How To: Airbrush In Photoshop CS6

Probably a slightly controversial thing to write about, as there will probably end up being some people who will be all "you airbrush all your photos", "you're fake". But do you know what? I don't airbrush my photos, but it is a useful skill that can be used to edit photos that aren't necessarily portraits or selfies. Whilst doing A-Level photography, which seems a whole lifetime ago (but in reality was only a few years ago), knowing how to airbrush seemed invaluable. My portraits looked more professional, still life shots looked sleek, and I used the technique on pretty much every photo I took as part of my exhibitions. Now there are quite literally millions of ways to airbrush a photo, but one of the main reasons I prefer this particular technique is for the sheer simplicity of it (alongside the results it gives obvs). It's sort of like boom, boom, boom and you're done. And on that note, I'll get on with showing you how to do it...

For this little tutorial, I'm using one of my own photos as I know my friend won't mind me plastering her face on the internet as she is completely used to it. So once you have selected your photo and opened it up in Adobe Photoshop, we can begin. Now one of the first things I always recommend doing whenever you're editing a photo, is to duplicate the layer. Essentially this means if anything goes wrong, you can delete the duplicate layer and you're left with where you started. The more layers you have the better, as you are able to delete specific sections of your editing process. To do this you simply hit Ctrl + J on your keyboard (CMD + J on a Mac), and Photoshop has done it for you. If for some strange reason this doesn't work just go to Layer > Duplicate Layer, and just hit ok when a box pops up. 

Working on the new duplicate layer you want to change the layer blend mode to 'Overlay'. To do this you look on the right side of the screen, and you'll see a drop down box. At the moment 'Normal' will be selected, but to change the blend mode just click on 'Overlay'. Now when it has changed, you'll be like 'woah, why does my image look so orangey and dark' - DON'T WORRY! This is completely normal and it won't look like this for long! You then want to invert the layer, which is very important so don't forget!

Next you want to add a High Pass filter over the top. This makes your photo look quite blurry so that the skin still looks natural when you have airbrushed your photo. To do this you go to Filter > Other > High Pass, and when a window pops up asking you to adjust the pixel radius using a slider, you want to set it to 10 pixels. The pixel radius is usually set at 10 anyway, but if not just drag the slider along.

Similar to the last step, you want to go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. When the window pops up asking you to set the pixel radius. Set the slider to a radius of 3 pixels. Any more and your photo will look too fake, and if set any less the airbrush will be too sheer, and you will have completely wasted your time. Now you need to add a layer mask, which seems a bit stupid considering you've done all this work. But what this does is allow you to airbrush the parts of your image that you want to work with - rather than the whole thing. To do this you simply hold down the ALT key on your keyboard, and click the 'Add A Mask' button on the bottom right section of your screen. It will look like a rectangle with a smaller circle inside, if you can't see from my screenshot.

You're all thinking "this technique is meant to be teaching me how to airbrush, so when are we going to get to using an actual brush", well now it's time to do just that. Hit B on your keyboard, or select the brush tool from the toolbox, and select the preset 'Airbrush Soft Round 50% Flow' brush. Once you have selected your brush, the most important thing I need to tell you is not to click off the tool or swap layers or do anything until you are happy with your image, as otherwise you will have to repeat the whole process again. With the brush you want to simply brush over the areas of the image that you would like to airbrush. For example, if you are doing a face, you want to brush over the forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, etc. - but you need to avoid any natural lines and markings such as dimples and the contours of your nose otherwise your image will look flat and unnatural.

And you're done! I told you it was easy!

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Is Multi-Priming A Thing?

We've all heard of multi-masking, the phenomenon that hit the blogging community over 2015 and became popular with beauty mavens from all over the world. But has anyone ever tried multi-priming - the process of applying different primers to different areas of the face? I'm pretty sure I've made this up (yay for originality), but I do it on the regular as my combination skin means that different parts need specific attention. There is a primer for pretty much any skin concern whether it be for lines, blurring pores, mattifying, hydrating, smoothing - there are so many products available that can help you achieve your desired look.

I've never really given it much thought or questioned my actions as it is something that I do naturally. A mattifying primer down the T-Zone, a blurring primer around my chin and blemish prone areas, and a tinted primer for around the eye area to cover any signs of dark circles or late nights. There is no explicit rule that you can't apply multiple primers, and if truth be told I actually find my makeup looks and lasts much better when I make the effort to mix and layer a concoction of different priming potions. My favourite primers to mix/layer up currently are the Benefit Porefessional, The Body Shop Tea Tree Mattifying Primer, and the Benefit Puff Off eye primer. 

Have you ever tried multi-priming, or will you be trying it out now?

Thanks for reading!

Love Charlotte x

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How I Take My Blog Photos

A while ago I shared with you how I edit my blog post photos, and since then I've had a couple of requests to share how I take my photos in the first place! Logically it would have made sense to write them the other way round, but it's good to be different - right? First of all, I use the Nikon D3100 with a standard 18-50mm lens. It's a fairly cheap camera and there are certainly better ones out there (at a much higher cost), but this has served me well and I'm extremely familiar with all the settings and features. I could probably take a photo with my eyes shut! Just so you know, it doesn't really matter which camera body you get as long as you get one with a standard size lens mount so you can get lots of different lenses to build up your camera kit. 

Timing. I tend to take my photos mid-morning or in the afternoon after the midday sun has started to lower in the sky. As I only use natural light for my photos, I've found that these are the best times to get well lit photos with minimal shadows. I never use flash and I urge you never to do so either. It creates glare and can ruin your photos! When taking my photos, I place whatever objects I'm taking in a well lit location onto of a self made backdrop (large sheets of thick paper) to keep my images looking bright and crisp. 

I shoot on manual. I always shoot on manual. I've shot like this for a while, as a professional photographer once advised me to do so and I've never looked back since! Shooting on manual allows you to adjust all of the settings on your camera to suit the lighting conditions at a time! I usually set my ISO to 100 and if the lighting isn't so great I go up to 200 - but never higher than that! If you shoot using high ISOs, you come out with a super grainy photo, so unless you're a concert photographer or are aiming for that effect - stick to a low setting! Shutter speed and aperture are probably the most important settings when it comes to taking any photo. You want to aim to have a shutter speed of around 1/125 to keep your photos completely in focus. This means that the shutter opened and closes pretty quickly, leaving you with lovely crisp images. Adjusting the aperture on your camera, adjusts how sensitive the sensor is to light. A low aperture, lets lots of light into the camera and a high aperture leaves out the light and gives you dark images. It helps to think about it as a 24 hour clock. At 9.00 (e.g low aperture of f/6.3), it is light and bright and at 21:00 (e.g hight aperture of f/22) it is pitch black dark! 

I take my images in a JPEG+Raw file format. Saving a 'Raw' file helps in that if you completely mess up with your camera settings, but have taken a well composed image - you can go into Photoshop (and some other editing programs) and change your camera settings HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! You can essentially go back in time and alter how you shot your photos! MAGIC! 

Manual focus. As well as shooting on a manual setting, it is also important to focus your DSLR manually. Although it takes more time and effort - the results can often be so much better! You can play around with the focus to add depth to your photos, it always looks nice to have some bits out of focus on purpose. 

I hope this post has helped some of you! If there's anything that you feel I haven't covered - please let me know and I'll get back to you or if there's a lot of topics to cover I'll include them in another blog post! Oh and if you have any tips of your own, feel free to share them in the comments to help each other out!

Thanks for reading!

Love Charlotte x

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