We all take pictures, and many of them are good ones, but they wouldn’t work on a business card or on a website. What’s the difference? When I had professional pictures taken last month, I learned so much.
The biggest difference for business shots is the background. The photographer told me that most people choose a brown background for their business shots. Unless you have a swirly brown background sheet to hang from ceiling to floor, you might have thought you were out of luck. A friend asked me if I could do the same thing in Photoshop. The good news is that you can.
Here are three easy steps to turn your snapshot into business photo using a processing program like Photoshop Elements 10.
For this project, I used Photoshop Elements 10, but you can use just about any program. The main tools I used are down the left side of the screen. When I use the paint and smudge tools, I will talk about the size and strength that appear across the top of the screen.
A waitress took this picture of Vince and me in Hawaii. I liked the picture of Vince so I played with it.
Step One: Cropping
First I cropped me and the glasses out!
Step Two: Painting Over the Background
After I cropped I pressed the control and #0 on my keyboard to get the picture back to the normal size you see it. Then I chose the business color of brown as the background, and started painting, but not over the whole background. I chose a couple of different colors of brown, a dark and a light. I used the eye dropper tool and clicked on a couple of browns that I liked in the background.
Step Three: Smudging the Background
After I painted a good part of it, I used the smudge tool to blend it. Smudging is interesting. If you smudge at full strength, it wipes out all other colors. So I set the strength to 45.
You have to smudge towards the color you want to disappear. To me this is just like coloring when I was a kid. I had to cover a big area so I changed the size of the smudge brush to about 150 or so, and smudged away in a circular pattern in the middle.
When I got close to Vince, I made the picture larger by pressing control 1 on my keyboard, and outlined him using a smaller sized smudge brush. about 15-20.
When I got close to that outline I smudged with small strokes using a small smudge brush about 25-30 towards him erasing all but the tiniest bit of the outline.
After I got the area around Vince done, I changed the size of the picture back by pressing control 0 on my keyboard. At this point I changed the size of the smudge tool to about 250 and stroked out away from Vince. I finished up with a size 100 smudge tool and swirled a bit more until I was happy with the look.
The background work is really easy if you are careful around the hair.
This is another one I did of him.
These are the professional ones I had taken with a real background. I still had fun with the photos. I took out my scars in the head shots (as much as possible!) I also decreased the clarity for the starry-eyed look.
Needs Survey
- What programs do you use to edit photos?
- What kinds of editing do you do most often?
- Fun edits
- Changing to black and white
- Filters
- Watermarks & processing multiple photos
- Cropping & straightening
- Adding frames
- Color correction
- Other
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
14 responses to “Three Easy Steps To Create a Business Photo from a Snapshot”
Thanks meant for furnishing these sort of
good subject material.
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You’re welcome 🙂
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This is great Marsha I’ll have to try it. I have photo shop CS2 but I can’t seem to wrap my head around it. I start reading and get sleepy I have a cd and a book that goes with it – same problem. Maybe if I pick up small pieces of information – one day I may learn how to really us it.
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I helps to just play around. There are also online webinars you can sign up for that are free.
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Wow, you have really developed in your photo – studio … excellent job. I knew about that brown background makes us look good – you have done a fantastic job with all your shots here – Vince, what a handsome man. The last photo of you – I just love it … you’re a very beautiful woman.
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Thanks Viveka! Photos can do marvelous things! i walked into my old workplace the other day, and one of the secretaries came out, and said, “You sure look different today!” I was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and baseball cap, and a little bit of make-up. I no longer felt like a movie star! 🙂
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I have seen a lot of sexy movie starts in cap and shorts … so why couldn’t you be.
My today post .. you will see a movie star photo of me … from 1973. *smile
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Yay! I’ll come look! 🙂
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I have a Justin Beaver photo that needs a little alteration. I’m thinking now that the smudge tool might do the job. Thanks.
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It’s a great tool. I’ll smudge him if you need help! 🙂 Manny’s gone. I need to spudge someone! 🙂
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He looks very distinguished. Relax, Vince.
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Relax! Who are you kidding? Vince is definitely ADHD. He was on vacation in Hawaii in that picture! That’s as relaxed as he gets unless he’s asleep. 🙂
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Brilliant, Marsha. I love these 😀
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Thanks, so much, Dianne. Vince was horrified that I used his picture throughout the whole post. I thought it was great! 🙂
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