Ok, this is not my style at all, but I have a client asking for an image where there is a soft glow surrounding the subject. She showed me an example and it's more than soft focus. The subject's skin was soft and glowing.
I tried searching here on glow but could not find a recommended technique.
Open shot in photoshop
duplicate bottom layer
convert new layer to BW
set mode on new layer to overlay or softlight (all depends on what you like)
gaussian blur between 7 and 20, according to taste
fade the layer
thats what I do. but many others will have different ideas and styles.
ok... looking at input from Simms and dwterry, soft light layer with diffuse glow and gaussion blur sounds like a starting point. I hard tried just plain diffuse glow and that was.... not good.
ok... looking at input from Simms and dwterry, soft light layer with diffuse glow and gaussion blur sounds like a starting point. I hard tried just plain diffuse glow and that was.... not good.
Thanks for all the great responses!
This one was done using basically that technique, and including diffuse glow. But I lost track of exactly how I was making it...
eurgh! plenty of reasons there to throttle back on the processing. I am a bit of a layer-fiend when it comes to my advanced editing challenges, but this is really far too much, it moves out of the realms of soft glow into gaudy over-the-top-lets-see-how-many-effects-photoshop-can-produce dom.
Compare that to this portrait of yours, and you can see why less is most defintely more..
The basic subtle lighting here makes this a far more attractive image.
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Originally posted by Nusbaum:
ok... looking at input from Simms and dwterry, soft light layer with diffuse glow and gaussion blur sounds like a starting point. I hard tried just plain diffuse glow and that was.... not good.
Thanks for all the great responses!
This one was done using basically that technique, and including diffuse glow. But I lost track of exactly how I was making it...
Oh, it's a horrible bit of post processing, I agree. It just happens to glow :-) It's not something I will do again, but it was fun to make it happen. That's a totally backlit image with no fill light whatsoever, a grab shot.
