online photo tutorials

One of my most popular pictures on flickr is a snapshot of my friend wearing some interesting makeup. The reality is that she was not wearing any makeup that day, and it was all added later in Photoshop. The reality is that the execution of this technique is simple, the challenging part is fitting the digital make up in so that it matches the model and her clothing.

The first step of this tutorial is to make sure the individual elements of the picture work together. There’s no point adding a teal colored eye liner on to a model with brown eyes and a brown dress on, as it will simply seem out of place. The colors I recommend in this tutorial are based on the model’s eye color and clothing at the time. I suggest that you change them to whatever matches your model.

Step One

I used this photo that I took on the beach with a D300 and a Sigma 20mm f/1.8. Her facial features are nicely lit with flat lighting, with no significant highlights or shadows. You should use an image with a well-lit face, or the effect won’t look as good.

A well-lit face is a must

Step Two

We will start by applying a little bit of lipstick. Part of what made the effect work in the picture on flickr was that it is very subtle. Many people applying digital make up make the mistake of going over board. Neon pinks, toxic greens and other colors that stick out could ruin the effect. I used the color “#BD3A23″, a reddish color that was suitable for the lips.

Start brushing around the lips, making sure you don’t cover the teeth or skin (or else they’ll turn red too!). If you make any mistakes just use the eraser. You don’t have to cover the lips perfectly, just apply the brush in the general area.

The brushstrokes don't have to match perfectly.

Step Three

Now that the lipstick is a coat of paint in an interesting color, it is time to match it to the luminosity of the lips, so that the lipstick matches the subtle changes in brightness that show texture in the lips. In order to do this, set the blending layer to “Hue”. If the effect is too strong, drop the opacity down to make it more transparent.

A subtle but welcome change

Step Four

The makeup in the photo matches her blue eyes, and I decided to make the effect very strong. I chose the color “#2BA1BB”, and teal / turquoise color that suits her necklace, dress and eyes nicely. Once again, brush lightly around the eyes, erasing if you brush over the eyes. Use the Gaussian Blur filter until you get a result similar to this. Depending on the image size, it should be around a 5-20 pixel radius.

I used a radius of six pixels

Step Five

Similar to step number three, we must blend the make up in with the texture of the skin.

That's it!

I also sharpened the picture and whitened the teeth. The digital makeup technique is best used subtly, when using colors that match the attributes of the photo.

This post is tagged makeup