Creating the Perfect Portrait

When it comes to creating the perfect portrait, it is important to first define your own style; this is what will set your work apart from the rest.

For this series of images my aim was to portray the characteristics of each character through the portraits. Michael Ratcliffe took on the role of The Clown, it was imperative to show the disturbed and menacing traits that the character has through the image. As all of the portraits were conducted in the same style, these characteristics had to be displayed through the actors body language, facial expression and the composition of the image.

Above is a screen grab of the image in Adobe Camera Raw. Using the sliders I first increased the clarity (as shown), this gives a gritty look to the image that would otherwise take many filters to achieve. Now that my image had a bigger kick, I decreased the saturation and vibrance slightly. I then opened the image in Adobe Photoshop.

The first thing that I did was duplicated the image layer which can be done on the bottom right hand side. Working on the new layer I then cropped the image until I was satisfied with the composition.
I then made other minor changes such as some cloning and fixing to rid of any imperfections, such as marks on the clothing. Next I smoothed the skin using various techniques and tools (including the mixer brush). The last thing I did was created a vignette; darkening the edges just added to that dark, ominous atmosphere that translates through the film.

I edited all of the portraits within this series the same, I used a new layer for every technique (Tip: Naming the layers makes it easier to return to specific parts of the editing process that you may later want to change or continue working on).

Stay tuned for more behind the scenes info and images.

Christina