I was hired by a company called RecWest to shoot some images of a playground they had just installed, at Oxnard Beach Park in the city of Oxnard. Originally they had envisioned hiring a lift truck to get me up high, so I could shoot the entire playground from above. However as we planned for the shoot, it became apparent that the city was going to ask too much in terms of permits and insurance. It quickly became impractical to use heavy machinery. The company was about to give up and cancel the shoot, when I hit upon an idea. Ever the DIY guy, I remembered reading about “pole-cams”…stick your camera on a pole and shoot from on high. Sure you can buy or rent super fancy versions of these, but that would have been as bad as the lift truck. So instead I set about making my own pole-cam based on this DIY version (link).

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The construction is almost identical to the webite I referenced. The long pole (mostly out of frame in the image below) is a 15 foot paint-roller extension pole. I sprung for the light fiberglass version, since I would be holding this in the air for a long time. Attached to that is section of a wooden paint-roller extension pole, which just screws on to the longer one. Drilled into the top of that is a 3/8″ hanger bolt, which allows the tripod head to be mounted.

I bought a remote control trigger off ebay for about $30, which allows me to half-press the shutter for focus, or to fire the shutter, all remotely. The unit’s transmitter was a little dodgy though, and required me to tap it against something to get it to work sometimes. But hey it was cheap and got the job done! I would not have been able to do this job if I couldn’t trigger the camera to fire remotely. Sadly, it seems to interfere with my radio flash units, so I couldn’t use both at once. Perhaps some more experimentation is needed at a later date…

The weak spot of this contraption is the wooden pole with the hanger bolt drilled in it, along with the plastic and ill-fitting coupler to the longer pole. I glued that plastic connector onto both the metal and wooden sections. But I was worried about the wood splitting at the wrong moment, resulting in several thousand dollars’ worth of camera falling to the ground. Sure they make nice bouncy material for playground surfaces now, but this isn’t a child we’re talking about, it’s a CAMERA! I wasn’t going to take any risks. So I took my tripod strap, tightened the noose end around the main pole, and then duct-taped it into position so it wouldn’t slide. I then clipped the other end of the tripod strap to the camera strap, to secure it. Even if the duct tape failed, the camera would slide slowly down the pole rather than come loose completely. That was the theory anyway.

I am happy to report that the camera and pole performed wonderfully, even though the winds picked up to 30 mph by the end of the shoot. The only moment of fear I had was when, on raising the pole for the umpteenth time, I saw the camera rotate as it went up. I gently brought it back down, to find that various screw-mounts had come loose in all the handling. I caught that potential disaster in time!

This pole camera was so effective, I was able to stitch together large panoramas of the playground, simply by rotating the pole and taking multiple shots. Also, because I was shooting with a wide angle, the camera appears to be shooting from much higher than it really was (about 16 feet up).

I got to the location before dawn, so that I could get some dramatic lighting. I picked morning rather than evening, because the client wanted the playground as empty as possible. Kids don’t go to the playground at 5:30am, but they do hang out there at dusk!

I brought some lights so I could ‘augment the ambient’. Below is an image after sun had just risen, casting dramatic shadows with the poles. Meanwhile I had my Norman 200B lighting up the front of the structure, from camera right. Otherwise this side of the structure would have been in almost complete darkness (compare to the dark palm trees, which is how the front of the structure would have been).

A pre-dawn shot below, this time with my Norman to the right, and my SB-28 to the left. All were triggered with radio triggers from the camera. Note the handy seagull in the upper left.

For awhile now I’ve known that sunset photographs are a dime a dozen. Heck, the sun sets just about every day around these parts. Sunsets are wonderful to experience in person. But to make a really good photograph, you need to put people in front of them.

Last weekend was a great opportunity for just that! I had taken this family’s Christmas portraits last year around this time, and we had a similar experience. Perhaps they’re lucky? This family didn’t bring their two australian shepherds this time, but that’s ok. Nice dogs…convinced me to get one of my own in fact! It’s great when wonderful people, nice light, and the right timing come together. And that’s what we had!

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I know it’s a tired cliche, but it’s amazing how fast kids grow up when you haven’t seen them in awhile. When you’re around them every day, sometimes you wish they’d grow up a little faster! But it’s been a year since I’ve seen this boy, and…well he’s a big boy now! And a real ham too. He and I had a great time getting his parents to laugh and smile, and that of course is the key. Get the little one giggling, and everyone else follows.

