Reply To: Looking for Critique

[nairbynairb]

It’s really not that hard to do what I did…

Do you own a pen tablet? I use the Wacom Capture. It’s amazing, I can’t even imagine how I did photoshop before I got one.
If you don’t have one, I’d recommend getting one!

And to achieve that look I:
Used a curves adjustment layer to bring up the brightness of the image,

used a curves adjustment layer to bring down the brightness of the image and then used a layer mask to have it only affect the areas of the image that I didn’t want the viewer’s eye ( outside and on camera left ),

I used another curves adjustment layer to bring up the brightness and I used a layer mask to have it only affect the dude,

I used Soft Light layers with a white and black brush to dodge/burn the highlights and the shadow on the guy,

I used a levels adjustment layer to add red and blue into the shadows,

I used a hue/saturation adjustment layer to take saturation out of the image and then I used a layer mask to have it only affect his cloak,

then I used 1 more curves adjustment layers to change the colours of the image up ( adding more green in the midtones and blues into the shadows, etc…)

lastly I got a stamp-visible layer (ctrl+alt+shift+e  on PC) and I used the “Smart Sharpen” filter to sharpen the image and then layer masked that to only affect his face.

And viola!