.
• Final rendering :
  Once the result has been obtained, you'll study the possible variations. An image is always a reflection of its own sensitivity. We all have our own, which is why we'll end the course on this subject.

Software :
for this course, in addition to Adobe Photoshop, the Nik Collection suite must be installed on your computer.
If you don't have it, you can find a trial version, or buy a license on the DxO website.

Working files :
The images (1 portrait file and 1 texture file) will be supplied just before the start of the course (sent by WeTransfer).
If you wish to work with your own images, you can let me know in advance. Provided they meet the standards required for the course's technical needs, we'll be able to use them during the course.

Portrait retouching :
(Sunday, March 26, 2023):

This course will teach you portrait retouching techniques.

After a presentation of beauty retouching and its specificities, the following points will be studied:

• Correction tools commonly used in portrait retouching
• skin softening (2 techniques with different approaches will be presented)
• Work on colorimetry (skin color)
• Highlighting the eyes
• digital make-up
• Using the fluidity filter
• Trimming the subject using the alpha layer technique
• Improved trimming
• Tips and tricks will be presented during the course

Questions / Answers :
During the various stages of the 2 workshops, questions may be asked.
A 30-minute question and answer session will be held at the end of each workshop.

Workshop schedule:
This workshop will be held online (via the Internet), and live. The ZOOM videoconferencing application will be used. Connection is just a few clicks away. You don't need to create an account or subscribe to Zoom to take part in the workshop. An invitation link will be sent to you by e-mail before each session. You will then simply be asked to download the application, in order to get access to the user interface. It's very easy to learn. Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Video summary:
This workshop is accompanied by a video summary for each session.
It is recorded live during the workshop.
The video will be sent to you in MP4 format, via WeTransfer, after each session.

Work files :
The image files used during the 2 sessions will be sent at the same time as the videos.