What would be one way to do the Sieff-style halo?

Like this:

http://www.verdeau.com/verdeaunew/adminphotos/upload/Y0795.jpg

http://www.jessicahk.com/share/jessica/0603/cover/20060227cover0262/jes069a027p03x1.jpg


piero

Well you could just use the burn tool. If you want to make it tighter or you want an inverted shadow effect then you might wand out the figure, copy and paste it into another layer, enlarge it, feather it and overlay it for use it as a burning mask or just vignette that or such.

thanks!

g'day pie

why do you call it "the Sieff-style halo"?

Because he did it in almost all his portraits.

who did what, why?

Jeanloup Sieff (http://www.jeanloupsieff.com). Because he wanted to.

This is a fairly common portrait burn dodge, that I have been doing my whole printing life. Some like less effect and some more, but this is always done on portraits if I am printing. First burning technique I learned out of college.
dodge around subject slightly , and burn corners softly.
This will show more on grey nuetral background.

I uses a ducks bill shape on the top and a ducks ass shape on the bottom when burning the corners.* by cupping my fingers and using this between the paper and the lens.
More weighted at the bottom.

Easily mimicked in PS.

I wouldn't recommend using the burn tool for anything. It is a sledghammer tool, and it doesn't allow for undo.

Create a burn/dodge layer by adding a new layer (not adjustment) and filling it with 50% gray. Set the blending mode to overlay - or maybe for here, soft light. Set your brush opacity to 4-25 and paint with black or white. Black burns, white dodges, as you would imagine. It should be the last (top) layer in your layers - the last thing that gets applied, after any other adjustments. That's if you want to doge this out.

You would also create a gradient mask for an adjustment layer, if that fit. That would be preferable to attempting to paint it by hand, imo.

Lenny

I wouldn't recommend using the burn tool for anything. It is a sledghammer tool, and it doesn't allow for undo.

Create a burn/dodge layer by adding a new layer (not adjustment) and filling it with 50% gray. Set the blending mode to overlay - or maybe for here, soft light. Set your brush opacity to 4-25 and paint with black or white. Black burns, white dodges, as you would imagine. It should be the last (top) layer in your layers - the last thing that gets applied, after any other adjustments. That's if you want to doge this out.

You would also create a gradient mask for an adjustment layer, if that fit. That would be preferable to attempting to paint it by hand, imo.

Lenny

thank you very much!