Technical stuff: it was a slightly overcast light, so I didn’t bother pulling out the Norman. Instead I used the SB-28 as my main light, through the ubiquitous 53″ shoot-through umbrella. I gelled a Sunpak 333 with a ‘liquid amber gold’ gel, and used it as a hair/edge light. For the images above and below, the edge light is to camera right. It helps the sun out a little bit, which seemed more concerned with putting on a show in the distance than actually doing any work where we were. Nice soft light as main, nice definition on the edges, and very natural looking.

And below was a test shot after we’d moved locations, but I liked his quizzical expression and the seriously knocked-down ambient. The edge light is just out of frame, and even though it’s snooted, it’s causing flare which resulted in a light circle above his left shoulder. As far as I concerned, it adds character to the shot. And it’s a very manly shot! Needs to go in an issue of Esquire or something.

Well I’m no David Hobby, but a couple of weekends ago I conducted a small-strobe off-camera lighting seminar for a professional organization I belong to, Channel Islands Professional Photographers Association (CIPPA). I had originally planned to conduct it in a city park, so that I could demonstrate the use of ambient sunlight and balancing flash. But it rained that weekend, so at the last minute we moved it to the Mystique Studio. Thanks Leanne and Brenda for letting us use your space! I don’t remember the exact number, but we had roughly 10–12 attendees.

We also had two models help us out for the seminar. Cassie and Laura were very gracious and professional, even though there was a fair amount of sitting around while I talked. Much thanks to them as well!

All of the shooting was done with one or two lights. I started out with a single hard light (below). Hard light like this gives a very 40’s movie-star portrait look.

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I believe this next shot of Cassie (below) used a small silver umbrella. The light is a little softer, but it’s still pretty hard. Right here I was demonstrating that if you get your light in close, the difference between subject and background is much greater. The background here was a light tan, and the room was small. But dialed down and in close, the subject is properly exposed while the light-colored background falls dark.

I switched to a 53″ shoot through umbrella to shoot Laura. The light is much softer and the shadows fill in a bit more, even with just a single light. The shoot-through does tend to throw light around the room more, which can also account for some of the shadow fill.

I had originally planned to shoot ‘tethered’, so that the images would appear on a laptop (my wife’s laptop that I had borrowed). However for some reason I couldn’t get it working during the seminar, and decided to forge ahead. So I ended up showing everyone images on the camera display. Not the best way to demonstrate lighting techniques! If this were a bigger production, I’d shoot tethered and put up a projector so that people could see what I was doing. And then of course I’d have to charge money for it. Here I am, showing Cassie the results on the back of the camera (below). Note that giant softbox in the studio. It wasn’t used, but the little umbrella in the foreground was.

A shot of Laura posing while studio co-owner Leanne shoots. Whoever shot this (there was much sharing of cameras) managed to catch the strobe going off. Cool, huh? Note the main light is the umbrella to camera right (Leanne’s camera). The actual image was shot on a wide lens, so the umbrella is closer than it appears. That’s an SB-28 doing the hard work in the umbrella. The big glare behind the model is a Sunpak 333 with a cardboard snoot, for a hair light.

At one point the discussion turned to lighting large groups. I mentioned that I’d much rather light a large group indoors than outside, and someone didn’t believe me. I decided to set up the shot and show how to do it.

Here’s the problem: outdoors, in the sun, you’ve got a couple of choices. Point the group toward the sun, and watch them all squint and squirm and get dark shadows everywhere. Or you can put their backs to the sun and use the sun as a hairlight. But then you have to light their faces with strobe. And a big group requires distance from the camera, which means your light needs lots of power to cover the distance and still get even coverage and remain out of frame. All the while you’re managing your aperture against your maximum shutter sync speed with the sun. End result: lots of firepower needed.

But indoors, you can bump your ISO up to compensate for strobe deficiencies. Outdoors you can’t, because the sunlight is an ever present hassle. Indoor situations also often include free diffuser panels (i.e. walls and ceilings) that you can bounce your strobe off, which is better than any softbox or umbrella for a large group. Below I shot three of our attendees, Lisa, Bonnie and studio co-owner Brenda. I bounced the SB-28 off the light tan backdrop we’d been using with the models. I think my ISO was 800 on this. The result: nice, soft even lighting.

Photographers don’t seem to like having their pictures taken, for some reason.

