PhotoShop 101 Part 1 - for the Makeup Artist

credits: all photos by Andrew Matusik, makeup by Joanna Schlip, Joann Gair, Sharon Gault, and Melanie Randolph.

Digital technology has brought the photo lab to the personal computer.  Photographers are now able to shoot and process images without ever going to a photo lab.  This increased flexibility is accompanied with increased complexity.  However, with this complexity we gain substantial creative options.

The Makeup Artist dilemma…

The photographer usually provides the artist with a print from the shoot.  These images are usually the photographer’s pick, their crop… their retouching.  Thanks to digital imagery, photographers are able to now provide makeup artist with a disk of many images and choices.  It is safe to say, the photographer does not have time nor want to spend the money on retouching the individual shots specifically for each contributors personal needs or taste. So it is now common for the photographer to at least provide the contributing artist images on a disk that they have requested.  The only problem, now what do you do?  When left to print and retouch on your own you are left finding a lab that will overcharge you or the whim of a “tech” friend… who you hope can print your images.

The reality of the matter is a great print, with great color, and professional retouch makes all the difference in your portfolio.  It is what separates amateur work from professional work.  A great makeup crop cleaned up and printed properly is the final polish your work needs to be representative of your vision and your ability to execute it.

This class will provide you with the knowledge to take control of your images, polish their presentation/representation and ultimately enable yourself to advance your career.  Class is instructional with demonstrations on student’s actual images.  Students will have one of their trouble images used as an instructional tool.  Students will be shown what the appropriate software and hardware needed to produce professional results and configuration options to fit a variety of budgets.   The most important aspect of what will be taught has to do with configuring the equipment.  This is where most problems occur and is the largest road block preventing quality results.  Finally, we are going to learn a hand full of image betterment tricks from one of the world’s premier retouchers.

You will learn to:

• Perfect skin: remove blemishes, preserve texture and blending tones
• Skew proportions: correct perspective shift, thin and stretch, reshape features
• Change colors: fine tune skin tone, manipulate image contrast, color adjustment, and punchy ness 
• Special effects: hair, symmetry, eye swap, teeth, lashes…

This class is being conducted by one of the founders of Digital Retouch.  Examples of image manipulation, correction, shaping can be viewed at: www.digitalretouch.net

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