Photoshop Lightroom 4 Making High Contrast Black-and-white portrait photos

Original photos

Step 1: Eliminate stains and blemishes

First we need to eliminate the stains and blemishes that are easily missed in the photos. To make the stain easier to spot, we first put the curve in this way:

This curve gives the image an extreme contrast effect, unrelated to the final photo, just for easy detection of flaws.

Now, we're going to use the "stain removal (Q)" tool to erase the "thorn points" in the photo.

After we finish removing the stain, we have to restore the curve (the effect of removing the stain will not be restored).

Step 2: Basic adjustment

First, we'll turn the photos into Black-and-white and press the "V" button. Because this is a portrait photograph, we would like to make the high light on the skin softer, increase the contrast, and make some other necessary adjustments. We can increase the contrast by lowering the "high light" and "white" levels to soften the high light, while lowering the shadow and black levels. In addition, we will also directly adjust the "contrast" slider to further increase the contrast. Finally, in order to soften the skin, we lower the sharpness.

Now the effect of the photo is as follows:

Step 3: Use curves to increase contrast

The above operation will make the picture a little bit flat. In addition to directly improving the "contrast", we will also use the tonal curve to adjust the contrast more carefully.

If your "tonal curve" panel is not like this, pay attention to the curve icon in the lower-right corner. We need an "S" shape curve to improve contrast.

The effect of this step is very delicate, so let's move on to the next step.

Step 4: Sharpening and noise reduction

Here is a typical sharpening setting:

In addition to sharpening, but also to do some noise reduction processing. Image noise is enhanced because it reduces shadow and black levels. The key point here is to balance the effect of noise reduction and sharpening, keeping the skin soft while retaining the details of the hair and eyes.

These are the typical settings and methods for dealing with a picture of high contrast Black-and-white portrait. Final Result:

Category:

• PS Image Processing