Create INCREDIBLE HEADSHOTS or PORTRAITS – Entire Workflow incl. SET UP, LIGHTROOM & PHOTOSHOP Edits

today we're going to go over how to turn this into this kind of a creative headshot if you will and we're going to start from the very beginning going over all the different pieces of equipment that I use and I'll link them all in the description but this way you'll get a very broad look at how we go from starting and setup through editing and Lightroom and Photoshop to get a final product so let's get started will Simpson here welcome back to the channel so first we're going to start with the gear what I'm using the equipment all the the flashes the the bounces everything so the first thing we're using I have my Canon R5 which will be the camera on top of it is the X pro C from godox the transmitter now for the flash well I guess tripod Peak design but you can use any tripod so for the flash we're using a godox ad200 pro and we're attaching that into a parabolic modifier about 68 centimeters in diameter now this is positioned like this because I'm trying to get a top down light where it lights in front of my face and it actually reduces the chance of getting glare because of the angle if you wear glasses or anything like that so if you are shooting people with glasses this is a really good way to shoot the the subject because then you don't get glare on the glasses now come on over here and I'll show you this here this is a West Scott highlighter and this you don't necessarily need one thing that you can use is a simple five in one tool which when you have your subject sitting or standing they just hold this right here where the modifier is pointed directly at the the bounce and this helps highlight up underneath their their chin so when you do take a picture without this it's very dark with this it lightens this up and helps you increase the jawline and make it look a little bit nicer now in addition to this I'm just going to leave that right there and it's going to slide right off in addition to this we're using a godox V1 flash for our hair light now I have on this with the accessory pack I have the grid which makes the light more direct so it's not as spread out and then on top of that I'm using the barn doors that you get that way I can keep the light from going onto the backdrop and from down just basically direct again more so this gives me more precise light for my hair light now since I'm taking this photo technically by myself I have a trigger I'm using the Canon trigger paired up with the R5 so I can take this photo so let's go ahead and take a few shots and then we'll get into editing we are ready we're set up we're going to take a few photos a couple of pointers this is a very simple headshot there are so many ways that you can do headshots I mean so many poses all things like that so A couple of key points just for this one specifically I'm simply going to be square to the camera slight tilt but I want my shoulders square at the camera my face going to be down the camera position the lens should be just below your nose line so when you're taking headshots the lens should be right below the nose of your subject so it gives it almost a looking up Direction not you don't want the camera looking down on your subject for headshots now as far as the pose goes you want to if you want to smile fine if you want to whatever face you want to do but one thing that everyone does is when you smile you pull back and you create a double chin you create layers things like that the way to handle that is to Simply take your forehead and your chin and push it towards the camera now a lot of people have a tendency to go up or down you want to go straight forward so it looks like this now you can't really tell from this vantage point because it's a two-dimensional image but it allows the jawline to increase and it makes it look much nicer so that's just one tip now you can overdo it you can't really push out and you can really tell so it's just a slight to get the jawline chin down just the shade and there's your look all right so let's take a few photos I'm going to turn these overheads off because it's garbage lighting so let's uh let's take some photos shall we [Music] foreign obviously the light looks way better because I can set it up more naturally well more Studio likely but I forgot to mention the settings that I had for these pictures were ISO 400 at 70 millimeters F 4.5 and 1 200th of a second the power of the flashes that I was using the 8200 was at 132 and the V1 for the hair light was also at 132. now if you're not sure how to set up your lights one thing that I do is I turn them on individually for example I turned off the 8200r key light and then just took a picture with the hair light to see what it affected when I did this with my assistant I took a picture of her here it is with just the hair light that way I can see okay it's just enough light to give a little bit of light but not too much to overpower it then I turned on the key light and got this lit so I get her perfectly lit now I want you to notice no glare in the glasses and that's because of that upward angle so the reflection of the light goes to the floor rather than the camera if you use like a 90 degree or a 45 degree from the side you have potential to get the reflection is higher okay so at this point let's go ahead and get into the editing now the first thing you'll notice is my face needs work I've made a few adjustments here first I've increased the exposure to about plus five I've increased the contrast about plus seven I've lowered the highlights raise the Shadows lowered the white because this little glare here at the top of my head I wanted to take that down a little I've also increased the blacks to make it a little bit more Moody and increase the texture and the clarity now most of this editing most of the style and stuff we're going to do in Photoshop but essentially here's the before and here is the after it just gives us more to work with now the next thing I'm going to do is come down to sharpening to the detail tab and what we're going to do is we're going to adjust the sharpening because again we're going to do a lot of the sharpening in Photoshop so we're going to lower this down to about 20. and then I only want it to sharpen the certain edges of me so I'm going to click the masking tool but I'm going to push and hold alt or option option on a Mac alt on PC click the slider and slide it up until it's just affecting kind of the lines so let's go to like 70. good so now I look like a really artistic painting actually if I screenshot that that's a pretty cool photo it's kind of kind of neat okay but that's where we're gonna go right there