Enhancing The Eyes: An Fstoppers Post Production Tutorial By Sean Armenta

My name is Sean Armenta and I am a professional fashion photographer based in Southern California. You may have seen a few of my videos posted on Fstoppers in the past but this will be the first video in a series called Fstoppers PPT (post production tutorials) that I will be producing exclusively for Fstoppers. If you have a Youtube account you may want to subscribe to the new FstoppersPPT channel.

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and I believe the eyes are one of the most important parts of a portrait. In this tutorial, I will share with you the techniques I use to retouch eyes and eyelashes.

February 1, 2011

Sean Armenta

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http://www.rlmorrisweddings.com Lee
Please give us your feedback on this video. At this point Sean is going to create 6 videos and release them twice a month. If you guys enjoy them, we will make it a regular thing so please give us your input.
Antoine Thisdale
Love these videos Lee! Very informative, very high quality material. I’ve been a fan and following Sean for a few years already and he’s always been a great inspiration!
I’d love for you guys (fstoppers) to go and make actual making of videos like you did with Peter Hurley.
And i’ll take the time to plug that he’s doing a workshop: http://inspiredweddingsmag.com/seanarmenta/
Cheers,
BH
Great video! Keep them coming. My only comment on this one is that I am surprised that he left the small lower catchlights in place. Because they are so bright, I find them very distracting. I would have healed or cloned them out and just left the larger catchlights.
J.D.
Great tutorial. You can tell by Sean’s portfolio that he really accentuates the eyes in is portraits :)
http://fotoconcerto.com Joven
thanks for sharing. this is very informative.
Alex
Great tutorial, keep doing it.
martin
Great video, even though I like the all-around videos more, this is definetely very informative. My personal favorite was the first one sent here. I am looking forward to other Sean’s videos.
William
Great video, I like how much detail and the reasoning he gives for making each change.
John
Love the videos!
Kellen
very well taught. good job!
http://www.arnoldsoshkin.com arnold soshkin
Great video. Keep them coming.
Kris Cain
Sean! Your a beast man!
I think you went a tad too heavy with the dodging of the colored area of the eye though! It pulls the “natural” feel out of the picture. If you would have pulled back a little more, it would be a bit better. The eyes are so sensitive when it comes to photos!
I enjoyed the tips provided, and I love seeing other pros work!
http://www.seanarmenta.com/ Sean Armenta
these are merely techniques. it is up to you guys to adjust the settings to adapt to your personal taste and aesthetic :)
http://focal-pointe.com Makea
Well done. I love the fact that ‘real’ selection techniques are taught, instead of using the hold-your-hand super magic wand tools. No short cuts, just real artistic talent.
Janna
Thanks so much! I didnt think about the blurring of the eye lashes!
Please keep more videos coming! I can use this video and tweek any part of it to satisfy the specific need!
again, thank you
Sebastian
Well done Sean. I’d love to see your videos regularly here.
Retouching on the lower lashes is a bit much for my taste. I usually try to work more with existing lashes (just darken them a bit).
For the iris my second step after curves is usually a layercopy in soft light to get more microcontrast. But i like your brushed second layer and will deff try it in the future.
btw – nice lassowork!
Anthony
Definitely have him do more. This is great.
Doc AD
Thanks for this tutorial! That’s really great professional stuff:-)
Hope to see much more
http://chipsprague.com Chip Sprague
More please. Clean production value and useful detail throughout. Rival quality to that I see at Lynda and KelbyTraining… but this is free :)
http://www.adamottke.com/ Adam
I’ve watched near every video on this site since it launched; and I’m really happy you’re doing this. I’m sure Fstoppers put in the work to collaborate and to get this going, but thanks, Sean, for putting in the time to make these. I’ve been hoping for something like this (I really have no clue how to edit…all I know is from reading and watching vids; so this helps fill a huge gap :-)))). It’s been awesome to watch this site grow and develop into something this big. Great job to everyone involved.
