Fashion Portrait Editing Best Practices and 3 Vital Tools

Fashion Portrait Editing Best Practices and 3 Vital Tools

The objective of editing fashion portraits is to make an image; striking, attracting and engaging towards audiences. Achieving these needs creative thinking, experience, art, and good knowledge of some of the vital tools. So, here are the 3 tools which are most important for editing fashion portraits.

1. Spot Removal on the Skin

There are 2 different ways of removing undesirable spots.

  1. Healing brush
  2. Clone stamp

There are 2 different ways of removing undesirable spots. Both the tools have similar attributes for removing the unwanted spots on the skin. But, there is one significant difference between the tools which is essential to know.

  • When healing brush tool is used; it takes textures from the area which you sample, and the color from the area in which you paint the spot.
  • Whereas, the clone stamp tool takes the textures from the sample area; but, it never blends since it is a direct copy.

People might intervene then, why don’t use healing brush always?

Note: When there are edges in the images; healing brush won’t be useful; as it merges colors from around that, in turn looking blurry.

For example, an edge with color variations; would blend different colors from nearby areas; which in turn, look blurry. So, during this kind of situations using clone stamp tool is essential. Have a look into an image to get a clear idea.

Fashion Portrait

In these cases, the clone stamp tool is necessary to prevent blurriness in the image.

Thus, it is essential to understand some major differences when editing fashion portraits. Here is video by Phlearn which you can clearly understand about clone stamp and healing brush.

2. Dodge and Burn

It is a useful tool to manipulate the exposure of a skin on the selected areas (ex, cheek, nose, neck etc.) Dodging is to lighten the skin and burning is to darken. Have a look into an example.

Fashion Portrait

An image with skin not lightened and unwanted blemishes on the face.

Now look at the below image

Fashion Portrait

Skin is lightened and darkened wherever necessary to look attractive. Also, unwanted spots removed and skin is smoothened up.

This is fine art photo editing. Professional photo editors ensures your fashion portraits are effectively manipulated by giving accurate exposure to the skin on the right areas, and utilizing the right tools and techniques to deliver high-quality images.

3. Masking

Masking does different things in Photoshop but in a non-destructive way. The information given below would make you; clearly, understand the concepts of masking and its wide usage in fashion portraits.

Layer Masking: Layer masks are useful when you want to blend various images to a single image, or to reveal only particular objects, and remove unwanted areas which you don’t need in the images. To hide the pixels use black color and to reveal, use white color. It works in a non-destructive way as you can reveal, or hide an area any time. It just creates transparency (or opacity) between the layers.

Using the eraser tool it erases permanently which is a destructive method.

Have a look at an example below to get a clear idea of the layer mask, and its importance in fashion portraits.

Fashion Portrait
Fashion Portraits

Initially, the original image fully desaturated; then, only the particular object is revealed.

The black and white objects in the image are hidden but not deleted; and, only the jewel is revealed. This is a concept of masking and, these kinds of tricks can be used in for jewelry fashions where the jewel is of primary focus.

There are various forms of masking. Here is the beautiful video by Unmesh where you can learn more about layer masking.

Hair Masking : When the background of a model looks messy, disturbed, or the hair is not suited in the multi-coloured background; then hair masking is done by skilfully cutting only the object (model) and, by not affecting the originality. The main intention of hair masking is that the model should look attractive with the most suited background.

Fashion Portraits

Background looking messy

Fashion Portraits

Placed in the most suitable background; with her hair looking better exposed since the background is pretty white.

Here is a video by Photoshop engine to learn and know more about hair masking.

If you are busy due to many photography schedules; professional photo editing service providers can assist you in editing your fashion portraits. Photo editors ensures the images are skilfully enhanced with quality retouching, enhancements; to deliver the right quality image to your customers.

Ultimately, as a photographer, understanding these 3 vital concepts of editing fashion portraits will aid you in creating, and delivering high-quality images to your clients.

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