Inquiry

Last week, Bill received an e-mail with a question about “The Boxer” post, and we thought we’d share it along with Bill’s answer. Luckily Bill caught the e-mail, as it had been sent to is junk box! So we’re going to request that any questions regarding the blog be made on this site, so to avoid missing them!

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Good day to you Bill. How are y
ou doing? I am a huge fan of your work! I saw your website on Flickr and have going on it almost everyday
I am particularly intrigued by the boxer girl photo. I am new to STROBIST and the HDR stuff. I work as a graphic designer so I get to do some cool stuff too sometimes.

I just had a super quick question for you, well I went through the boxer girl tutorial you were talking about in your blog and I had a hard time seeing the layers that you used in PS.

I am trying to get the same kind of look and was wondering if you would be so kind as to maybe send me the layers screen shot so that I could read what’s there.
I want to set up my PS file the way you have. I have included a screen capture to show you what I am talking about.

Thanks kindly,
And I hope to hear back from you.

Best regards

______________________________________________
SAMIT BHATIA

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Hello Samit!

Thanks for your
interest and inquiry.

As I was able to read the layers pallete in the email you sent to me, I will try to describe the layers from the bottom up.

The first layer is not relevant it is simply a merge of all above.

#2 Is the HDR room scene background.
#3 Is a duplicate of the Room Scene Background desaturated and changed to multiply blend mode. Then a layer mask was applied and a hole
“punched” in it with a large soft edge brush. The purpose of this layer is to softly darken the edges, a “vignette” if you will. I like this method as it does not add any weird
saturation.
#4 Is a curves adjustment layer activated after a selection was made. It creates the beam of light crossing behind her.
#5 Is the previously masked model on a transparent field.
#6 Is a layer affecting only the model layer, some simple additional face retouching.
#7 Is a layer affecting only the model layer, a curves adjustment layer adjusting the shadow contrast on the face.
#8 Is a layer affecting only the model layer, a curves adjustment of a selection of the eyes to brighten them.
#9 Is a layer affecting only the model layer, a curves adjustment of a selection of the left eye only.
#10 Is a layer affecting only the model layer, a curves adjustment of a selection of the hand tape on the right to darken and add contrast.
#11 Is a layer affecting only the model layer, same tape on left.
#12 Is a layer affecting only the model layer, a curves adjustment layer to darken the model overall slightly.
#13 Is a layer affecting only the model layer, a hue saturation adjustment layer to slightly alter the hue of the model.
#14 Is a layer affecting only the model layer, a layer set to color on which I painted some warm tint into the ropes.
#15 I copied and pasted the ear and hands onto this layer and pulled out red. The hands and ears were a little too red.
#16 Is a layer set to color on which I painted the yellow into the windows on the right and wall on the left.
#17 Is a curves adjustment layer adjusting the yellow painted on the layer below.
#18 Is a softlight layer filled with 50% gray to burn and dodge the shorts to add to their dimension.
#19 Is the new catchlights in the eyes.

So thanks to Samit for his question and I hope everyone can benefit from this.
I think by far the most important thing to take away from this is that their is no “formula”. Each of these are subtle yet important details that contribute to the whole.
None or some of these may show up in another image. It all depends on what is required.

Thanks

Bill