Create a Stunning High Key Portrait Photo

on Sep 2nd 2011 with 54 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Program: Photoshop
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • CompletionTime: 30 minutes

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

Every two weeks, we revisit some of our reader favorite posts from throughout the history of Phototuts+. This tutorial was first published in August of 2009.

In this video tutorial Simon shows us how to add more texture and character to your portrait photos during a post-processing workflow. The result is a wonderful high key portrait with loads of charm! This tutorial will help give your portrait photos a professional look.

Before

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By

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Simon Plant is an award winning Uk Photographer with over 20 years experience shooting automotive-life-location images for advertising. He also produces Behind The Scenes Digital Photography Tutorials for his training site .  

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  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcwighton/ Jacob

    This is great! I’ve been wanting to know what this “High Key” business was and how to do it, but I’ve never bothered looking. Thanks!

  • Chris

    Interesting way of going about it, but I feel the person who made the tutorial might have gone a little too far…

    • http://www.jasonmbosch.com Jason

      I agree. I love the idea of the photos, but it got to the point where the man’s head looks like it was just cut out. I think he could have toned it down and added a little bit to the the entire photo.

      • http://www.lucid-media.co.za Yashvir Bagwandeen

        You could also do this in about 90 seconds in Adobe Lightroom

  • Jonah

    Great tutorial! Looking forward to more stuff lite this on PhotoTuts!

  • myname

    nice tutorial, you can open a smart object directly form the raw converter and you should use the filter masks to hide the filter not the layer mask. but again this tut was great!

  • http://squareart.co.za/lab squareart

    Great – as soon as I get a chance I’m gonna try it out. Nice Pic!

  • xoc

    Great !

  • http://randomshutterbugger.blogspot.com binggeba

    Not a bad final outcome at all! I wouldn’t mind trying that out on a few of my pics…

  • http://andipopescu.com/blog Andi Popescu

    I like the outcome… but bro… you could’ve easily shortened it by half.
    A lot of useless information.
    Next time, stick to the technical stuff.

  • VertigoSFX

    Wow this is a great effect, I might have to try out the tutorial sometime.

  • http://flickr.com/photos/winkawas wins

    niceeee, that’s what I’m was talking about!, post production!

    thanks!

  • C.44

    For a single photo experiment i can see this working, however, i wouldn’t want to use such extensive post processing on more than 10 photo’s within a set timelimit.

    I also agree that this seems to be a bit over the top.

    Looking forward to seeing some more tuts on here :)

  • 07

    I’ve always wondered why certain web video players have a counter that counts UP from the time the video started, instead of showing the length of the video and then counting down.. annoying that there’s no way to tell how long it is before starting it.

    Also.. for the record.. video tutorials suck. Alot. I’d rather have something i can read through, and go back over easily multiple times if need be.

  • http://ehab.cc Ehab

    I’d say video tutorials are great ! Much more personal – almost like learning from a real teacher sitting right in front of me.

    I love high key photography. I admit it might take a lot of time but hey, we don’t do these things very often do we ?

    Great tut !

  • David

    I think it’s exactly as the photographer meant it to be. Not sure it’s you ladies call to declare it over the top. Nice tut man. Really dig the final outcome.

  • n3t

    He talks too much outside the scope. I don’t need to know how and where he met the senior. I ‘d just like to know how pic A turned to pic B. I’ve been watching for almost 4 min, he didn’t get to the key point yet. I just close the browser.. my bandwidth is chewing up, sorry :)

    • JohnM.

      Lol I made it to 3 minutes then I just left…

  • iArts

    I am sorry to say,but the explanation is sooooooo anoying…Please,make a normal version os the torial instead ov the video…And keep it like that in the future…
    HDR tutorial can be an example of a well explained tutorial…

  • http://shlomit.deviantart.com/ shlomit

    nice :)

  • http://www.larsn24.de TNT

    Thank you for this outstanding tutorial.

    And because there’s always a story behind a picture – keep going like this!

    Also Greetings to George :-)

  • speedysamiro

    It would be graet if there was a lower resolution version of the video beause not everybody have a fast connexion.

  • http://www.oneyear.ch A7man

    Really nice tutorial. I first listened to the video and than did it by myself.
    The tutorial was easy to understand and as easy to follow. Great job! Hope to see more!

