Up-Close Portrait Photography: Start to Finish

How do you create authentic, sincere portraits that capture the essence of people? A lot of it comes down to post-production. Using Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, Chris Orwig walks us through three start-to-finish, up-close portrait projects: a portrait of a legend, a portrait of an artist, and a portrait of a celebrity. He explains the common foundation for the shots—a natural style, setting, and lighting—and explains how to zero in on the best image from a collection. He shows how to enhance each portrait with Lightroom and Photoshop, combining black-and-white adjustments with creative cropping, retouching, and color and tone enhancements. He recaps the editing process for each portrait, and closes with some ideas to integrate in your own workflow.