Nov 1, 2012

Día de los Muertos - The Making Of The Sugar Skull Image

A few years ago a friend shared with me a video that completely shifted my mindset - it was Ben Kenny's Eulogy (Ben is one of the members of Incubus) recorded and filmed in his home studio. All of a sudden, I realized that amazing things can be done at home, and don't require huge investments as long as you have your tools, your talent, and, in my case, brilliant fellow-creatives who are on the same page with you.


   


I went to a mexican restaurant La Mesa that's near our place with my husband a couple of weeks ago, and saw their posters about coming up Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead, Mexico). Beautiful and spooky sugar skulls were all over the place - I got inspired! We had a beauty shoot planned last Monday before my trip to Los Angeles and I went to Hobby Lobby the night before and bought the fabrics and props to execute my "Sugar Skull" idea. Luckily, the girls supported it - I wasn't sure if our models wanted the scary skulls painted on their faces.

Mikala created the makeup base for the images we had in mind and I painted the rest in Photoshop. Check out the result image, some BTS snapshots and the retouching video: Check out my new interactive retouching eBook "Creative Retouching Essentials in a Day" (includes videos and before & after images).

Model: Kortnye Hurst 
Makeup & Hair: Mikala Jean Vandenbroucke 
Photo & Post-production: Julia Kuzmenko | Visual Artist

Sugar Skull makeup
Sugar Skull makeup     Sugar Skull makeup BTS Sugar Skull makeup BTS Sugar Skull makeup BTS Sugar Skull makeup BTS

Oct 28, 2012

Wacom & AfterCapture Digital Imaging Contest 2012 Winner!

This is the image I won Second Place with in the global Wacom & AfterCapture Digital Imaging Contest 2012

Watch a time-lapse video of the retouching process of this photo and check out the step-by-step tutorial in the upcoming "Digital Photo Retouching: Beauty, Fashion & Portrait Photography" book published by MadArtist Publishing and Julia Kuzmenko McKim.


Model: Nicole Keimig
Makeup & Hair: Mikala Jean Vandenbroucke 
Photography & Post-prod: Julia Kuzmenko | Visual Artist


 

Wacom & AfterCapture Digital Imaging Contest 2012

Wacom & AfterCapture Digital Imaging Contest 2012

Nicole Keimig by Julia Kuzmenko & Mikala Jean Vandenbroucke

Oct 27, 2012

"Creative Retouching Essentials In A Day" Interactive Retouching eBook



$74.28 USD  
Digital product | Instant delivery

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This interactive eBook is for you if you are beginning your journey into the professional Beauty & Portrait photography retouching world. You don't need to waste your time learning all the tools and panels Photoshop has to offer, if you only want to master or improve your photo retouching skills.

Our eBook will help you to get a clear understanding as to what tools you need to be familiar with, and what to do with them to turn your photographs into works of art. In just three lessons you will know all the necessary panels, tools, functions and essential photography and retouching information to prepare you to dive into the advanced Beauty, Fashion & Portrait retouching techniques.

Moreover, you will learn how to fine-tune your Photoshop for peak performance, how to read and understand colors, what you need to know about color management, how to use custom brushes for Beauty and Portrait photography, what essential keyboard shortcuts you need to know, and a lot more. A few video tutorials will demonstrate the difference between Photoshop retouching tools, the trickiest Blending Modes and Adjustment Layers concepts, and explain what's so great about Layers and Layer Masks and more.


In the Bonus Goodie Bag you will find our Essential Actions (User Manual included), a collection of Gradients and the Beauty Custom Brushes descriptions (URL for free download included). We also added tons of useful materials in the "Getting Better Every Day" and "Photography & Photoshop" (Glossary included) PDF booklets.


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This eBook is based on the first part of our "Creative Retouching for Portrait Photographers" course and covers:

LESSON I Setting Up For a Good Start:


  •   Preferences & Memory Usage
  •   Customizing Your Workspace
  •   Image File Formats, Resolution, Size & Canvas
  •   History Panel
  •   Color Theory & Management


  • LESSON II Painting & Retouching Tools:



  •   Brush, Clone Stamp, Healing Brushes & Patch Tool
  •   Default Tool Keyboard Shortcuts
  •   Brush Opacity vs. Flow
  •   Free Transform Tool
  •   Selection Tools & Refine Edge Function
  •   Liquify Tool
  •   Photoshop Actions


  • LESSON III Essential Photoshop Panels for Beauty & Portrait Photographers:



  •   Layers Panel: Opacity& Fill, Handling, Grouping
  •   Blending Modes
  •   Layer Masks
  •   Adjustment Layers


  • BONUS MATERIALS:


  •   Getting Better Every Day in Photography & Photoshop
  •   Essentials Action set + Actions User Manual
  •   Custom Beauty Brushes User Manual + URL (free download)
  •   Collection of Gradients


  • Add to Cart





    The performance of this eBook will greatly depend on the performance of your computer, its
    graphics card, and the version of Adobe Reader used for viewing it.
    These PDF documents are optimized for Adobe Reader X. Please update your Adobe Reader to
     get the full experience of the tutorials and the multimedia content.

    Download free latest Adobe Reader: http://www.adobe.com/products/reader.html

    All links, Before & After images and videos in this eBook will work on your computer, and the
    reading material is also designed for viewing on the iPad, however the multimedia
    content won't be responsive on a tablet.
    This is a PDF product available for immediate download. 
    No physical product will be shipped to you.



    Discount Code:

    Oct 16, 2012

    Beautiful RadLab Recipes - Free Download


     
    If you wonder how I create those beautiful colors in my images, here's my secret: RadLab Photoshop plug-in.

    It's light, easy to operate and very convenient, something I feel very confident recommending. And the best part about it is there's no limit to the amount of color recipes and lens effects that you can create with the available stylets collection. Absolutely no limit! Download the demo version to see for yourself.

    Here are some more info and my images with gorgeous RadLab colors. And here are my Radlab Recipe Sets that I am happy to share with you:

     1. Gorgeous Totally Rad Color Actions - "TORI" set  (free download)

     2. Gorgeous Totally Rad Color Actions - "Fernanda" set  (free download)


     

    Aja Warren in RadLab Colors

    Nicole Keimig in RadLab Colors

    TORI & NiCOLE in RadLab colors

    Tori Tracy in RadLab Colors


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