Last week was a busy week! Three shoots in three days, and I also taught a lighting seminar. I’ve been working nonstop to get everyone’s images ready, and then it’s back to more shoots starting tomorrow. It is that time of year after all, and it’s exhausting…but a lot of fun. Last Thursday I had the distinct pleasure of photographing four very charming little girls (and their mother) in their backyard.

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And what a beautiful backyard! Mom had just given birth three weeks ago, and didn’t want to take her new baby to the beach. The baby slept peacefully throughout the entire session—and of course woke up as I was leaving!

For the picture above, I set the girls in front of an outdoor fireplace. The entire area was in shade as it was late in the day. I used my Norman 200B in a 53″ shoot-through umbrella, which lit the whole scene nicely. I had to watch for reflections in the stainless steel fireplace, which was easily solved by moving the light and camera position a little.

I then posed the eight year old and twin three year olds in the middle of the lawn, on a cute chair. Typically on grass one has to watch for a green tint to shadows on skin and clothing. However the light beige acted somewhat as a natural reflector for the light, filling in the shadows and removing any green cast. I placed the Norman and the umbrella to camera right. The hair light is a Sunpak 333 with a ‘pale amber gold’ gel on it, to simulate sunlight. I also made sure to properly expose for some detail in the background.

The oldest daughter insisted we take some pictures with mom in them. Mom was a little reluctant to be photographed, having given birth recently. But I’m glad we did! Such a wonderful, charming family.

Shot in Carpinteria, CA.

Oh this is sad.

My wife insisted we clean out the laundry room. Why is that sad? Well it’s a really big laundry room, and it has also functioned as my darkroom for the past few years. Except, well…the darkroom hasn’t gone dark very often lately. Maybe once in the last year have I actually done any ‘old school’ photographic printing, or even ‘older school’ alternative printing such as kallitypes.

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Now to be fair, my wife only insisted we clean it out and get rid of the junk. She didn’t insist that I get rid of any darkroom stuff. But when I contemplated cleaning it all out, I realized there wasn’t much point in saving a lot of this stuff that I wasn’t using. My business takes just about all of my time, and I just don’t get time to dabble with printing anymore. And realistically, it was always a chore. I didn’t do it often enough to keep chemicals mixed all the time. So I spent hours preparing for what may or may not have been a successful printing episode. I had a better time when I took some printing classes at the local community college, because I could just walk in and start printing. Didn’t even have to turn the lights off, as someone else had taken care of that.

I’m sad though because this was part of what defined my photography when it was a hobby. Especially the circa-1800s printing technique called ‘kallitype’. I love the way those prints look, and love the fact that they’ll last a few hundred years. When I made these, I wasn’t just a photographer, and I wasn’t just a film photographer…I was a kallitypist for crissakes! I mixed foul and noxious chemicals, coated expensive paper with said chemicals by hand, and toiled for hours to get maybe three or four good prints. That’s macho photography, not some wimpy shoot-and-download photography.

I also had an enlarger, for more ‘normal’ silver gelatin black and white printing. I used it a little, although I found it almost as laborious. Had I done it more often, it would have been easier. Had I done it more often, I would have done it more often!

So I made the decision that traditional printing, at least for the foreseeable future, was a thing of the past.

Fortunately, I like waaaaay too many things about photography. Traditional printing. Photoshop manipulation. Film photography. Digital photography. Building cameras. Buying cameras. And when I discovered a few years ago that I really like taking pictures of people, the nerdy mad-scientist stuff just gradually faded into the background. Some amount of specialization is necessary if you’re going to become good at something. And even more so if you hope to make a living doing it!

However I must point out that I have not given up shooting on film! Processing black and white film doesn’t require a darkroom, merely a film-changing bag and a bathroom with chemicals in it. And color film is sent to the lab. I love film too much to give it up, although even that pursuit has dropped off a bit. I squeeze some film into most client shoots I do, mostly for my own amusement. And I shoot film whenever I’m shooting for myself, for ‘art’ or even for family snapshots. As I’m fond of saying, “I never use digital around family or friends.” Which of course is an exaggeration.

So to commemorate this momentous watershed moment, here are a few alternative process prints I made in that laundry room.

This one won first place at the Santa Paula Arts Festival (or whatever it's called).

A wetlands area in Homer, Alaska. Actually shot on a digital camera and then printed as a kallitype.

This is a cyanotype print, which is much easier to do but does not have the longevity of a kallitype. Oh and it's always blue, blue, blue!