then we're going to edit in Photoshop so we're going to right click edit in edit in Adobe Photoshop hey really fast before we get into this YouTube really really loves it and I super super appreciate it if you can like it and especially leave a comment on the video I don't care what you say great video hi I like chicken whatever you want but commenting liking and even subscribing makes a huge difference for my channel and I greatly greatly appreciate it I'm obviously going to continue doing these videos for you but if you could do that that very small thing makes a huge impact on the videos so thank you very much let's get back into it once we're in Photoshop we're gonna start really simple so first click the background layer press command or control J to make a duplicate copy the first thing I'm going to do is do a little bit of skin touch up on my face so Jay on the keyboard for the spot healing brush tool here and we're just going to clean up a few of my little blemishes that I have on my face just because I can and this is Photoshop and awesome good A little bit of stray hairs here really simple we're not going to go too crazy here okay good that's plenty good now the next thing we're going to do is we're going to do a little bit of lightning uh dodging and burning because we want to correct some of the shadows and stuff like if you see under my eyes I have some dark circles which we don't want to get rid of too much but we do want to lighten them a little bit so I have an action here called Dodge and burn we're just going to play that and this creates two layers a curve two curves adjustments one is a Dodge which is bright and one is a burn which is really dark both inverted masks so I can easily use them but if you want to create one you simply go to the um adjustment layers use curves for a Dodge you'd raise it high for burn you'd raise it low and just to show you how to do it so you do that and then rename it burn click the mask here and press command I and it inverts it so that's all it's doing so we're going to delete this because we already have one so first we're going to dodge so press the brush tool make it smaller we're going to go to the opacity and we're going to lower this to about seven percent zoom into the eye and we're just going to Simply brush here make sure white is the foreground color otherwise you just do a lot of work for nothing and we're just going to lighten this up a little now this takes a little bit of practice to get good at it like you see people on on uh on YouTube and they do this in like 30 seconds and you're like what how do they do that well they've been doing it forever so don't don't feel discouraged if you do this and it doesn't go very well the first time it does take a little bit of trial and error but we're just going to do this real quick and just lighten these bad boys up so I don't look like the Crypt Keeper from from your horror not horror movies okay good let's lighten this up a little and we're gonna come back over this and create and do some burning to put some Contour but we want a more easy slate to work with allow us some more customization all right and I'm not gonna go too much on this good okay so here is the before and after not much but it just cleans it up a little all right so there's our group for Dodge and burn the next thing we're going to do is we're going to brighten the eyes so let's create a new layer by clicking the square with the plus sign then we're going to use the Marquee tool up here which is M on the keyboard if you don't see the circle right click on it and you select the elliptical Marquee tool let's go up here and decrease the feather to zero or even like one is fine so how about one good let's go ahead and zoom in select the Marquee tool aim on the keyboard and then press and hold shift to get a complete circle because if you don't hold shift you'll get like an oval but while you have the oval if you press shift it'll give you an exact Circle get it to about the size of the eye then while holding your mouse click press spacebar and hold it you can move the Circle Center it over the eye then let go now press shift it'll give you the plus sign we're going to create another Circle I'm going to create it right on the eye if you release shift and then press it again you get a circle so you release the shift button and then you press it again and you get a circle press spacebar and you move it and there we go now we have our eyes selected the next thing we're going to do is create a mask so we're going to click the mask button and this gives us our Mass if we press and hold option and then click the mask you see there's our circles so now we want an adjustment layer and we only want an adjustment layer to brighten them up for a layer a blend mode so we're going to go up here we're going to click let's just do let's just do exposure it doesn't really matter so exit out once we have the new layer we're going to click this mask push and hold option and drag the mask up it's going to say replace layer mask yes then we're going to change the blend mode of the exposure layer to linear Dodge notice how the eyes pop I mean just look at look at this before amazing right so then we're just going to make a few adjustments click the brush B on the keyboard make sure black is the foreground color opacity is a hundred and we're just going to remove the mask from the eyelids here just like this and we're just going to soften it around the edges by just taking it off so it's not as harsh there we go just like that so it looks a little bit more natural and then it looks quite harsh so what we're going to do is lower the opacity to about 70 percent so here we go here is the before here is the after just uh brightening the eyes actually that seems a little aggressive so we're going to lower that to about 50 percent okay good now we're moving on to the next thing next we're going to do a little sharpening now the cool thing about the sharpening is you want to sharpen the eyes the mouth the nose things like that so let's create a new layer let's go to the sharpen tool here which is on the left side click this then you want to make sure sample all layers and protect detail is clicked this way you're using all the different layers and you're not destroying any of the detail of the image it's just kind of sharpening them then your strength is about 30 percent 40 percent something like that so the sharpening tool works like this the longer you use it let's say you click in one spot and drag it and then drag it over drag it over it's going to apply more and more and more and more and more so if you just continually make circles you're doing six times the sharpening so it's just