: RAW processing for Glamour Photography Given a RAW file of a glamour photo, what are the "must dos" first steps BEFORE any retouching is done to enhance the photo? Although I realize that this

@Sims5801359

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional photographer so somebody who is might completely discredit this... but here goes.

First thing I'd do is normalize the image. That is adjusting the whites, blacks, and colors to look as natural as possible.

Now you can use different processes for this depending on your workflow but here's what how I'd go about it.


In the RAW Settings adjust the Whites and Blacks to reduce both (negative white, positive black). Your image will look a bit dull but that's fine
Now in Photoshop add a Curves Adjustment Layer and begin by holding the Alt while sliding the Black and White slider (one at a time) inward. Hold the Alt will show you when things begin to appear.
Still in the Curves Adjustment Layer its usually good to add a small S-Curve to the image. This puts a little contrast back into it.
Now create a Color Balance Adjustment Layer and fix your blues and reds mostly depending on the lighting. You want it to look natural.


Create Merged Layer

Cmd / Ctrl+Opt / Alt+Shift+E

Now you should have a good base image to start with. To do the basic sharpening you'll probably want to use High Pass Filter to begin with, be subtle about it.


Duplicate the Merged Layer
Convert the top one to Smart Object / use Smart Filters
Change the Blend Mode to Overlay
Filter > Other > High Pass Filter -- I find somewhere between 4 and 6 to be pretty good but play with it so you can see what it does. You might even want to do this different strengths for different parts say foreground/background. To do that just apply it, mask the part you want this one to contain, and then do it again masking the other part. Rename your layers as you go.

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