Andy Duguid | Album Shoot

August 22, 2010 Posted in Music

I generally like to have a location picked out for a shoot, especially when some of the images are to be used on artwork. Unfortunately this was not the case for a last minute shoot for trance producer (and fellow Scotsman) Andy Duguid for the artwork of his new album due for release on Tiesto‘s label, Black Hole Recordings.

After driving around for a while in silly heat we stumbled upon this great location just outside Currys – a big electrical retailer to my overseas friends. So, we set up a few small lights and grabbed a few shots before security noticed and ‘moved us on’. I’m really pleased with how they turned out but please feel free let me know what you think in the comments.

Music Photographer Birmingham
DJ Photographer Birmingham

by Alan

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Skin Softening in Photoshop

August 13, 2010 Posted in Tutorials

Thereʼs plenty of skin softening (or skin smoothing) techniques and tutorials available on the internet. Some are pretty good, some not so much. Obviously, this is just my opinion and you should use whichever method or photoshop action you’re comfortable with but I thought by sharing one of my favorite techniques it might give you an alternative to play around with.

This technique shouldnʼt be a replacement for careful removal of blemishes by cloning, healing, patch tool or dodging & burning the skin – a technique I covered here a few months ago. This is a finishing technique and is best applied to skin that has already been retouched and colour corrected. Itʼs important to have good, clean skin before you start. However, as this effect should be kept subtle Iʼve decided to work on an image that has had very little retouch work other than basic blemish removal. This way I can be a little more heavy handed than I normally would and you can see the effect more clearly. This is also a great technique for getting rid of those fine little hairs on arms and legs.

1. Make a selection of the skin. There are many ways to make selections so just use your preferred method. For this tutorial I used the Quick Selection tool and the Refine Edge command to feather and contract my selection away from the edges of the body and face.

Skin Softening in Photoshop - Step 1
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by Alan

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Hucklebones | Autumn Winter 2010 Photoshoot

June 14, 2010 Posted in Children, Commercial

I’ve talked about this before but I’m a huge fan of the photography in magazines like Junior, Milk and Vogue Bambini. It’s not uncommon for photographers to draw influence from fashion magazines but its incredibly difficult to achieve similar results without the styling, the clothes, the locations and models. Kids fashion photography is an area that really excites me so when I found myself with an opportunity to shoot the Autumn/Winter 2010 Collection for Hucklebones, a beautiful, vintage inspired clothing brand I had seen many times in the pages of kids fashion magazines, I obviously jumped at the chance.

I can’t wait to post a few images from the shoot once the collection has been premiered at Bubble London at the end of the month, but for now I wanted to post the cover of CWB Magazine (the UK trade magazine dedicated to the childrenswear industry) featuring one of my favourite images from the shoot.

Children Fashion Photographer UK

by Alan

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Fixing Uneven Skin Tones in Photoshop

June 8, 2010 Posted in Adobe Photoshop, Tutorials

The key to balancing out an uneven skin tone is finding a way of targeting problem areas without affecting the rest of the skin. The Selective Color adjustment is a fantastic tool for this, allowing you to change the CMYK values in a primary color without affecting any of the other primary colors. In terms of this tutorial, this tool gives you a huge amount of control over the colour and luminosity of the skin in an image. Also, don’t let the time on the clock in the the screenshots fool you. This whole process only really took 5-10 minutes but I was eating my lunch and chatting on the phone at the time!

1. I’ve chosen a photo of a baby to illustrate this technique. Newborn skin tends to be extremely uneven in terms of colour and is generally fairly patchy, however the same technique can be applied to any portrait.

Fixing uneven skin tones in photoshop - step 1

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by Alan

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Newborn Photography | Birmingham

June 4, 2010 Posted in Babies, Newborns

My wife has told me off for posting too many Photoshop tutorials lately and not enough babies. In an attempt to reset the balance, here’s a couple of images from a recent newborn shoot.

Baby Photographer Birmingham, Midlands
Newborn Photographer Birmingham, Midlands

by Alan

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Retouching Eyes in Photoshop

May 14, 2010 Posted in Adobe Photoshop, Retouching, Tutorials

Any work you do to a subjects eyes during the editing process will have a dramatic impact on the portrait. There are so many different things you can do to enhance eyes – pupil enlargement, changing colour, creating new eye lashes etc. In this tutorial I’d like to show you a few of the basic steps I often take to improve eyes in my own retouch work. View full post »

by Alan

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