Batteling the bulge using frequency separation

Hi guys, this isn't a super long post at all. I was going through and editing images from a commercial shoot and a blog post idea came to me. Nothing particularly complicated or even awe-inspiring, just an easy fix for a problem a lot of us as photographers have. Unsightly bulges is what I'm talking about. I mean, real talk, unless you're photographing food or just flowers, you're running into this problem. The hardest bulges to edit are the ones forward facing, am I right? Any one can liquefy a belly, or tuck in arms and legs when it's from the side. But when a client is front facing, getting rid of a bulge is a little trickier. The bulge is caused by the difference between the lit and shadowed areas. The stomach protrudes so it catches the light and cast the area under it in shadow. By removing that shadow, you, in essence, 'remove' the bulge.

Recently, I've been working with frequency separation, and as with everything, the more I use it, the better I get at it. There are mucho articles and videos on the best way to use frequency separation. It's very useful and I've found it reduces the time it takes me to edit, as well as the number of layers I use to edit. This post isn't about how to do it, as I've said it's been covered ad nauseam. I will link you to the tutorial that finally convinced me to give it a try, because prior to this guy, it seemed like way too much work to me. You can find a tutorial as well as an easy action you can download to save yourself some time on FX-Ray,'s website.



In the action it's separated into low frequency which I use to edit color differences and high frequency which I use to edit detail, like skin, blemishes, wrinkles and such. The layer we are working with is the low frequency as in the pic below.

Once you're on the low frequency layer, go to your paint brush layer and select the mixer brush tool.

Below is a pic of the settings I use for my brush.

To use the brush, select the color area to sample. The shadowed area is what you want to get rid of, so select the area above it to sample. As with everything, be careful of your sampling areas because you want to make sure the area you paint matches the area around it. In the below example, I haven't done anything to the picture save brushed away the shadow on her lower stomach. Getting rid of that dark area 'flattens' out the small bulge that was there and now her stomach appears flat. The same thing can be accomplished using the healing brush, but when you're working with textured garments too much healing removes that texture. That's the biggest benefit I've found with using frequency separation, not having to sacrifice texture.

Another example. Nothing has been done to the image save removing the shadows on the stomach area. As you can see, the bulge is noticeably smaller in the pic on the left. 

A super fast fix for a problem that plagues the lot of us. As with everything, personal preference changes with every person and this doesn't work on everything. I have found it useful, and it works for me. Hopefully you get some use out of it.  Feel free to leave me questions in the comments. 

Time, time for some, time for some Actions

The title gave me a fit of giggles. It's a song by Redman that my husband used to sing all the time and he used to do this crazy dance that went along with it, but I digress. The purpose of today's post is Actions. In my case photoshop actions. In lightroom they are called presets. There are places aplenty to find them all over the web. Some are great, some not so much, the most important thing is to experiment. They are easy to use which to me, is the most important thing. There are so many complicated things about photography, it's nice once and a while to take editing your photos off that list. I find them most useful when I'm doing portraits and want to make sure that all the photos are the same, keeping a central mood or theme throughout the whole session. Great if you're selling packages, photo albums, that type of thing. Actions are easier than trying to remember what you did for each photo.

 I want to first show you how to go about finding and adding them to your computer. Forgive me if any steps are left out. I'm so used to doing it now, that I may skip something. So, as I said, you can find actions around the world wide web by simple Googling photoshop actions. Here are some of the places I found. Deviant Art   is a great website for all things art related. You can find a lot of Photoshop goodies, as well as some great artists. I mean some of the things these people can do with Photoshop remind me that I am still in the infantile stages of the program. Another great website for actions or rather the links to some great actions is PhotoTuts. They have wonderful Photoshop tutorials! I go to this website a lot. The link I gave you send you straight to an article they have on actions, including how to make them yourself. The best part about the above actions is that they are mostly free. MCP Actions  also has free actions that they offer as well as some great ones that you can pay for. I also found some beautiful actions from photographer KMiller as well as tutorials on her blog. :)

Alright, so you've found some cool actions that you love and can't wait to start using them. Once you download them, here is how you add them to your photoshop. Move your downloaded actions to the actions folder. The file path is below.

 Now, to load them in your actions tab.

 You can find the actions tab by going to window and clicking on it. I keep mine in the same section as my layers. It's easier to reach for me there.

 Click on the circled icon, go to load actions:

The window below should pop up. Choose the action/s you want to load. Rinse and repeat for every action you want to add to your tab. :)

Now on to using actions. Here is a picture I took of fellow photographer Brandi Anderson and her family a couple of years ago with no retouches done to the image.

Choose the action that you want to use and then press the play button circled at the bottom. Photoshop will carry out the action. Some actions will merge the layers automatically, and there are some actions that will show you all the layers used like in the picture on the right. This will allow you to adjust and tweak the layers to fit each picture if needed.

 Once you merge the layers together, this is the result of the action. A simple one minute edit to your photo.

 Side by side:

See, easy peesy. Takes you longer to load the actions than it does to use them. Below are some other examples of how I used actions.

 Now actions don't necessarily mean you have to change the color. Actions are really just short cuts for the things you do in photoshop often. For example, I have actions for brightening teeth, one for dodging and burning, one for skin smoothing etc. They cut time out of your editing and who doesn't need that.

 Feel free to email me or message me on my facebook with any questions or suggestions for blog posts you'd like to see in the future.