It’s before and after photo editing time once again. For this B + A, we’ll look at a newborn image. When shooting this shot, I knew I was going to blacken out the background blanket, leaving the focus completely on the baby. Two of the best ways to accomplish burning out the background are to either do a duplicate layer set to multiply to darken and mask it off the baby OR pull down the mid-tones and shadows in curves and again mask it off the baby. Then, to really get all the areas of the blanket black, duplicate the background again and burn the mid-tones and shadows with the burn tool. You can add a layer mask to the burn layer to mask off any darkening that spreads onto the baby due to using a soft brush with overspray.
EXIF: 50mm 1.2 lens • 1/200 • f/4.5 • ISO 400
SOOC Image
The second image shows just the darkening of the background blanket as described above, plus fixes to the skin and luminosity changes with curves.
Going a step further, I added a funky texture to the background to create an artistic feel and add more of a surreal look. Play around with the blending modes when adding textures, as you never know what you’ll get with a lesser used blending mode. One of the very best places I’ve discovered for FREE textures that ROCK is Shadowhouse Creations. Jerry Jones is the incredibly talented and generous creator behind a slew of awesome textures. You must check out his site and if you do download his textures, LEAVE HIM A COMMENT thanking him. Generous souls like him are few and far between and he deserves to be thanked. Hope you’ve enjoyed this before and after. Cheers!
