7. Sharpen Images Using Photoshop for Crossdressers

10. Sharpen

It's important in most photographs that you avoid to sharpen noise unless you have a specific reason to do so. So we should try to focus on Photoshop techniques or third party plug-ins to target what's most important, which is edges.

I can't say it enough; think twice before you apply any filter or image adjustment to a complete image. I've seen many beginners (but also more experienced users) make this mistake. The main keyword here is:selective, meaning that you only edit what has to be edited by using a selection, quite often this means using a mask. You can find several examples of how to edit in a selective way in two of my other tutorials:

• Layer Masks Photoshop tutorial
• Non-Destructive Editing Photoshop tutorial

So what does that mean when we want to sharpen an image? In the case of portraits it's important that the eyes are sharp, because that's the main focal point in a face, because unconsciously we always look at the eyes first. On some occasions one might even consider to only sharpen the eyes, again, to make the eyes stand out, to increase the focus on the eyes. It's very simple; sharp eyes are more important than sharpening skin which increased noise.

There are several ways to sharpen an image and although I prefer a professional plug-in like FocalBlade, I'm quite often also happy with the result of the High Pass Sharpening technique, which focuses mostly on the edges of an image.

Before I explain this technique, let's first add a layer that contains a merged copy of the image that we want to sharpen and we do this by adding a new layer first on top of all the other layers by clicking on the Create a new Layer icon  in the layers palette. Rename this layer to  Merged Image.

Now for the magic trick; hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E (Command + Option + Shift + E on the Mac) to merge all visible layers on the active layer (Remember this shortcut, it's a very useful one) or in other words; the layer Merged Image will contain the image that was visible in the document window (the result of all these layers) when you used this shortcut.

Duplicate this layer by clicking on the layer's thumbnail, holding down the mouse button, dragging the mouse cursor to the Create a new Layer icon  and releasing the mouse button:

This new layer will automatically be the active layer and be named Merged Image copy.
Go to the menu and select Filter / Other / High Pass... Select a value of 1.5 pixels and click OK. The next step is to set the blending mode of this layer to Soft Light:

Click on the Add Layer Mask icon to add a mask to this same layer. Press D on your keyboard to make the fore- and white and the background color black and press X to make switch both colors; the foreground color should now be black, the background color white.

You can now paint with a soft brush  inside your document window to mask those areas that you don't want to be sharpened and in most cases these will be the areas that contain noise, like skin for example.

Alternative tools for sharpening are of course Photoshop's Unsharp Mask or in CS2: Smart Sharpen. There are however many different sharpening techniques and some of which don't even make use of any sharpening tools. The High Pass Sharpening technique is such an example.

Like I said earlier, FocalBlade (Note: I'm not affiliated with its manufacturer) delivers very good results, especially when it comes to avoiding halos or sharpening noise. Some FocalBlade reviews that confirm the quality of this product:

• GoInside
• Luminous-Landscape
• ShutterTalk

And here's our final result.

Important: Give your browser enough time to download the "after" image or you won't see any difference

Final Words

We've reached the end of this tutorial. It has been a long trip but hopefully a useful one. Unlike some other things we do with Photoshop, retouching is quite often not just a matter of adding 1+1=2, since most corrections have to be done by hand , almost as if we're controlling a brush and this will always deliver slightly different results. Also the combination of several techniques or tools, for example when we clone something difficult like hair, can lead to an unpredictable outcome. The steps as mentioned in my introduction on page #1 can help you to get more control over retouching, but the main priorities should be; practice and experiment.

Hopefully this tutorial has also taught you the importance of non-destructive editing. Not only have you created an image that is highly organized, but you're also able to make some final adjustments at a later stage. Do understand that non-destructive editing is not the key to everything and there are some pitfalls you will come across.

What is not covered in this tutorial is how to make skin look really smooth. I've decided to create a separate'Smooth Skin' (click here to visit our Smooth Skin Photoshop tutorial), since the image we have been using all the time is not well suited to show you the technique involved.

I want to end this tutorial with a few comments; avoid to go "over the top" with your corrections if you want your results to look natural. Extreme whites in the eyes or incredible white teeth for example might look great, but does it look natural? That's quite often the question you have to ask yourself and there is no manual that can help you, again it's all about practice and preference. You also have to ask yourself if it's always important to make people look better, since these minor imperfections are part of who we are and are part of what makes us unique.

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial.

