How I Edited "The Egyptian Lady" in Photoshop

This is a step-by-step guide for beginning photographers using photo shop to reveal the steps this photo took between the before and after. This is Adobe Photoshop CS4.

Before I get started... how about some technical details? Those are a big part of why I chose this image. I didn't use a lot of equipment for this shot. =)

It was shot with my Canon Rebel xTi / Canon EF 50mm 1.8 / WB for tungsten light / f4 at 1/500.

Step One: Decide whether you want to leave the image in color, or change it to black and white. Despite her face matching the tones of the wall, I decided to change this one because I thought I could achieve more depth with black and white.

Step Two: Convert to Black and White I converted this image to black and white by going into the Adjustments sector on the right hand side, and clicking on the carrot to show more "Black and White Presets." I then selected the preset called "Maximum White." 

In this case, the preset worked for me just fine, and so I decided not to move any of the sliders, and just left them all at 100. However, you can move them if you want.

Step 3: Duplicate the Original Layer This step is a preparation for dodging and burning. In this step, I like to make sure I have a copy of the original image un-touched. That way I can go back if I take the dodging / burning too far. You can also duplicate the layer more than once if you want more place holders (just in case) so you don't have to redo all your work if you decide you don't like it.

By dragging that background to the duplicate layer button, you will get a "background copy" like the one shown above your background layer.

Step 4: Dodging and Burning by switching between the dodge and burn tool, you can make the darker parts darker and the lighter parts lighter or vice versa. To do this, select the "burn" tool along the left side. It is in the same spot as the "dodge" tool, and you can switch between them by right-clicking the icon and choosing the other one.

You can change the size of the brush, the range, or the exposure up at the top. I suggest a low percentage for the exposure, or it may be too much. (Don't use the 74% that is shown here - try using 10% or lower to start with.) Go ahead and play with them to see what you like best. Make sure you have "protect tones" selected or you will end up with different tones to your image.

For this image, I dodged her face just a tad, and I burned a few of the darker areas just a tad.

Step 5: The Black Brush This is something I don't typically use for my images, but I grabbed some of the color from her shirt with the eyedropper tool and then painted over that line (which is a papyrus reed) along her shirt. It didn't add to the photo, and in fact just distracted the eyes of the viewer.

Step 6: The Vignette If you have Adobe Lightroom, they have a feature that automatically puts in a vignette. I don't like it. Most of my subjects are not dead center in the photo, so I need a custom one. For this I will either use the brush again or burn with a high exposure percentage to make it dark around the outside. There are other ways, but this is the way I believe to be the simplest.