Alicia Williams, a good friend of mine (and a great photographer!) asked me about a set of actions I used for retouching images. Because others have asked about the Boutwell’s Totally Rad Action Set, I thought I would post how I use these actions in my daily image workflow. I find that these actions are subtle but powerful, and because they simulate a lot of film looks and things that you could have done in a darkroom in the film days, I think they will stand the test of time and not make the images look dated. Disclaimer: To use these actions, you must first be able to create a well-exposed image- these actions will not fix bad images. You must also be comfortable using layer masks in photoshop.

Image 1- Here is the original, straight from raw, file. Well exposed, but lacking some oomph.

Image 2- For my first step, I wanted to do some non-destructive dodging and burning to draw attention to the bride and groom, glamorize the rocks, and lighten the shadows in the groom’s face (Yin/Yang). The difference is subtle with “save for web” files, but look at the groom’s face to see the most difference:

Image 3- For the step pictured below, I wanted to add a bit of glow and smooth out the skin of my bride (Prettyizer):

Image 4- For the step pictured below, I wanted to warm up the file a little (Warm it Up Kris!) and bring back some of the detail in the rocks (Boutwell’s Magic Glasses). I used my layer masks on both to back off the warming and sharpening filters on the faces of my bride and groom.

Image 5- And here is the finished file. I simply smoothed over some of the sand and some trash on the rocks and added contrast (+contrast-luma).

And here is the original file again for the sake of comparison- I think you’ll agree that the file above is much more attractive than the file below!