Keetee

I recently received this sweet little message from Sabina, a visitor to my blog:

Hi! Your tutorials are so helpful, thank you! Will you be doing a tutorial on how you created your “about me photo”? The colors and lighting is very beautiful!

Since I began writing tutorials, I’ve tended to save my steps as I work in Photoshop in the event I want to share them later. So, Sabina, you’re in luck! This tutorial will cover adding colorful lighting to a photo and adding some really easy lighting effects. First, let me show you the photo to which we’re referring:

(Click the image to view a full size version on my Flickr.)

Touching Up the Original Image

Here’s my original image. Before I get started adding effects, I’m going to explain the basic retouching steps. You can skip ahead to the Adding Lighting Effects section if you want to get to those now!

First, some gentle airbrushing. I created a new layer on top of my original image and selected a round brush at 0% hardness. I used the eyedropper tool to select one of the lighter skin tones near the eye area, and carefully brushed over the circles beneath the eyes. I also brightened up the cheeks a little with the same method. I set this layer to 40% opacity.

I merged these layers, then made a duplicate of the newly-merged layer. I selected the top layer. Next, I went to Image → Adjustments → Selective Color. “Red” should already be selected next to the Colors dropdown. I pulled down the “Black” slider to -40%.

Using a round eraser with 0% hardness, I erased the lip area so that the original color showed through, then merged these layers again.

To give everything a subtle glow, I set my background color to white and went to Filter → Distort → Diffuse Glow. I set the Graininess to 0, Glow Amount to 1, and Clear Amount to 15. The result is a subtle white cast to the lighter parts of the image.

I used Image → Auto Contrast to adjust for the added glow.

I selected the Dodge tool, set it to 15% exposure, and used a small, 0% hardness round brush to brighten the light reflections on the eyes and lips.

I used Filter → Liquify to tuck in the cheek a little. A minor vanity adjustment. :)

Adding Lighting Effects

We’ve all seen lens flares awfully abused, so here’s an example of tasteful use. I went to the Lens Flare filter via Filters → Render → Lens Flare. In the dialog, I set the brightness to 150% and selected the 35mm lens type. For the flare center, I clicked the very top left corner of the image.

The next few steps use bokeh textures, which are a great resource for quick lighting effects. Bokeh just refers to out-of-focus points of light.

Where to get bokeh textures

The bokeh textures I used come from a search for bokeh textures on DeviantArt. There’s a lot of free stock resources on there, but DeviantArt users usually accompany these with credit rules, so ensure you follow them! I used textures from Bokeh Textures Pack by ImaginaryRosse and BOKEH COLLECTION I by proverbios31. You can also find some lovely textures on Lost and Taken, a free textures website—try these colorful, grungy textures or this big bokeh 30-pack!

I layered one of these bokeh textures over my image and erased the points of light I didn’t want with a soft brush. I reduced the opacity to 75%.

I set my bokeh layer to the ‘Screen’ blending mode.

Again, I layered a bokeh texture over my image, this time reducing the layer opacity to 30%.

I set the layer to the ‘Screen’ blending mode and merged everything.

Everything was getting a little too light for me, so I used Auto Contrast (Image → Auto Contrast) to darken up my darks a tad.

Color and Finishing Touches

I created a new layer and set my foreground color to a cyan (#12c8a8) and my background color to a magenta (#c64692). Using the Gradient Tool, I clicked and dragged across the image from top-left to bottom-right.

I set the blending mode of this layer to ‘Color Burn.’

I reduced the layer opacity to 60%.

Next, I set my foreground color to white and my background to black. With the gradient tool still selected, I switched to a radial gradient and applied it in a line from the top-left corner toward the bottom-right. I set the opacity of this layer to 50%.

I changed the blending mode to ‘Screen.’

Next, I opened a new 10×10 document. I filled the background with white, then used the Elliptical Marquee tool to select a 10×10 circle. I deleted the contents of the circle. To save it as a pattern, I went to Images → Define Pattern. The resulting pattern is a series of white diamonds, with which I filled a new layer.

I created three different layers filled with this pattern and used different types of Transform to adjust their appearance. I then used layer masks to hide anywhere I didn’t want the pattern to appear for that layer. I’m afraid it was really a series of micro-steps and tweaks that got me to my final product, but here are my layers and the resultant image.

Setting a layer to the color burn blending mode can bring out some harsh shadows, and I felt like this was coming through a little on the face. To add layer a little bit of white on top of it, I set my background color to white and went to Filter → Distort → Diffuse Glow again. I set the Graininess to 0, Glow Amount to 1, and Clear Amount to 17.

Things were feeling sharp, so I merged everything, then duplicated my newly-merged layer. On the layer below, I ran a lens blur filter— Filter → Blur → Lens Blur. I set the radius somewhere around 10 and used the defaults for the remaining options. I then used a layer mask on the top layer to show the blur only on the edges, as pictured here.

Finally, I ran a low-radius smart blur (Filter → Blur → Smart Blur) on the image. It’s a minor difference, but it brought me to the final work!

As always, I hope you find this tutorial useful! Feel free to comment with any questions.