Photo Club

As I said in my review of her DVD training video The Fine Art of Photoshop, as soon as you see it, you can recognize a Susi Lawson work of art. There is something about it that jumps off the page and says look at me! In this, her first video, Portrait Magic, Susi Lawson shares more of her techniques and insights with working in Photoshop, but also show you how to work with Corel Painter as well.

Portrait Magic contains 16 videos. These videos show how to work in concert between Photoshop and Corel Painter. They cover techniques of working with brushes, creating portraits using photos to begin your creation, and using Photoshop and Painter skills to enhance with drawing and painting over the image. Portrait Magic comes with the videos and the necessary images so you can follow along.

"Background" is a set of two videos that will show you how to work with replacing the background in an image. In this lesson you will see how to create different backgrounds that can be used to enhance a portrait. The first video begins with Photoshop to modify the background and set a border. Then you see how to do the same type of thing using Painter. You will also see how to incorporate the colors in the image to match to the background.

"Beginning Enhancement" shows you how, in Photoshop, to crop an image to better frame it. Then you will see how to use curves to enhance your image. Next, working with an airbrush you will clean up skin, use the dodge tool to lighten the eyes, as well as dodging to bring out highlights in the hair.

"Charcoal Effect" uses the same portrait from the background lesson that was done in Painter and turns it into a charcoal portrait. Here you will learn about using charcoal techniques to convert and enhance an image and see what it takes to create a charcoal sketch using Painter.

"Cover Girl" (two videos) begins in Photoshop to work with masking layers to set up a portrait by darkening out the background, cleaning up the imperfections, adjusting the skin, and adding highlights to hair. Then the switch is made to Painter to add more creative effects to the image. Here you will add stars, pixie dust, and other techniques to make a creative image.

"Dragonizer" is an action that has become popular online that adds use automation to perform image enhancements and add a lot of impact to your image. In this video, after blacking out the background, you essentially run the action and it walks you through the steps of the dragonizer. There are times that you can make adjustments to your liking but all-in-all this lesson shows you how to create a unique group image.