it's just a layer of it so let's zoom into the eyes with the sharpening tool selected we're just going to sharpen the eyes let's just do like three circles around the eyes good and one two three good now there's not much but let's see here's the before here's the before here's the after it's just a little bit sharper you don't want to go too much let's just group all that so group all of these press select them all press command or Control G and then rename them eyes so there's our eyes group Next we want to do some more dodging and burning so let's go ahead and create the Dodge and burn layer again and we're going to move it to the top and we're going to just call this dodge and burn two and I'm gonna speed this up because we're just contouring we're black we're darkening the darks and lightening the lights so it's very very simple I'm just going to speed it up really quick that way you don't have to watch me go through it and then I'll show you the before and after [Music] okay and we are done so here is the after here is the before so you see how much Contour it creates so all I did was if you want to see the actual um mask of what I did here is the mask of the burn and here is the mask of the Dodge so I just highlighted the highlights and I darkened the darks but you have to remember you're working with a flat image so to create that Contour you want to dodging and burning darkening the darks lightening the lights and we're getting there we're almost there so the next thing we're going to do is sharpen the image as a whole so we're going to press shift command control e or I believe it's shift alt Ctrl e on a PC this essentially takes all of the current layers combines them into one layer at the very top now if you've seen my sharpening video I have a sharpening action that makes it super simple I'll link it in the description so you can download it if you want so we're going to rename this layer sharpen and then we're going to go here to my sharpening action and press play now we have our sharpen so if we zoom in and we uninvert the mask it sharpens the entire image but we don't want to do that what we want to do is just simply sharpen parts of the image so press brush we're going to zoom out and we're going to set this at about 30 percent we're going to just sharpen the face we're just going to make kind of a circle around the face just like that so that is what sharpened then we are going to duplicate this command and control J get rid of this so press x 100 remove that sharpening then press X we're going to go down to about 10 percent opacity and we're just going to sharpen my eyes [Music] my nose and my lips give that a little extra sharpening here is the before zoom in a little bit more here is the after before it's not much but it is enough to give some sharpening okay good okay so now we're going to add a little bit of glow to the image so we're going to press shift command option e create a new layer then we're going to go up to filter blur gauge and blur we're gonna do about 20 press ok then we're going to change the blend mode to soft light and then we're going to change the opacity to 20 percent and that just gives a soft glow to the image and this works really good with landscape photos too quick tip for you but before after see it just gives a nice kind of glow a little bit of a pop to it now let's let's look at the before and after from where we started so here is the before here is the after I mean this is looking amazing so now let's go back to Lightroom and finish up so command or control s and this is going to save this image and put us back into Lightroom so now we're back in the Lightroom first thing we're going to do it's going to crop it so press r on the keyboard we're going to go to a four by five and we're going to press X to rotate the the I don't even know what to call it the layout yeah that the layout let's go ahead and Center me press enter now next thing we're going to do is we're going to create kind of a vignette so click the mask go to radial gradient make a big radial gradient here put it right there and then we're going to invert it good and move it up so it's around the face and then we're just going to kind of darken it a little creates a little bit of a vignette around it but because I have a really dark shirt on we're actually going to subtract it from the subject because we don't really want to take that away and then I want to put a little bit of a backlight so I'm going to do another radial gradient I'm going to put gradient right here subtract the subject somewhere there it is and then we're just going to add a little bit of a light there just a shade like that perfect okay good so now we're going to add a little bit of glow to the face and that wraps it up so go to brush make sure everything's 100 and we're just going to paint right over the face here and just add a smidge of brightness just like just a little bit 0.10 perfect and actually going to do a little bit more because it looks like it's a little darker over here brighten that up so it's a little bit even good and then finally just lower the highlights just a shade perfect and there we have it there is your unique and creative portrait or headshot however you want to do it but these are so easy to do I mean I hope you followed along pretty simply and here is the other one here is Brianna's before and after and hers turned out just as good I did the exact same procedure on hers that I did on mine and it looks amazing so I hope this was helpful if it was please like um also if you could would love it if you left a comment it is so helpful for my videos it tells YouTube Hey this was a good video please show it to more people and of course subscribe because hey you don't want to miss a video right so I hope this was helpful I hope you enjoy this please watch this video and follow it through and do it on your own portraits and if you post them on Instagram tag me in them I would love to see what you create using this technique anyways this is all I'll see you guys next week

Channel: Will Simpson - Exploring Photography

Views: 32,782

Keywords: create incredible headshots or portraits, complete workflow incl set up, lightroom and photoshop edits, will simpson, exploring photography, willsbeenhere, will simpson tutorial, thewillsimpson, adobe photoshop, photoshop, photoshop tutorial, photo editing trick, photoshop tutorial for beginners, photoshop photo editing, photoshop for beginners, photoshop 101, learn photoshop, photoshop actions, headshots, unique headshots, studio photography, portraits, how to, edit for beginners

Id: mi-TKXYFPIw

Length: 20min 39sec (1239 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 09 2023