Nathaniel Dodson of Tutvid brings us another lesson in Photoshop mastery, as he flies through a portrait edit lickety-split. If you're a little green to editing portraits, however, you might want to view this video a few times, because the methods are widely used.
Once you master the basics of post-processing in your chosen genre of photography, you will practically be able to fly though it with your eyes closed. Coming from the point of view of a landscape photographer, a lot of the methods and theory are the same. Generally speaking, one would want to fix any exposure issues, increase contrast, bring up the shadows in a raw editor, and then, if one is inclined, open it in Photoshop for more creative editing like dodge and burn and color toning. Where things start to get really different is the use of the liquefy tool — although some landscape photographers do like to use this from time to time — and of course using frequency separation for blemish removal and to even skin tones — mountains (thankfully) don't have skin. I do, however, use frequency separation for some final sharpening. The steps are very similar to Dodson's, but with a slight variation.
Why am I comparing editing a portrait to editing a landscape? Because experienced landscape photographers will be able to have an unedited raw file ready for print in no time at all, just like Dodson does here with a portrait. The common denominator? Practice. Granted, the video is sped up, but it is possible to complete an edit like this in around 15 minutes. Dodson's method of delivery is very clear and succinct, so if want up your portrait editing game fast, watch this tutorial and practice along with a file of your own.
Nathaniel Dodson, you will be great as a travel news broadcaster.
The problem with this sort of "article" is that it's more of a buy my advanced lessons instead of an actual article. I do give him props for doing better than most. However he is going at such a break neck speed, a beginner would not be able to keep up and a more experienced photographer would know most of this. Last unless you have the exact same picture (or a picture with similar faults,) it's useless. Try going through the exact same steps on a landscape.
I am not saying that he does not know what he is doing. He is probably a very good photographer and retoucher, however this leaves lots to be desired.
There's always the option to pause the video as you go along but I get what you're saying.
Photo Sham Wow! This was like a photo edit drive-by shooting. 😜
But first, a couple of triple Espressos. :-) I wonder how much of this could be done in a program like Portrait Pro's latest?