Capturing & Editing the Perfect Point-and-Shoot Portrait – Photo Premium

Zach Andrews on Nov 11th 2010 with 13 comments

Tutorial Details

Completion Time: 1-2 hours
Difficulty: Intermediate
Program: Photoshop
Requirements: A window, and any camera

Download Source Files

Thanks for supporting the site, feel free to download the ZIP file for this tutorial.
Source files for this tutorial are available to Premium members.
Get a Premium Membership

This entry is part 12 of 14 in the Portraits Session
« Previous Next »

We’re excited to have our first ever Photo Premium video tutorial exclusively available to Premium members today. (Didn’t hear about Premium? Find out more here.) If you want to take your portrait photography and post-processing skills to the next level, then this tutorial is for you – whether you have a professional SLR or a simple point-and-shoot. Learn more after the jump!

Shoot & Post-Process a Beautiful Portrait

In this premium video tutorial we’ll walk you through the process of setting up a portrait photo shoot. Fancy equipment isn’t necessary – the demo given in the video uses a simple point-and-shoot camera to prove the point that technique is more important than fancy kit!

Here are a few of the steps that you’ll be taken through:

Camera Settings – Flash, ISO and grid settings.
Taking Your Photo – Positioning the model – both in an indoor setting, and outside.
Post Processing – Retouching, sharpening, adding a vignette, and gradient maps.

Two Unique & Fantastic Final Outcomes

You’ll be taught how to shoot and post-process two entirely different styles of portrait. Here’s an example of the final outcome for the first, indoor shoot:

Want to Join Premium?

For those unfamiliar, the family of Tuts+ sites runs a premium membership service. For $19 per month, you gain access to exclusive premium tutorials, screencasts, and freebies from Phototuts+, Nettuts+, Psdtuts+, Cgtuts+, Activetuts+, Aetuts+, Audiotuts+, and Vectortuts+! For the price of a pizza, you’ll learn from some of the best minds in the business.

Become a Premium member and download this tutorial today!

Enjoyed this Post?

Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!

Pin It

By Zach Andrews

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I have been in love with photography ever since I took a black and white photography class in high school. I think my appreciation for the art has stemmed quite a bit from starting on film, and learning to shoot, roll, develop and enlarge my photos. What I love shooting most is people, and I love doing alternative photoshoots with unique concepts. I hope my work inspires people, as the work of other photographers has so inspired me.

Plus Premium

http://www.gregoryhughdavidson.com Gregory Davidson
If you have nothing nice to say… say nothing at all. enough said.

http://www.damnsemicolon.com Skye
lol agreed.
NHS
Not true. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. But I completely disagree with Shane. These two photos do look good, from what I can see. It’s difficult for a blue dress to clash with a neutral gray background, by the way.

http://www.shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker
I have a hardware calibrated monitor (more than one) and I can assure you the background in the second photo is nowhere near “neutral gray.”
As for the rest, I am a photographer myself and I gave my constructive criticism on why I don’t believe the photos are good. Out of curiosity, instead of just saying; “I think they’re good”, what are your reasons for thinking the photos are good? Do you believe my assessments were incorrect?

Name
Given the fact that the whole point of the tutorial was to, for people who have interest in getting started in photography to use the resources they may have available to them. To give them tips on how to take photographs better without investing money into the trade.
Your a photographer, and well aware of how to use a camera, framing, exposure etc… So this tutorial is pretty trivial to you seeing as its no new information to you.
As far as your assessments, I think that to call the lighting and composition and model expression horrendous is an over statement. Again, they’re using no budget. Point and shoot, natural light, non-professional model. Things a new user would have access to. The post processing and color correction is a total subjective thing, you may not like the style, but to say its poorly done is an opinion. Photo editing is a very creative thing, and there is not one ‘right’ way to post process your photos. all in all, I believe you are entitled to your opinion, but understand the point of the tutorial is not to give professional photographers new and exciting tips, merely to inspire new photographers to get out and shoot.

http://www.shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker
Ouch. I don’t know how to comment on this without sounding rude, but the photos shown here certainly don’t prove that technique is more important than the gear. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer in that philosophy, it’s just that this example really fails to prove that. The composition is awkward, the model’s expression is uncomfortable, the lighting and color-casts are horrendous, the models clothing completely clash with the background and the post processing is really poorly done.
I’m sorry guys, but for a “premium tutorial” I think you really missed the mark here.

Name
Clearly you missed the point of the tutorial.

http://www.shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker
I’m sorry, but saying that the point of these tutorials are the techniques used and not the final outcome is completely backwards and a cop-out. If using the techniques in the tutorial do not produce a good result, then why would I want to learn the techniques?
If you wanted to learn how to paint and two people were offering lessons, both using their own techniques, would you want to learn from the person who created a breath-taking painting, or the person who drew stick figures? And, again, this is a lesson that we have to pay for, these guys aren’t posting these out of the goodness of their hearts!

http://xxxbngxxx.deviantart.com Brian Grajales
If this is a premium tutorial, imagine what’s gonna happen to all the good tutorials from now on! ;]
http://www.damnsemicolon.com Skye
I completely agree with Shane. Maybe the fact that it’s a premuim tutorial (the first on phototuts), that people have to pay for, makes me a little more critical.
Looking at the finished product does not make me want to watch this tutorial even if it was free. That blueish hue (is that the white balance or post prod edit?) really throws me off plus there’s clipping on her arm. It makes me infer a lack of experience.

http://www.shaneparkerphoto.com Shane Parker
That’s exactly my point. If this is a premium tutorial, meaning people must pay for it, then the final outcome needs to be good.
Anyway, everyone’s entitled to their opinion and I’ve given mine.

Matt M
I agree with Shane.
When I saw the picture for the first time I actually thought this was the shot straight out of the camera and it was telling you how to improve it – I didn’t realise it was the final version. Looks very amateur and not at all professional. Plus, the image looks noisy.
http://www.danielsone.com Daniel S.
I’m sure Zach Andrews put a lot of time and effort into creating an “end-to-end” tutorial. I am also sure it would be excellent for an amateur or gear-geek (those who think expensive equipment is essential) to see simple methods can achieve nice results.
However, I think the decision by Phototuts+ to make it a Premium tutorial isn’t on the mark here.
The concept of the tutorial appears to be too elementary for it to necessitate being a Premium one. Also the title implying perfection, doesn’t fit the final result demonstrated.
I’m my opinion, if it has to be paid for, it must be significantly better than the great, already FREE, tutorials provided on this site. Unfortunately, because it must be paid for I cannot fully evaluate the tutorial. But from what I see here, I’ll skip it.
Check this out (and it’s FREE):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOoGjtSy7xY