Figure 8-16. Painting a Quick Mask over the parts of the eyes that need sharpening. 8.2.2.3. Moistening, smoothing, and highlighting lips Lips, especially in fashion, glamour, and pin-up photos, can be very important in setting the desired mood. Oddly enough, they seem to make the model seem more relaxed and attentive. Go figure. Before you moisten the lips, there are a couple of techniques you should consider doing first: Smooth cracks in lips One of the reasons models tend to go for lip gloss is to keep their lips from cracking since it makes them look harsh and stressed. Lip gloss also makes their lips look moist and saves us from all this work. If they didn't bring or use their lip gloss, don't despair. Just use a small brush size with the Spot Healing brush and stroke over each crack (see Figure 8-17). Figure 8-17. Look, Ma no cracks. Highlight lips Once you've removed cracks from the lips, the highlights may seem diminished. Not to worry. Just use a wide (in relation to the width of the lips) brush at max softness and paint about 1015 percent white onto the Burn and Dodge layer (see Figure 8-18). Figure 8-18. On the right, a bit of glow added to the lips. Now here is a trick that is downright inappropriate for some images, such as business portraits, guys, and young girls. I think you get the idea. On the other hand, it's a great way to moisten lips as well as give a "juicy" look to many things. The secret lies in a little-used filter that's been with Photoshop over the long haul. In fact, it's used so little, you'd think they might have dumped it by now. This is how I use it to moisten lips and maybe even dampen the surface of a street: 1. Select the lip or lips you want to moisten using the Quick Mask mode at a 100 percent, and about an 85 percent Hardness Brush. Size the brush appropriately and paint over the lips. 2. Click the Standard Mode icon in the Toolbox and then press Cmd/Ctrl-I to invert the selection, then Cmd/Ctrl-J to lift it to a new layer. 3. Choose Filter Artistic Plastic Wrap. You'll see the Plastic Wrap dialog. Check the Preview box and lower the settings until the image looks interesting. It always produces an overdone effect for what we're trying to do, so don't throw up just yet. Instead, just click OK. 4. Immediately choose Edit Fade. In the dialog, scrub the Opacity slider (probably all the way down to about 10 percent) until you like what you see. It should look something like Figure 8-19. Figure 8-19. Moistened lips. 8.2.2.4. High- and low-key techniques for glamour shots When it comes to getting a viewer's attention, it's all about the drama. One way to create this drama is to give the image a different look, such as deviating from the usual striving for a full range of brightness and just go for the brightest or darkest tones. Doing this also seems to set a definite mood. If you shoot RAW, I've already shown you how to get as high- or low-key as possible outside of Photoshop (see the "Using Camera Raw for Creating Effects" section in Chapter 4). Generally, though, you'll want to do some fine-tuning in Photoshop. And if you chose not to shoot RAW, you'll want to use similar adjustments in the Levels adjustment layer as you would have used in Camera Raw to at least get the tonalities in the image into the high-key "ballpark." Now I'll explain the tricks you can use to get the same effects in your own images. Here's the step-by-step for a low-key rendition: 1. Make sure you output the image from Camera Raw using low- or high-key settingssee Chapter 4. You'll probably be more pleased with the end result because you're starting with all your tones in the right basket, so to speak. Basically, what you want to do is lower the Exposure, then raise the brightness so that you can see more detail in the midtones. Don't raise the Brightness so much, however, that you loose the low-key effect. Drag the Shadow slider all the way to the left so you can see as much detail in the shadows as possible. 2. Open your image in Photoshop and run the Workflow Layers Action. You can see the Workflow Layers and one I added as the Layers palette appears in Figure 8-20. Figure 8-20. The workflow layers for the low-key image, before I renamed Layer 1 Skin Smooth. 3. Optional: If there are any highlights in the background of the image that you don't want to be any brighter, use the Lasso tool to make a selection that fences them out, then feather the selection. This is more likely to be the case if you're working with a portrait than with a landscape. 4. In the Levels layer bar, click the Mask icon (which currently contains no mask). You'll see a frame appear around it. Now click the Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and the selection you just made now masks the layer. 5. Double-click the Levels adjustment layer's Levels icon. The Levels dialog will open and the adjustments you make will be masked so they affect only the area within what was formerly your selection. The Histogram is probably pushed off the left end and hits the ground well ahead of the Highlights slider's arrow. Move that arrow to where the highlights start to rise significantly. 6. Smooth the skin as explained earlier in the "Smoothing skin" section of this chapter. Because the skin tones (or the midtones in another category of images, such as landscapes) are so much darker than normal, blemishes have a tendency to be especially noticeable. 