Things come together sometimes in ways you can’t predict ahead of time. I had read and/or seen videos of a few photographers shooting ‘guerrilla style’ (Mentioned on the David Hobby’s ‘Strobist’ site here and Bert Stefani’s blog video here), which is just a fancy way of saying that you’re traveling light, finding locations as you go, and seeing what you can come up with on the spot. Jazz improvisation for photography, basically. Meanwhile, I’ve really enjoyed the commercial shoots I’ve done recently (here and here), and wanted to do more. So I finally decided it was time to actively pursue it. I sent out some inquiries to local models on modelmayhem.com, and Sharylyn responded and liked the idea. And here are some of the results of our adventure in downtown Ventura, CA.

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The idea was to walk around downtown Ventura with a camera, a couple of lights, a pretty model, and take some great pictures as the opportunities presented themselves. The first thing I knew I’d need was an assistant. While I could have managed this with a light stand or two, that wasn’t ideal for a couple of reasons. First, light stands are heavy. Second, I didn’t have a permit for shooting, and didn’t want to do anything that impeded pedestrian traffic or otherwise screamed “commercial shoot for big money!” And this was in fact strictly a ‘portfolio-builder’ (industry-speak for “no one’s making any money”). And third, adjusting a light stand was going to slow me down. So I asked around at the local professional photographer’s association I belong to (Channel Islands Professional Photographers Association), and Heather graciously volunteered. I owe you one, Heather!

The second thing I needed to do was scout general locations for shooting. When you improvise music, you usually have a general idea where you want to go, and how to get there. It’s the individual steps that you decide during the actual performance. So I took a few hours to wander around downtown, finding suitable backdrops. It was key to go at the same time of day as the scheduled shoot (10am), so I knew which buildings would be in shade, how they would look etc.

So the first shot, above, was taken about ten feet from where we all parked. It was a good way to warm up. Sharylyn was incredibly professional and upbeat, and immediately went to work. If she was nervous, she never showed it! For this shot, I actually had the light positioned incorrectly—or rather, it wasn’t where I’d intended it. But turns out the light coming from the back works really well. It has a bit of drama that subsequent shots didn’t have.

For the technically-minded, Heather was holding my SB-28, shot through a 53″ shoot-through umbrella. The flash was triggered using cheap ebay radio triggers. I had an on-camera flash (SB-20), on a pretty tall flash bracket, set to ‘auto’ but cheating the aperture about three stops so it was a (usually) subtle fill. this was also triggered by a radio trigger, even though it was attached to the camera by the bracket. Keeps the wires to a minimum. I also had my Sunpak 333 with me, but never ended up using it.

Next we went over to another brick building. I asked her to peer into the windows, and to appear apprehensive. As we were shooting, a man swung open one of these windows and we all startled each other! He was concerned he’d hit me with the window. I was concerned he was going to tell us to scram, but nope! We shot a few more frames, but felt a little silly after that, and moved on.

As we walked around, we had a few people ask what we were doing. I was alert for people giving us trouble, but mostly people were just curious. One homeless man welcomed us back (!) to Ventura.

Time for a wardrobe change in the car. And now for something completely different, a short red dress and leather jacket. The above location was one I had high hopes for. I thought the painted text on the wall would add a nice touch. We would have shot more, but two things intervened: first, my camera started acting up. This was later resolved when I found out the battery-grip was misaligned. But I was losing shots for no apparent reason. And then a pickup truck decided to use the nearby parking garage as a slalom course. He came flying out of the garage, wooping and hollering, and then parked about fifty feet away from us. I got a little concerned, as we were in a back alley with a very visible model. So we decided to move on.

For this next shot, I’d picked out a wall with faded colors, and knew I wanted to do some ‘perspective’ shots with a short depth of focus. So I switched to my 50mm f/1.8 lens, so I could open up wide for the small DOF. Woops! I forgot I was still shooting on manual, and squeezed of about ten frames before I checked my images. Totally blown out. I adjusted and kept shooting. However when I transferred them to my computer that evening, there was something to the overexposed look that I really liked. With some adjustments, I got a nice vibe and high-key look that I wouldn’t have gotten without the ‘mistake’. This was the only image of this series where I didn’t use strobe.

