376 Developing the perfect holiday portrait

- Hey, gang.…This is Deke McClellan.…Welcome to Deke's Techniques.…This week, I'm going to show you how to take this…nondescript snap shot, I mean,…he's a good looking kid and all.…I just turned him into a dark elf a couple months ago.…We're going to develop him into the perfect…portrait shot with these luminous eyes…that follow you everywhere.…Just the thing you need for the holiday season.…Here, let me show you exactly how it works.…Here's the final version of the portrait shot,…just so you have a chance to see it on screen.…

We're going to be working from a raw dng file,…which you can get to by going up to the file menu…and choosing open as smart object.…If you have access to the exercise files,…then it's this one right here, exterior portrait shot.dng,…at which point you can click on the open button…in order to open the image in camera raw.…You can see that we've got a few problems here.…The image is pretty darn blown out, the eyes are too dark,…and worst of all possibly is the color balance.…This image is too cool.…