Edit nude portraits

Discover how Stu Williamson edits his photos to achieve the most artistic effect possible

Before i start to show you the step-by-step process of how i created homage to venus, i’d like to give you an insight as to what inspired me to create a fine art image in the first place. it was many years ago whilst in Paris i visited a museum exhibiting Master paintings of the period i’m particularly interested in.

The image of the Birth of venus by Botticelli inspired me the most. i loved the colours, shape, form and the passion the artist instilled into the painting. i thought, one day i’m going to try and create my own masterpiece of the goddess. That said, this is purely my interpretation of the painting and is in no way meant to plagiarise, copy or steal ideas from Botticelli’s original masterpiece. i’m only using the painting as a guideline and as an inspiration for my own fine-art attempt.

1

THE RAW CAPTURE

The camera i used was the canon 5ds fitted with a 24 to 105mm canon lens positioned at 40mm. as you can see in the raW file everything is left as shot. i tend to leave it quite flat as some of the alterations i’m going to do a later stage will add more contrast.

2 ADJUSTMENTS

i’ve added 100% sharpness at a radius of 1 and detail of 25. i’ve gone to Lens corrections and removed chromatic aberration and enable profile corrections the 24-105mm canon lens. adjusting these small details can make a massive difference to the final effect.

3

SELECT BLEND MODES

i save as a Photoshop file. next i add an overlay of a distressed tombstone and set the blending mode to overlay. using the Gradient tool i erased the bottom two-thirds of the picture thus leaving the top third with the distressed watermarks now visible on the stone chair.

4

STOCK IMAGES

from my stock library i selected a file showing dark clouds. i then overlayed the clouds onto the image, added a mask and changed the blending mode to overlay. it gives a beautiful dappled light effect. You can play around with the opacity here and get it to exactly how you like it. i added a layer for a vignette as i needed to darken the edges to focus on the subject.

5

LAYERS

The next stage is a very important one as you have to choose the right image to include in your picture for your intended effect. What i mean by that is because the title of the painting is homage to venus, it had to show people doing just that, paying homage. i managed to find one of my stock pictures that fitted it exactly.

6

CUT AND PASTE

here a mask was applied to the painting layer and the model was painted back using the brush. again the opacity was adjusted to a level that showed ghosting of the figures. at the same time a section of another file taken at the same shoot, showing netting over the model’s legs was cut and pasted and blended on the main image. This added a little more flow to the overall image.

7

DODGE, BURN AND SATURATE

at this point i raised the contrast through the curves adjustment. Then using the dodge and burn tool i set about darkening and highlighting areas that i felt would benefit from this effect. Much like the old darkroom days of dodging and burning with an enlarger. Then i selected the saturation brush and painted over selected areas where i needed to emphasise colour.

Below

HOMAGE TO VENUS

AS VENUS WAS A PLAYFUL SEDUCTRESS AND GODDESS SHE COULD COMMAND ANYTHING SHE WISHED. WHAT SHE MOST WISHED FOR WAS AN AFFAIR WITH MARS THE GOD OF WAR. THIS IS HER SITTING ON HER THRONE