By this time, we’re improvising and completely without plan. We start heading back, and walk past the Ventura Theater. It’s an old theater with a really cool—but dark—entranceway. Initially I’m intrigued by the diffused light coming in from the street. I place Sharylyn in front of the black wall to highlight her beautiful blonde hair. But my shutter speed is 1/30s at ISO 400, and I’m not getting very sharp images handheld. The flash bracket is heavy and tall, making it harder to hold steady at slow shutter speeds. I decide I’m just going to have to simulate daylight with Heather and the umbrella. Heather stands off to the left, where the sunlight is coming from, and I have her fire over Sharylyn’s head toward the ceiling. I nuke the ambient light with a shutter speed of 1/250. The colors just pop!

After a silly romp under a tree in the park, which I might post later if I can photoshop some cars out of the background, we decide on one last location. There’s a restaurant with bright yellow walls, and it’s in full sun. Shooting in full sun is problematic, but I had lots of shots, and wanted a challenge. So I repeatedly had Sharylyn walk along the wall quickly, with her shoulder almost brushing it. The sun is to the back of her, but was positioned so that if she looked straight ahead, she got some unflattering splashes of sunlight on her face. So I told her to pretend she was window-shopping, and to turn her head slightly toward the wall. Meanwhile, I positioned Heather so that the bare strobe (no umbrella) was literally up against the wall, firing slightly outward toward Sharylyn. The result is some great cross-lighting (if I do say so myself), with a nice strobe sparkle in her sunglasses. Or rather, Heather’s sunglasses, since Sharylyn left hers in the car. I did the full glamor retouch on this one, as it just screams California.

So everything came together! I moved on an idea that was percolating in the back of my mind, and had a great team that resulted in a successful day. You can bet I’ll be doing more of this.

It’s been awhile since I developed my own black and white film in the laundry room. I used to do it a lot more when photography was just a hobby (albeit all-consuming). But since I’ve been a professional portrait photographer, well…the fun little things like film development just fall by the wayside. I’ll usually shoot a little color film on a client shoot, but it gets developed by the lab. So I finally got around to developing some rolls I’ve had sitting for a few months.

It’s not the developing of the film that takes up so much time.

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It’s the scanning! I find film scanning soooooo tedious. When I get film developed at the lab, I get them to scan it too. Costs way more than I feel it ought, but it sure is convenient. No such convenience with my home-dev’ed film though.

So I present to you a few snapshots etc, done on a couple of different cameras. Both are medium format film, and both shoot in a square image format. This post is all about shooting for fun!

Most of these images are from my Ricoh ‘Super Ricohflex’, which is ‘twin lens reflex’ camera. Basically, you look down into the top of the camera, which, using a mirror, shows you the image through the ‘viewing’ lens. The actual image is taken through another lens (the ‘taking’ lens), directly below the viewing lens. Most of these cameras have a square picture format, and most of them take 120 style film (Not available at the local drug store, but still available for professional use).

The trees above were taken using the Super Ricohflex. This shot was at the Camino Real Park in Ventura, CA. The image was in black and white, but I’ve ‘duotoned’ the image, making the highlights greenish and the shadows brownish.

My Wife.

My wife, reading the paper at the kitchen table. I think I bounced a strobe off the ceiling to light this one, but it’s been ages since I took these. June I think!

Eldest Son

This was from a camping trip to Pismo Beach in June. I like the diagonals of the pier railings, and how the line of the surf in the distance completes the zig zag. I can only claim to have planned the railing zig zags! My oldest son used to pose graciously for pictures all the time, but I guess he’s had enough of dad and his camera. So moments like this are hard-fought!

Sprinkler

This image is a little large for the screen, but it has to be since there’s three of them. A series of shots of my youngest son, enjoying the backyard sprinklers. He really loves water: he’s a little fish! These shots were taken on my newly acquired Bronica-S, mentioned here.

In the professional spirit of “shoot lots, show few”, that’s all I have for this post right now. I did happen to take another twin-lens reflex camera out today to the park with my family, my Yashica-Mat. But since it was black and white film again, it will no doubt be months before I develop the film. Stay tuned…

People give me things. For free. Mostly camera-related stuff.

I’m not sure why this is.

Early this week, I went to the local craft-supply store to get some picture-hanging stuff. I almost went to the other one in town, but I’m glad I didn’t!

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I have magnetic signs on the sides of my car, advertising my photographic services. A woman saw this, came up to me and said “My late husband was a photographer. I’ve got some rolls of seamless background paper cluttering up my garage. Would you like them? For free?” Sure, I said! And she mentioned something about other camera equipment too.