  • http://www.upstagetheatreschool.com Billy

    Instead of ‘Command’ clicking the mask to make a selection, if you hold down ‘ALT’ and drag the layer mask onto another layer it will copy the mask.

    Like the effect. Nice outcome.

  • http://www.inspiravisual.blogspot.com/ zeta

    its good but to long.

    the videos in this site takes too long to load.

    its a pain

  • http://www.inspiravisual.blogspot.com/ zeta

    oh my god,, oh my god,,,

    i leave loading all the video…. and now the video has finished and i have to loading again.

    this videos isnt loading to cache..what a pain!! really..

  • Anton Laurentiu

    This is NOT high-key.

    (before) a overexposed photo without sharp and contrast.
    (after) a very detalied overexposed photo with sharp and contrast.

    Regards,
    A. Laurentiu

    • Wes

      I would argue the contrary. Yes, it’s a high-key photo by definition. The light ratio is 3:1 or less making it a high key photograph. Low key light is around 16:1 or 32:1, fwiw.

  • RUGRLN

    Lol…the player says AETUTS…might wanna make a new one with phototuts+ and a nice light blue colour?

  • Zaman

    Can.t watch, Coz, i have a slow internet line, If there is way to download then its will be the great. Otherwise post it in html format.

    thanks

  • Pjoseba

    Muy bueno si señor

  • http://www.dsaportfolio.com.br/ Diego SA

    Cool! High keys photos are so attractive! Don’t know when but someday I’ll try this one soon!

  • http://goodmorningarts.com/ Jun Osorio

    Wow this is Great

  • 9mm

    the final image looks good but holy smokes, the video went on and on. this could’ve been done in a quarter of the time with half of the steps.

  • Brandon

    Very wordy narration, but nice results.

  • mango

    Thanks. An eye opening tutorial. I pickup few tips from this. Thank you.

  • Minty

    so much useless chatter in this video. get to the step by step already!!

  • LvL

    Awesome Tutorial!!! :)

  • Dee

    thank you very much for the explanation!

  • Tonyy

    It is so great!!
    However I dont know how to open Camera Raw ….
    Please help…

    • Jess

      I know that Camera RAW will open automatically when you open a RAW image in Photoshop CS3+CS4, in Photoshop CS3 + CS4 (which have Adobe’s Camera Raw 4 Plug-in) you can now process TIFF’s and jpegs which you couldn’t do before. You can do this in Bridge. …select image, click FILE…select ‘open in Camera Raw’.

  • Tonyy

    I cannot find the ” camera raw ” interface in PS4 …?
    why???Should I install something??
    Sorry.. I am a new hand..of PS

  • Dee

    raw is a file size and should open up when u click a raw file
    you can put on the the mode on your camera at your settings..

  • http://www.creationtheory.com.au todd

    Great craftsmanship mate

    Good stuff

  • hll

    whata pain-in-the-ass voice, its a good tutorial but, duuude! less speak, more technique…

  • http://www.flickr.com/stevanmarroquin Stevan

    Great!! i edited a photo of my grandparents, and it looks great, it’s gonna be a great gift

    Thanks for this tutorial

  • gianmaria

    incompresible english accent

  • Aaron

    Fantastic tutorial. Great story. I like to hear when photographers take portraits almost as an afterthought. When it’s secondary to getting to know someone a little bit.

  • blackstone

    why? I can not watch this video. Do i need to install flash player 10?

  • Anon

    This is one of the worst tutorials that I have ever seen! The first part of it was spent nattering about camera equipment and then the rest was a suburban photoshop retouch with the results not high key at all! Boo!!

  • http://marketplace.tutsplus.com/user/-Zeplix?ref=Zeplix Zeplix

    Decent tutorial, though I knew most of the workflow, nonetheless, not bad. I was disappointed though, since the effect I was hoping for was the one shown in the preview image, which the final image in the video did not look like.

  • http://www.tayvinknightphoto.com Dallas commercial photographer

    Good tutorial. This reminds of the single pass HDR tutorial that Adobe did before HDR even existed. Nonetheless, thanks for sharing!

  • Dave Baxter

    Not sure if the subject really suits the high key effect – personal opinion of course but to me this is a classic high key effect:
    http://www.1clickactions.com/highkeytutorial.htm