A friend posted a Facebook status saying she needed a professional looking head-shot for her new business’s website. Since I am now working just 4 days a week to have more time to develop my photography & digital marketing, i offered to help her out if she wanted. She said she wanted “magazine-cover” type of Photoshop, I only have Lightroom which I’m still figuring out & a photo-editing software called Portrait Professional i bought months back but havent even tried it out yet. I wasn’t sure if I could offer her a sufficient dose of “professional” – but i said i would gladly give it a shot free of charge (hence not too much pressure on me). Worst scenario, she could take the raw photo’s i took & find a more skilled editor to give it a bash. She would at least save herself needing a professional photo shoot.
So she came over after work on Friday afternoon, we quickly took a few shots in my lounge, no lighting other than window light – but hey that’s why we have photo-editing right? Then i sat down last night to play around with the images & hoped to suddenly gain some knowledge & skills fast.
I was surprised at how much I could do with the Portrait Professional program & how easy it was. I mean it still took hours of playing around, but i was impressed, it was very simple to use & had a nice variety of effects & finishes. I then did some final touch ups in Lightroom, and played with the lighting. This was the result:
Original Image:
