This Photoshop Actions Blueprint was sent in from Karen of Smile-Play-Love Photography. Thank for you sharing how you edit your photos with all of us.

1. Ran MCP’s Studio White Bright Spell. This Photoshop action from the Bag of Tricks set turns light white and grayish backdrops into high key white backdrops.  I used this at about 80% to get a bright white backdrop, often referred to as High Key White  (I use a white backdrop and natural light for most of my portrait photography work so I LOVE THIS ACTION and use it on every single photo!)
2. Ran Portraiture at default settings at 100% opacity
3. Did a “Defog” unsharp mask (14-40-0)
4. Used MCP’s “Eye Doctor” Photoshop action: catchlights layer and sharpen eyes layer at default settings
5. Used MCP’s Powder Your Nose photoshop action from “Magic Skin” at default opacity – brushed on skin under eyes, across forehead, cheeks and chin (I use this on every photo I edit as it helps with under eye circles, blemishes, scars, wrinkles, and even double chins without looking unnatural)
6. I did a curves layer with a very slight s-curve set to luminosty and then another curves layer lifting the midtones slightly
7. I used MCP’s Free Photoshop action Touch of Light at about 30% on the slight shadow her right side of face and MCP’s Touch of Dark at about 20% on her hair on her left side of head as it was a bit too bright
8. My final step to present proofs to my clients is to brand it with my logo.  I set up a ‘branding bar’ to match all of my new stationary about 2 weeks before MCP’s new “Finish It” action set came out.  I wish I would have waited, as it would have saved me a lot of time and headache!  Jodi inspired me to add some curved corners.  I run this final step as an action that allows me to save it both for web (sharpening and resizing) and for print (as a 4×6 and sharpened for printing) since a number of my clients like to order a proof album rather than just view their photos online.

That is my process for every photo I edit.  I have combined all of these steps into a big batch action that I run on every photo. MCP Actions seriously changed the way I post-process, and helped me turn my photography from a hobby into a business.  Thanks Jodi!

Karen Gunton

Here is before editing and getting a high key white backdrop:

Here is after editing – shown with the high key white backdrop and tones:

Want to color pop your images in Photoshop? This week’s Blueprint shows one way to achieve rich, super powerful color.  I get asked about this look all the time in reference to a few photographers who pull out these deep hidden colors. This look and style is trendy and fun, and many will love it, but some will not.  Recently it seems either photos are heavily color popped or the opposite, using vintage photoshop actions.

For this Blueprint, I wanted to show you how to get rich, vibrant colors using color pop Photoshop actions.

Here are the details of this edit – all the actions used, except the frame, were from the Bag of Tricks Photoshop action set.

1. Since I wanted to show a rich, deep color pop, I started with the Magical Color Finder Brush {Intense} action. I applied this with a 100% opacity brush everywhere except on the skin and jeans, as I did not want the skin to get red or the jeans to glow too much. I decided to get crazy and adjusted the opacity of this layer to 83%.
2. The photo seemed dark in spots, and I wanted to fill in some light.  I ran Magic Fill Light action at 34%.
3. To make the photo more crisp, I ran Magic Clarity and adjusted the opacity to 54%.
4. I wanted a bit more light on her face, so I used the Magic Light action and painted with a 30% opacity brush on her face, layer opacity left on default setting.
5. Then I finished up with the Magic Dark action and with a 30% opacity brush, I pained around the edges of the photo, layer opacity left on default setting.
6. For display purposes, I used the Frame It Small action from the Finish It set on both the before and after, which resizes and sharpens for web and adds a frame for the finishing touch.

I edited this photo using MCP Photoshop actions for I Heart Faces.  This photo was submitted by Caroline of frog-photoblog.blogspot.com.

When shooting on a bright day with the sky behind the subject, if you do not have a flash or reflector, it is hard for your camera to balance the exposure properly. Your subject likely will be underexposed and background overexposed. To fix this you can use Photoshop actions and layer masks to control where you need light.

I worked on this photo exclusively in Photoshop CS4 using the MCP Actions Bag of Tricks Photoshop action set, alongside Magic Skin and the Eye Doctor. These 3 Photoshop action sets can be found together in the Incredible Retouching Package. Then I completed the photo for web display using Frame It from the Finish It actions.

Here were my steps:

1. Used Bag of Tricks “Magic Fill Light” action – ran it 2x at 100% opacity (flattening in between)
2. Ran Bag of Tricks “Magical Clarity” and left this at  default of 27%
3. Flattened so layer order would not present issues
4. Used the Bag of Tricks “Sky is Bluer Illusion” action at the default settings
5. Flattened and then duplicated the layer – ran “Gaussian Blur” to get rid of added color pixelization from making sky so vivid. Used setting of 8.8.
6. Added a mask to the blurred layer and masked off the girl – so only sky was effected
7. Flattened so layer order would not cause issues
8. Used Bag of Tricks Magic Light (on face – painted using 30% brush)
9. Used Bag of Tricks Magic Dark (painted on using 30% brush around edges of photo)
10. Duplicated background and used patch tool on rash on elbows
11. Ran Eye Doctor – used catchlight and Iris layer
12. Ran Magic Skin at Default opacity
13. Finished things off with Finish It actions – used Frame It Over-sized and sampled a blue from the sky to tie it all together for the web

This is before image:

And here is the after: