I hated how this image was flat, simply had to do something about it and it took me about 5 minutes. I love to use gradient map <> photographic toning to desaturate  the image and then I used bleach bypass with advanced blending for highlights, you gotta keep in mind all that takes turning down the opacity

my edit

base image

One of hardest edits I've ever done, I can't lead you through cuz I myself don;t know all the things I've done. Original shot was very natural and I tried to keep it that way while fixing problems like harsh shadows and so on. Most trouble I had is that I was able to make it look good up close, but when you zoom out it's totally different and that's my bigest advice to you, always zoom in and out. I must say the patch tool did a great job resolving shadow issues only trick is that you use shortcut options-control-f which enables you to change the opacity on a stroke. All in all took me two hours, lot of time went to just figure what I should do plus, I once  had to start it all  over again.

my edit

original

Isis Madonna Ferreira Basile

This image was perfect so I thought it would make A great monochrome and I had great time converting it to, it was fun, I didn't use the brush (I hate when i have to use a brush, especially cuz I don't have an tablet) so I played with gradient map, color lookup etc.

my edit

original

Cameron Diaz

Just had to reduce those shadows on her face, it was terrible plus some other things to... I think she look drunk in base image, I'm suspicious if that's even the original... Btw I've done sharpening with "noise ~ reduce noise" filter, works quite well, like everything in photoshop cc, lol btw I'm on trial but I have som 20 day left after witch I might downgrade to torrented as I have no possibilities of purchasing it.

One from drafts

Miranda Kerr at Louis Vuitton, Spring/Summer 2015 Show, Paris (01/10/2014)

Oh I stupidly lost my base image, but change isn't big, I used "adaptive wide angle" filter to basically crop the image and "bleach bypass" for highlights on her face (those are main things)

... what I missed to do is to kill hot pixels for which I'm definitely installing gimp again, GMI'C plugin should do that trick

Friday The 13th

One of the simplest edits that I'm happy with, it came to me in a sec: it's horror so I used "horror blue" from "color lookup" and turned the opacity down plus some "surface blur" filter.

my edit

base image

Principessa Italiana Ornella

Ornella Mutti, my first celebrity crush :D and I was just a kid but I've watched that movie "Il bisbetico domato" (1980) over and over again, still remember that feeling in my stomach...

my edit

base image

Great potential but something was just not there, even now I converted it to B&W using selenium 2 and sepia 1. also you can see the dimple on her left leg which I have corrected (I'm not sure if it was real or some lens distortion) but I like the image, how can I not like such great legs... perhaps I'm expecting too much - I always kinda wish for legs to come out of a screen and wrap around me ;))

I love this image by

: ALEJANDRO BATRES

I tried to convert it to B&W and see if I can came up whit any good result and boy was I satisfied, simply adore it  

Check the original here

Martha Hunt

I never find better use of liquify tool, I don't know how Marta actually look like but this is amazing change and it was so simple - I also sharpened firs whole image with highpass filter and then eyes and lips with sharpen tool, which is great btw

my edit

base image

Andalousie, Alpujarras, La vallée de la Poqueira, , beau ciel de nuages

Nothing was wrong with this image, original is amazing but I needed to exercise my editing skills ant for that to be legal too, I have to thank Jeanne Menj
who made this amazing shot

my edit

  View the original here

Adriana Lima

Um what I've done? I didn't intend this blog to be tutorial like but more like my portfolio :P
As that guy from phlearn.com (Aron Nace) said, first thing in editing photography is to notice whats wrong with it (something like that anyway) lol he's a funny guy but great editor/retoucher, not so much of an photographer lol jk Sorry Nace!
Well collor of the skin was already great I just thought that noise is inappropriate for this kind of image that btw I don't know if noise was originally added or if it was some wannabe editor like me who added it, plus, highlights on her nose were clipping in a bad manner and I adressed to those issues in photoshop cc. "Reduce noise" done the trick but I also had to use brush too (and tons of other things)
Find it that gradient map (photographic toning) suits well for B&W version. It was selenium 1 or 2, both are amazing.