I called her the next day, went over there and we chatted for a bit. When I left, I came home with a couple of 9-foot rolls of seamless paper. And a complete Bronica-S medium format camera system! Four lenses, two backs, and a bunch of filters and accessories. I didn’t even know what it was at first…I shoot a Bronica ETR-S as a back up to my digital camera, but I’d never seen this particular model up close. Wow am I grateful!

These things happen to me with pleasant regularity, and I don’t know why. Some of it is dumb luck: I just happened to be in the parking lot at the right time. But that doesn’t explain everything.

A couple of years ago, I bought some expired large-format film from a Brooks student. A few months later, I bought some more from her. She said she was going to quit school and skip the whole commercial/fashion photography thing, and move away and open a wedding photography business. She knew I loved film, and large format photography. So one day, she calls me up and says “I’ve got a complete 4×5 camera here, lens, filters, film holders, tripod…you want it? I know you’ll use it!”

That’s how I got my really super excellent large format camera. Worth thousands of dollars.

Perhaps it’s because people can tell I love film. And it’s true! I shoot digital for professional reasons, but I shoot film for fun. Before this was a career, it was a very intense hobby. At one point I had over forty cameras, and all of them were film-based. Mind you, most of them were bought off ebay for under $50 or so, but it still became a storage problem (if not a psychological problem). Fortunately I decided to pair down at the same time I went pro. But I still love film. I develop my own black and white film in the house! It’s cheap and easy.

Speaking of film, I’ve had strangers I’ve met on the internet send me film, for free. I had a guy in northern California send me his old printer, so that I could better do alternative-process printing. He wouldn’t even let me pay him for the shipping! He’s since become a good friend, even though we’ve never met.

I’ve got a bunch of darkroom equipment, much of which people have given me. Sadly, I don’t have as much time to use it as I did when this was a hobby. But I can look around my office, and my closets, and think “awwww…remember when so-and-so gave me that?”

I don’t think I’m charming people into giving me free stuff. I think it’s just obvious that I love photography. And not in a digital-high-tech keeping-up-with-the-Jones sort of way. If this were not a commercial consideration, I’d be happy making pinhole cameras out of oatmeal boxes and bits of tinfoil (which I have). That wouldn’t sit well with a client of course!

I think that love comes across to like-minded individuals. Or perhaps people who used to feel that way, and want their stuff to be used by someone who still does feel that way. I’ve given away cameras and things too, so I guess part of the photography community’s spirit of giving.

What do you think? Do people give you free cameras and stuff too?

Sunset is one of those mysterious things in life. It happens every day, and yet—when the sky is clear—it’s magical every time.

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During the middle of the day, it seems like the sun is motionless in the sky. Yet at sunset, you see how fast the earth is really moving. You have mere seconds to capture the sun as it dips below the horizon. In the above shot I was lucky enough to get just a sliver of sun, while the little girl and her doll run in the edge of the surf. It’s these little timeless moments that keep me doing what I’m doing.

Some families are easier to shoot than others. This family…well it doesn’t get much easier than this! If anything, I have too many good shots to choose from!

And we photographers tend to like the moody, evocative shots. Even this though this young boy was smiling just about 90% of the time at the beach, I really like the intensity of his stare in this shot. Those eyes!

This is a skin retouching technique called “degrunge”. I think I first read about it on retouchpro.com, and am elaborating on that technique. I did not invent this, but this is how I use it.

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First, we start at the end. I was asked by the local newspaper to provide an ‘environmental’ portrait of myself for a story they were running. I guess they figured they’d save money and not send a photographer out to shoot a photographer. So I scrambled to make a self-portrait that actually had me holding a camera! Here’s the finished product:

Now here’s the image before using the ‘degrunge’ technique. I’ve made level and saturation adjustments, cloned some leaves, and done some other things just to get the image ready.

Now zoom into the image at 100%. Here you can see all the unsightly wrinkles, blemishes and the fact that I needed a shave.

Now type shift-option-command-E (or the PC equivalent) to ’stamp the layers’, making a new layer from combining all the other layers. I’ve renamed this “degrunge layer” below. The actual image won’t change, since all you’ve done is combined everything into one new layer.

Next, select Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur… and start with a radius of 1 pixel. What you’re trying to do is select a blur amount that nicely obscures the details you want to remove, without being so much that all detail is lost. Note that you will NOT hit ‘OK’ after this step. You’re just looking for the proper blur radius for later. If you see below, 1 pixel is not enough. The unwanted flaws, such as wrinkles and deep pores, are still apparent.