6. Eye Makeup using Photoshop for crossdressers

6. Increase definition of the eyes

We have learned in our previous steps that it's important to have the focus on the eyes and how Photoshop can help us with that. In this step we're going to increase that focus by increasing the contrast in the eyes by brightening the whites and making the eyelashes darker.

Add a new layer by clicking on the Create a new Layer icon  in the layers palette.

Rename this layer to  Eyes .

Go to the menu and select Edit / Fill...

Select 50% Gray and click OK.

Set the blending mode of this layer to Soft Light: 

What we've done is creating a 50% Gray layer with a blending mode of Soft Light. This will have no effect on our image as you might have discovered. However... when we make parts of this gray layer darker or lighter it will actually effect the brightness values of the image underneath. More about this Photoshop technique can be found in my Non-Destructive Editing Photoshop tutorial.

Select the Dodge Tool in the tool bar. With the Dodge Tool selected make sure that in the options bar the option Exposure is set to 100%:

Note: normally this value would be much lower (quite often below 10%) if we were to use this tool directly on an image (without using a 50% Gray layer), but this is not the case right now. The option Range doesn't matter; you can set it to any value because it doesn't have any effect on our results.

Continue by changing the brush options of the Dodge Tool by clicking on the button marked with A.

Set Master Diameter to 2 and Hardness to 0%:

Zoom in on the left eye with 500%. Start by moving over the largest white areas while holding down the left mouse button (avoid touching the iris, eyelashes or skin). Only release the mouse button when you're done. Don't go over the same area a second time after releasing the mouse button.

Use the same approach for the right eye.

The difference will be hardly noticeable at first, but by turning on/off this layer in your layers palette you'll notice that it's quite an improvement. Again, switching layers is the best way to figure out whether you made the correct adjustments.

If you prefer a stronger effect, then can drag and drop this layer with the mouse on the Create a New Layericon  in the layers palette...

...and lowering its opacity until you like what you see.

Continue by Locking the Eyes layer (and the duplicate of this layer if you have one).

Time to work on the eyelashes. Add a new layer by clicking on the Create a new Layer icon  in the layers palette.

Rename this layer to Eyelashes . Fill this layer with 50% Gray like we did with the eyes, but this time set theblending mode of this layer in the layers palette to Overlay. I've chosen overlay, because it gives me more contrast than the Soft Light blending mode would have given me.

Select the Burn Toolin the tool bar. The brush size we're going to use is 3, the hardness is 0% andExposure is set to 100%. Again, the range option doesn't matter.

Zoom in on the left eye with 500%. Move your mouse cursor over the upper eyelashes while holding down the left mouse button. Only release the mouse button when you're done. It's the same story as with the eyes; don't go over the same area a second time after releasing the mouse button.

Use the same approach for the right eye.

If you prefer to do the lower eyelashes too (hardly visible, so I wouldn't advice it), then do this on a new layer, again filled with 50% Gray and a blending mode set to overlay and lower the opacity of this layer, because the effects are probably going to be too strong. Of course you can also consider to lower the opacity of the layer with the upper eyelashes.

Lock the Eyelashes layer.

Notice that the difference is minimal, but that's mainly caused by the low resolution and quality of the original image. You'll have better results with other images that you edit in Photoshop.

7. Fix Hair

We going to fix the hair to hide her right ear. First let's look at the following image:

The line A-B marks the length of the ear. With hair it's important to clone with large strokes, as if we're painting strains of hair, this to avoid patterns and in the end gives the "new" hair a more natural look. In order to be able to make full strokes between A and B (the full length of the ear), we need to set the source of the Clone Stamp Tool somewhere close to C. It is preferred that the distance between B and C is slightly larger than the distance between A and B so that we're able to cover the complete ear.

Add a new layer by clicking on the Create a new Layer icon  in the layers palette.

Rename this layer to  Hair .

Select the Clone Stamp Tool in the tool bar.

Now compare the settings in Photoshop's options bar with the ones I used:

Make sure that you have the same settings (the hardness of the brush is 0%).

Some might wonder; instead of using an opacity of 100% why not use something like 30% and cloning over the same area several times? The reason is that cloning over the same area with a 30% opacity tends to blur the fine strains of hair. A lower opacity however can be used at a later stage to fine tune the results after using the Clone Stamp Tool which was set to a 100% opacity.