my edit

base image

Barbara Pavlin

I had only one problem with this image and it was the highlights in her nose which I fixed with simple smudge tool but then I went and do some other stuff like changing the saturation selectively. Again, note I didn't have hopes of making it better, just different, :wouldn't be justifies t make a blog post only fr making those nose smudging lol, btw, I think I've done good job cropping it too :))

my edit

base image

Candice Swanepoel

So lovable Candice  for VS Swimwear, I just tried to make it a bit different and enjoyed every step of the way, what attracts me to Candice is that she's strong and weak at the same time, she's tough and yet so fragile...

my edit

my edit

base image

WOW what a feature in cc, it's under "crop image" and I discovered it on my own (didn't see it in tutorial) I wonder why "image size" don't work so well but this is amazing for enlargement of photos, I used 4x5 300 ppi (then I cropped it again) but photo didn't lose any on its quality. Btw, I've lost my base image but point is: that this is cropped for 50% at least while size remain the same and only resolution is turn to 300px from original 72, I believe, much better job than if you were to do that in "image size". Of course size remain the same cuz then I used bicubic sharpener and turned the image to 500x750px size again little bit of surface blur and color lookup and voila :))

Laetitia Casta (mid 90s)

Original image was too saturated in my opinion, and, due to, had a lot of color bleeding which wasn't gona go away just by desaturating, so I used filter: noise - reduce noise and turned down everything on 50%  except for 'reduce color noise' which remained on default 100%. didn't work quite well on whole image, I had to use layer mask (which is boring lol) I've also done some toning, experimented with new cc features in 'color lookup' adjustment layer. Majority of time I've spend went to getting highlights on her face to the point I'm satisfied with but cant really say what I used as I used few features but I think what worked the best this time was like prep for highpass filter: duplicate layer and desaturated it, than after changing blending mode to 'linear light', double click the layer and adjust for only lighter parts to be visible, than turn down the opacity.

my edit

base image

Found this image and thought it would be great image to example my favorite darkening method in photoshop. Quite simple method, I duplicate the layer ant put it on multiply blending mode, add layer mask and then uuse "image<>apply image" (invert box left unchecked), I used some gradient map toning too but that darkening was major change.

my edit

my edit without gradient map

base image

Marta Durand

I missed somewhat of excitement in original photo that I love it too btw, although I didn't like much that flower like thing in upper right corner so I cropped it out, I could've removed it, especially cuz I didn't mind spacing but I thought to bring her beauty even closer to a viewer.
I used "color lookup": bleach bypass and filmstock with advanced blending and after standard blur/sharpening added some of "Smokey" also from "color lookup" adjustment layers.

my edit

base image

 

Wish I had a better file, perhaps I could've done a better job but you work with what you got ;)) Oh I love the photo btw still couldn't find any info about it thus the gorgeous model looks kinda familiar <3
Here I used "shadows/highlights" and Gradient Map in Photoshop cc and major advice is to, when using "shadows/highlights", switch image mode from 8 to 16 bits

my edit

base image

Claire Forlani in Meet Joe Black

Here I basycaly mixed with various opacity the "smokey" and "candlelight" presets from <color loockup> adjustment layers + some blurring/sharpening. Um it wasn't very good jpeg file but what was bothering me the most was like redish color bleading on her face still I didn't get rid all of it, some is natural I guess ;)
Blur is Surface Blur, radius 2 treshhold 25
Sharpen is High Pass Filter, radius 0,4

my edit

Base image:

Bosnia's "Turkish Coffee"

Basically, it's a three step procedure, first you put few spoons of grained coffee in that "ibrik" it's called, and than you put it on the fire to roast it a bit, but not too much, must be very careful or your coffee may turn sour, than you pour boiled water, a little bit over half full "ibrik" and turn it back on fire, just until starts to raise, than quickly removed it from the fire and fill it with more boiled water (that helps for grains to fall on the bottom, you don't want that stuff in your mouth) and that's it, delicious coffee :))
But not all types of coffee are good for such prepare, most of the coffees would turn sour being treated on such high temperatures. So if someone wants to try to make such coffee, than you need to skip the first step and don't use boiled but hot water. :-))