7. Spot retouch as required. 8. Select the Levels command. There's already a mask in the Levels adjustment layer, but there's nothing in it. Select the mask (a frame appears around it when selected) and then use Edit Fill and select Black from the menu in the dialog. There will almost always be areas of the image that have become too dark to show much detail. In this case, it's the area around the model's eyes. Burning and Dodging isn't really appropriate for these areas because you not only want to change the brightness of the area, but the contrast within it as well. There even will be times (this isn't one of them) when you want to change the color balance at the same time. 9. Choose the Brush tool, set the color to 100 percent white, set the Brush's Hardness to about 75 percent, and paint into the dark areas in the image. It will appear that nothing is happening, but if you look at the Curves adjustment layer's mask, you'll start to see little white specs appearing where the mask should be. 10. Make a Curves adjustment that will brighten the eyes (or whatever else you want to brighten). Double-click the Curves layer icon, make sure the preview box is checked so you can see what's happening, and adjust your "too dark" areas to your liking. 11. Use the Burn and Dodge layers to adjust areas that are too dark. Figure 8-21 shows the end result. Figure 8-21. The portrait as it looked after modifying the low-key image as it came out of Camera Raw. The high-key version of the same image will look like what you see in Figure 8-22 on the right. Figure 8-22. The high-key version of Osher's portrait on the right. On the left, you see the image as it looked straight out of Camera Raw. Here are the steps that took me to that high-key image: 1. In Camera Raw, I dragged the Exposure slider as far to the right as I could without blocking any highlight in the skin tones. There are some blocked highlights in the background, but they seem to simply add to the atmosphere in the image. 2. In Photoshop, I ran the Workflow Layers Action. I immediately went to the Levels layer and dragged the Midtone slider to the right to brighten the skin tones even more. If you're starting here because you didn't have a RAW shot, use the Levels adjustment layer to get a high-key result similar to the one on the left of Figure 8-22. 3. I performed the smooth skin layer action. 4. I used the Burn and Dodge layer, mostly to take out the intense shadows under the eyes, but also to further lighten skin tones in the hand and shoulders and to darken the knee just enough to see some color and texture. I also burned to darken the color of her lips a bit. 5. I used the Curves layer for a gentle S-curve that raised overall contrast just a touch. 8.2.2.5. Using Multiply and Screen modes Two favorite attention-getting tricks in photography, especially glamour, involve creating a high- or low-key version of the image, duplicating the layer, and then using Screen mode for a high-key result or Multiply mode for a low-key result. This technique is most useful when you want to lighten or darken the image without losing as much highlight and shadow detail as you would by simply using a Levels or Curves command. This technique works so well that I often simply use it instead of the adjustments. It also works extremely well when you want to brighten or darken only masked areas of the image. To lighten or darken the image using Screen or Multiply Blend Modes: Using Diffuse Glow Filter One technique that has become almost too popular is the use of Photoshop's Diffuse Glow filter or third-party filters such as Andromeda's ScatterLight filter. I've seen it used to "define the style" for certain gallery and portrait artists. 1. Select all the layers that make up the current version of the image and drag them to the New Layer icon. This will duplicate them and the duplicates will stay selected. 2. From the Layers palette menu, choose Merge Layers; now you now have a flattened version of the image as the top layer. If you want a higher-key version of the image, choose Screen from the Layers palette Blend menu. If you want a lower-key version of the image, choose Multiply from the Layers palette Blend menu. Figure 8-23 shows both effects on the same image. Figure 8-23. The original image (left), with a Screened layer (middle), and with a Multiply layer (right). NOTE There are a couple of ways to further adjust Multiply and Screen layers and they usually are used in conjunction with one another. You can interactively reduce the intensity of the effect by lowering the Opacity slider. To increase the intensity of the effect, drag the screened or multiplied layer to the New Layer icon in the Layers palette. This will double the intensity of the effect, so you'll probably need to use the Opacity slider. 8.2.3. Portrait Enhancement Tips The techniques for enhancing portraits are much the same as for glamour, but more realistic. Use the same techniques for smoothing skin and brightening eyes and . Figure 8-16. Painting a Quick Mask over the parts of the eyes that need sharpening. 8.2.2.3. Moistening, smoothing, and highlighting lips. that has become almost too popular is the use of Photoshop's Diffuse Glow filter or third-party filters such as Andromeda's ScatterLight filter. I've seen it used to "define