Aging With Light and Post Production

Sometimes - to fit a client's brief - you need to do the opposite of most retouching requires.

Normally, you need to beautify a portrait. For a recent project, I had to add the years rather than take them away. The customer was happy and this now graces a CD cover but I'm not so sure about the model (my father-in-law).

Here's what I did:

Prep: ask the model not to shave for a day or so.

Lighting: a Canon 580EX Flashgun on half-power through a partially collapsed shoot-through umbrella triggered by a Canon STE-2 Wireless transmitter. The brolly was handheld. Partially collapsing it seems to reduce the spread so I get a little hardness to what would normally be a very soft light.

In post production:

1. Crop the image
2. Copy the layer
   
3. Accentuate the subject's natural wrinkles and skin texture using the dodge and burn tools
4. Copy the layer
5. Add a black solid colour adjustment layer and use the add noise tool to suit your image
6. Add a layer mask (Alt + J) and paint through the layer with a soft brush at around 8% to show the face and features
   
7. Flatten the layers
8. Copy the background layer
9. Run the high pass filter and change the blending mode to Soft Light
10. Flatten the layers
11. Copy the layer and run the high pass filter again and change the blending mode to color
12. Reduce the opacity to 40-50%
13. Flatten the layers
14. Run your favourite sharpening routine but carefully as the more you sharpen the higher the risk of fringing
    

and yes, this is an adaption of the 'Dave Hill effect', one of probably 2-3000 that seem to be floating around the internet.