Increasing the amount to a 3.2 pixel radius, you’ll notice that the forehead wrinkles are almost completely obscured, and so are the deep pores. This is a good number to use (and I’m sure 3.0 or even 4.0 would have worked just as well). Remember this number. NOW HIT CANCEL. Don’t hit ‘OK’!

Now multiply that number by 3. Why 3? I dunno. That’s how I learned it. Seems to work well. Don’t mess with success etc. Or experiment…but it’s a good place to start.

Select Filter/Other/Highpass… and enter that blur-value-times-three, which would be 9.6 pixels in this case. Select OK. Here’s how it looks.

Now go back to Gaussian Blur, and enter your previously-determined blur number. In this case it was 3.2 pixels. This time you should hit ‘OK’. And it looks like the image below.

Now Invert the degrunge layer by selecting the proper menu item, or just hitting command-I. Which will make the image look like this:

Now go to your layers pop up menu, and instead of ‘normal’, select ‘linear light’. See the image below, in the layers menu on the right, if you don’t know where this is.

Your image will now look horrendously frightening. Like someone has slipped something in your drink. Don’t worry, just put on a mask!

Option-click the ‘create mask’ button at the bottom of the layers palette, and all will look normal again. And you’ll have a black mask for the layer (see below).

Now you’re going to paint in the mask where you need the effect. Select white for the color (I’ve still got black selected in the screenshot below). Make a brush big enough to easily paint wide portions like the forehead. Pick an opacity of 70%…you don’t need to be timid here, because you’re going to dial back the layer later. For now, you’re spraying on the “ten years younger” as much as you can. Pick a flow amount to your taste. I use around 60 or so. Below are my settings as I am about to spraypaint my way back to youthfulness.

Just reveal the skin part of the layer. Don’t unmask eyes, hair, clothing etc. Reveal the effect on wrinkles, but don’t brush in major skin folds, such as those around the mouth. Sometimes I’ll use this on lips, but usually not. The edge of the lip can present problems. I might make a very tiny brush and just paint the center of each lip. But usually not.

Right now you might be worried you’ve created a wax dummy. That’s ok! We’ll fix it.

But first, some things to avoid that I mentioned above. Note what happens when I paint over the ’smile’ folds in my face. It looks really fake and weird, and makes me look fatter.

Also, avoid edges of high contrast, or saturated color. You get weird ghosting if you get too close. Here’s an example of where I painted too close to the collar of my shirt. Notice the purple that bleeds over the border onto my skin. Avoid this too.

Now zoom back out to assess your image. You’ll want to adjust the opacity so it looks more natural. Somewhere around 50% usually looks best (see below).

Go have a cup of coffee, and come back later. If you’re shocked and horrified about how fake the skin looks, you need to reduce the opacity of the layer further. If it looks natural, toggle the layer on and off. If you don’t notice a difference, then the opacity is too light. It’s a matter of taste of course. But you don’t want your client’s first impression to be “eeeuw, I’ve been retouched!”

Now here’s a comparison, zoomed back into 100%. At a 50% opacity, the fully zoomed image might look a little too much. But that’s probably just right for making a print.

And comparing it with the degrunge layer turned off.

Degrunge is good for blemishes and wrinkles. It will also get rid of glossy, sweaty highlights. If you’ve got a giant shiny spot, you can even do a separate degrunge layer with larger values, and you can smooth out the highlights that way. It will also to some degree remove stray hairs. Although some cloning is usually necessary to finish the hair removal. If you have some deep shadows, sometimes large values will allow you to smooth the transition areas. It’s all dependent on your particular image situation.

If you work with the same types of images a lot, you can set up some Actions to use common values. The necessary values are dependent upon size of the skin area in pixels. So a headshot like the one above requires larger numbers than a family of four, with correspondingly smaller heads. I have a ‘headshot’ Action and a ’small head’ action, that takes care of about 90% of my images. I just have to paint in the masks properly.

This is not a click-and-go technique, obviously! It requires manual labor, and good taste on your part. If you overdo it, you images will look horrible. But used properly, it makes skin look nice and smooth. And it retains texture at the same time, unlike techniques that simply blur the skin selectively.

For those of you who have been waiting for me to post this tutorial, you can see why it took me so long! I hope it’s been useful. Feel free to post questions if you have them.