With the Clone Stamp Tool selected, hold down the Alt key (Option key on the Mac) and move the cursor to the area marked with C in the previous image of the hair. Press and release your left mouse button (which will mark the source area for the Clone Stamp Tool) and release the Alt key (option key on the Mac).

Zoom in on the ear with about 200% and start at the left, place the cursor on the lower part of the ear, press the left mouse button and move the cursor upwards under the same angle (parallel) as the other strains of hair and release the mouse button when you've covered the top of the ear and repeat this whole process again, but this time start slightly to the right:

It should be possible to cover the ear in 3 or 4 strokes. When you're done, look for patterns and fix them with the same Clone Stamp Tool and change its size (remember the [ and ] shortcuts) or source if you have to. Turn the layer off /on a few times to get a feeling how well you're doing. You might also need the Burn orDodge Tool to control the brightness levels in some areas, but make sure that you select a pretty large size and rather low exposure setting in the options bar like 10% or lower if you do so.

I can't show you a straightforward Photoshop technique to clone hair, because quite often there are many steps involved. All I can advice is to experiment and to be patient. Also remember that to combination of the Clone Stamp Tool with other tools is highly recommended (if necessary).

Lock the Hair layer.

Next: Sharpen Images using Photoshop for crossdressers

5.Whiten teeth for crossdressers using Photoshop

5. Whiten and fix teeth

Add a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer by clicking on the Create a new fill or adjustment layer icon in the layers palette and selecting Hue/Saturation.... Move the Saturation slider all the way to -100 and click OK. This has turned your image into a gray scale image, but we're going to fix that in Photoshop by pressing Ctrl + i (Command + i on the Mac). What happens is that the mask (filled with white), which was automatically added (and active) when we added the adjustment layer, was inverted and is now filled with black. A black mask means that none of the desaturation will be applied to the image underneath that layer.

Rename this adjustment layer to Teeth by double clicking on its name in the layers palette.

You're now going to paint on the mask to reveal that particular area that needs desaturated colors, which are the teeth. First press the letter D on your keyboard to make sure that the foreground color is white:  

Make sure before you do that, that your mask is still active; it will have a double border and there will be a mask icon  in front of your layer.

Continue by zooming in on the teeth to about 400%.

Grab the Brush Tool  in the tool bar and in the options bar click on the button marked with A.

Enter a Master Diameter of 5 px and a Hardness of 0%:

Make sure that the Opacity is set to 100% for this brush in the options bar of Photoshop. 

Now comes the tricky part; paint over the teeth that need to be desaturated, but avoid the gum and lips. Don't paint on the darker areas between the teeth, but only focus on the teeth.

You made a mistake? No problem, press Ctrl + Z (Command + Z on the Mac) to undo your last step. But more important; you can always fill the painted (white) areas in your mask with black again by painting on them using a black brush. A quick way to do is by pressing the letter X on your keyboard. This will switch the back- and foreground color. Needless to say that you have to press X again (switches the foreground color to white again) if you want to continue where you left off.

Return to the Hue & Saturation adjustment layer when you're done by double clicking on its thumbnail 

Set the lightness to +40 and click OK:

Set the Opacity of this layer to about 40%:

.

You might consider to use a higher value for opacity, but be careful that you don't make it too high; the result will look unnatural. That's why it's so important to turn this layer on/off (click on ) to see the difference.

Tip: You can color the layers in the layers palette by using that same icon; right click on the  icon (Control + click on the Mac) and select the preferred color in the window that pops up (in this example Yellow is selected):

Lock the Teeth layer.

You might have noticed that one tooth seems to be a slightly turned the wrong way:

Because of this we also see a slightly distracting highlight on that same tooth. Let's see how we can fix this in Photoshop. Add a new layer by clicking on the Create a new Layer icon  in the Layers Palette. 

Rename this layer to Tooth.

Zoom in to a value between 500%-800% and fix the tooth with the Clone Stamp Tool . Select a Clone Stamp brush with a size of 2 or 3, hardness of 0% and use an opacity of around 30% (can all be selected in the options bar). To set the source (like we did in our previous step), use the area to the right of the highlight as seen in this screenshot:

Lock the Tooth layer.

It's not as difficult as it seems. Just remember; be patient and don't try to take huge steps, meaning that you shouldn't go for a higher opacity than 30% or use a larger brush just because it "takes so long". Also remember that you're working on a separate layer so if you're making a mistake you can always go back.


Next: Increase defenition of Eyes.
Eye Makeup for Crossdressers using Photoshop