Shine

So... Usually you all know if i'm not posting... It's because i'm too busy. Well that's exactly the case once again! I've been swamped with work lately, & decided to stay a little later tonight to share this sparkly shot! Saying i'm obsessed would be an understatement. Hazel Winds SPRING is going to rock the photography world! A special thanks to Katie Deal for the collaboration on this picture.


-K

Don't Be Shy

Alright, if you're an avid reader this will be the post for you, because i'm going to explain step by step how I enhanced this picture!

1. I always like to start off using the patch work tool. That honestly is my favorite way to rid any unwanted blemished or imperfections quickly and efficiently. What you do is select your area and then drag it off into a clear area and it takes that clean area and puts it onto your unwanted area and makes it look smooth and perfect! So I did her face, a couple of red spots on her arms, and her back. The thing that you have to be careful with when using the patchwork tool is to not use it on the edge, and be careful when you're working with shadowed areas.

2. Next under the adjustment panel, I used the levels tool. Some people prefer to use curves to lighten, brighten, and contrast an image and sometimes I use curves, but levels is my personal preference. Levels focuses on your white and black points of an image and curves is mainly for the brightness and contrast, which both go hand and hand. I did just a little tweaking because this image was pretty bright to begin with!

3. Liquify is a super popular filter in photoshop that lets you push, pull, rotate, reflect, pucker, and bloat the pixels of any image! In other words, make some one skinny, lips larger, hair bigger, etc! I never like to use this feature drastically, the main place I used this filter was on her hair to give it a fuller look and on her back to give it a little more of a curve! This filter really is magical. 

4. Now it's time to play with colors and enhancing! I started by giving her body a little more of a tan to match her face! I selected her back and arm and simply used an orange warming filter to give her skin an even tone! 

5. As for her facial enhancements hardly anything needed to be done after the patch work tool was used! But I did want her face skin to look a little more even and smooth so I went to filters and created a layer with a gaussian blur. This trick makes the entire image blurred... and that my friends is where layer masks come in! I used a soft black brush on my layer mask to bring back the intensity of all the areas besides her skin. Making her skin look smooth and flawless and the features bolder than ever! I adjusted the opacity just so it didn't look too over done. 

6. Time for those gorgeous blue eyes! Honestly, nothing really needed to be done to them, but it always helps to do a tweaking! I started by very subtly whitening the white parts of her eyes, including the catch light! Then I went in and darkened the darks, like the circle around her eye, the liner, the lashes, and her brows. And vuaa-lahh! There you have it, eyes you cant look away from! 

7. By this point the picture looked like it could be complete. But I thought it needed a little saturation! The background was beautiful as is, but I think every picture needs a good pop of color! For this I used a photoshop Action i've had for what seems like forever called "Like A Painting". What this action does is super saturate the image and give it a blurry dreamy feel that is honestly the prettiest thing to watch unfold! Then I simply created a layer mask and used a black brush with medium hardness and just colored right over the subject leaving the background bright and beautiful! 

8. A little sharpening and I had my final product! I absolutely love how this photo turned out! And I am eager to do more tutorials (maybe even via video one day) so you don't have to do so much reading! 


Leave me a comment on my Facebook page (Hazel Winds Photography), or under this post with any questions or comments! Or you can always email me at kelseytkinsman@gmail.com 


As for now, I am currently trying to plan my first ever big SPRING photo shoot and have it be the launch of my photography business. Until then, I want to start doing more creative things with photoshop and my pictures, maybe a 30 day photo challenge? 



-K

Sister Friend

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you all had a Merry Merry Christmas! I know I sure did! I thought I would ring in the holidays with this adorable picture of my little sister! There are a couple of things about this picture that amaze me.

1. She's smiling for the camera! That is nearly an impossible thing to accomplish but the fact that I caught her off guard and it was Christmas had her blinded by my camera's charm!