Jan
yes great stuff! sean i follow your blog also and i really apreciate your work.keep on doing that stuff
http://www.jaysharpphotography.com Jay
The best part of Sean’s tutorials is he describes the logic behind what he does. Those are the diamonds embedded in the golden nuggets of his technical acumen.
http://www.marvinhagemeister.de Marvin Hagemeister
Thanks a lot for this video! Nice technique. I learned a lot!
http://blog.shl.at Helmut
Thanks for the great tutorial! It’s always good to see other ways of retouching. I learned something new today! :D
Can’t wait for the next video… ;)
http://www.patrickhallphotography.com Patrick Hall
Glad everyone is enjoying this video. It has always been a goal for Lee and me to have both free educational videos on photography but also post processing. The two really go hand in hand and we are thrilled for Sean to be a contributor to the site. Many more great things coming in 2011!
http://tinyurl.com/nathanokane Nathan O’Kane
PERFECT!! I really enjoyed this one! I would love to see an in depth skin smoothing.
JayBartlett
Great tutorial Sean… Thanks Lee and Patrick for posting this.
Beach
Armenta! Great to see you here man! Always one of my favorites over on MM. And great tutorial.. very valuable stuff. Keep on rockin- Beach
Bixby
That’s freakin’ awesome! Thanks Fstoppers and Sean Armenta for this great post!
http://www.lindseyamillerphotography.com Lindsey
Great techniques. Can’t wait to see more.
http://laura-eliza.com Laura Eliza
That was epic. Loved it!
Ronfa
Absolutely amazing
http://www.andre-design.net/ Andy
Great tutorial, really helful! THANK YOU !
http://www.andre-design.net/ Andy
*helpful :)
http://www.lukecopping.com Luke Copping
As always Sean is a wealth of information and great technique. I love seeing these highly specific tutorials that cover often ignored areas in such great depth. I’m really hoping for a a hair tutorial at some point. And perhaps a trouble shooting tutorial for correcting less than ideal situations.
http://www.bmcphotography.info Brian
Great photographer and great tutorial. Please keep them coming.
http://sfotolhr.wordpress.com Chris
Hugely helpful! Will have to incorporate this next time I shoot people close up!
Keep the videos coming!
Carl Bertossi
Yes yes please I was asking for that stuff so long time a go, finally is happen Thanks so much for that !
Matt Estrada
very nice! never knew about the second technique :) thanks
im guessing you used a Pen tablet for photoshop? especially for the eyelashes…its very hard to do that on the mouse (at least for me it is…)
do you have any recommendations for tablets? thanks :)
Carl Bertossi
I have WACOM Intuos3 A4 PTZ 360 Active Area 305 x 305 mm
You can get WACOM Bamboo from £50 to Intuos4 £300
That is only one recommendation WACOM
http://www.thephotogformula.com Bryan Singer
Sean! These are amazing. Please give us your skin retouching tut as well! I can’t stand re-touchers who say they have “secrets” that they wont reveal. Fantastic work! Well Done!
piotr faldrowicz
Wow. Ive never seen something like this. Great work and I beg for more.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Corne-Smetsers/100001529575533 Corne Smetsers
Just love sean’s work! Really hope he and Fstoppers.com stay connected for a very long time. Only great things can come of out of a joint deal like that!
As for this tutorial, i used it a couple of times now, great response from the models that i photographed
http://flickr.com/roomak_pl Roman
Awesome Tutorial! Finally PS tutorial by someone who actually knows what he’s doing :)
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jürgen-Voolaid/100000209643494 Jürgen Voolaid
These tutorials are awesome, these are really informative and useful. I have read and seen a lot of retouching videos and articles but Sean’s have been the best jet. Keep up the good work and looking forward to new videos.
http://www.facebook.com/ashkanahmadi2 Ashkan Ahmadi
Thanks. these videos are amazing

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