2. This photo was taken INDOORS. Now, that may not seem like anything special to any of you but I am strictly outdoor photography. Not that i'm opposed to indoor I just feel like the subject looks more... EL NATURALE outside :) You can tell by the yellowish hue of the picture that it was indoors but I chose to keep it that way! I kinda liked the warm glow it gave to the image. 

So i've been thinking about sharing some of my photoshop secrets with the world because frankly, everything I've learned about photography and photoshop has been through you tube videos, and photographers not to stuck up to share some of their secrets (no offense). So I will work on a step by step post about the before and after of an image and how I transformed and enhanced it into something marvelous! What this picture will be... I'm not quite sure yet. But for now, let me show you the before of this photo just to get you geared up! :)

 

-K

Don't Be Seen Without Polish

Only recently have I discovered my love of nail polish. My co-workers were all firm believers in colorful and not so colorful nails and I decided I should join the crew! Here are a couple colors I picked up from various places, I'll tell you the good and bad about each!

1. Kim-Pletely In Love by Nicole by Opi:

This polish is a light pink polish with a very subtle glittery shimmer. This is probably my favorite nude polish right now! The only flaw is that you have to put on like three coats to get it to look right! Other than that I LOVE this polish (even though its inspired by Kim Kardashian). 

2. Wedding Crasher by Sally Hansen:

A great quality glitter polish! Nice and shimmer with a great deep magenta/pink color. I think with any glitter polish you will need a couple coats though, which hopefully will change one day!

3. Bold Gold and Tenacious Teal by Maybelline New York:

I loved how these polish's looked when I saw it. A rich shimmery gold and a beautiful green hue that I could not resist. Unfortunately this polish on your nails is definitely not what I was hoping for. Its thin, and leaves your nails looking really cheap and streaky. I would not recommend this polish but I have still not given up hope of the perfect green and gold shimmery nail polish.

4. Bobbing For Baubles by Essie: 

When I decided I wanted a navy nail polish I knew this one by Essie was just right! So far, I would say Essie is my favorite nail polish brand. Great quality, and I only had to use ONE coat! Hello, can't beat that! It does look somewhat black when you have it on but in the right light it is perfectly navy.

5. Slick Slate By Sally Hansen:

This is a grrrreat polish! Looks exactly how it is in the bottle and dries super fast. And let me tell you my favorite part... The brush on this polish is PERFECTION! Its wide so it makes it easier to paint your nails and actually much faster. I have nothing but good things to say about this polish!

Well, I hope you've enjoyed all of my fall nail polishes.. And I would love to hear about some of your favorites. I think my next search will be for the perfect christmas RED! :)

-K

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

It's definitely been a late night of photoshopping for me.. And I figure two posts in one day wouldn't hurt anything! I've seen photos where photographers overlay a texture giving a picture more depth and uniqueness. Well, I created what I call a "Whispy Texture" and tried it with this photo! The top is before, and the bottom photo is after. I couldn't decide which I liked more.. But I look forward to experimenting more with adding textures to my photos! Which do you like better?


-K

Shelby Dunlap

This post makes me really happy because I have successfully gotten my pictures to look exactly how I want them too. I've got all the right tools and I feel like now I can branch out into the photography world with confidence! Sundays are always my day off and today I decided to force my best friend Shelby to model for me! We had a blast fighting mosquitos and making up cute poses. The picture above was her favorite photo, and the picture below is mine! Be on the lookout for my next post to see more! Great job Shelb! Love you :)

 

 

 “Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.”

- Marc Riboud

 

 

 

-K





I'm a slacker...

Please don't hate me for my lack of blogging... I have been so swamped with work it's not even funny! But it's slowed down a bit so hopefully I will have the pleasure of blogging much more often! We've been planning the winter look book at Hope's which is a LOT of work believe it or not! From locations to models to outfits to the actual concept itself is a total headache but for sure worth it in the end. If you haven't already figured it out, we are leaning towards a LOVE STORY themed look book! And hopefully it turns out amazing! But that's all for tonight, have a lovely Thursday tomorrow loves! (Top: Zara find similar here) :)

-K