grace kathryn

photography, retouching, stories, behind the scenes, previews, and thoughts by grace kathryn 805 - 698 - 6117 [email protected] www.grace-kathryn.com www.studio-gk.com

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Recent retouching work for this gorgeous floral beauty story shot by Benjo Arwas for Thrifty Hunter Magazine.

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© Grace Kathryn www.grace-kathryn.com Jalanis, from the archives.

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www.grace-kathryn.com website makeover!

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© Grace Kathryn www.grace-kathryn.com

Preview from today's shoot with the ever lovely & talented Alexandra. Check out her work here.

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Recently had the pleasure of shooting Scott & Corey's Santa Barbara beach proposal. Congratulations to the newly engaged couple! :)

© Grace Kathryn www.grace-kathryn.com

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self portrait, 15th of March 2014 © Grace Kathryn | www.grace-kathryn.com

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My new assistant, Sunshine.

© Grace Kathryn

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ghost exposures from the ends of recent film rolls © Grace Kathryn new film gallery up on the website: www.grace-kathryn.com/film

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California Winter by © Grace Kathryn www.grace-kathryn.com www.studio-gk.com

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Malia by © Grace Kathryn www.grace-kathryn.com www.studio-gk.com

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from the archives... © Grace Kathryn - www.grace-kathryn.com Model: Jalanis

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Preview of last week's shoot with the lovely Shaunna and her horses. More images from the shoot on the way!

© Grace Kathryn - www.grace-kathryn.com

Studio GK Retouching - www.studio-gk.com

Model: Shaunna Angell + Keno

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One of the photos from a recent shoot with the lovely Kiana. The rest of the photos can be seen at www.grace-kathryn.com/recentwork

© Grace Kathryn Model: Kiana McCourt Studio GK - Professional Retouching

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Studio GK | refining masks

I learned a wonderful trick for refining masks in Photoshop from fellow retoucher Christy Schuler. Joshua Cripps illustrates the basics in this article from Plearn, but here's a quick summary.

I am using this recent composite I created for Kevin Steele to show this technique. In this image, I was asked to add the motorcyclist's hair blowing in the wind from another shot.

Refining hair masks can be especially tricky. I started by adding the desired hair in about the right position to blend onto the model. 

Channel selections can often create a great starting point for your mask, especially in an image like this where we are working with dark hair on a clean white background. Look through each channel and determine which one provides the best separation between the hair and the background and create a mask from that channel's selection. In this case, I used the green channel:

Which gave me this:

Now, it's just a matter of painting with black & white on the mask to clean up any messy areas. But the edges can still be tricky, especially with hair.

However, if you change the blending mode of your brush to Overlay, it will lighten or darken gray pixels without affecting pure white and pure black. It often helps to add contrast to your mask first by using curves:

Finally, after using my brush on Overlay and filling in pure white and black areas to build my mask, I am left with this refined hair mask:

Which ultimately gives a very nice final effect:

Photography: Kevin Steele Retouching: Studio GK

-g

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july | behind the camera

So far, July has been a whirlwind of portfolio printing, designing business cards, launching new websites and an overall refreshing of my branding identity--and things are finally coming together. Just a couple weeks ago I launched my new sister project for digital retouching: www.studio-gk.com. I'm already working on a number of exciting projects and am stoked to share once the final images are done.

I also redesigned my online and print photography portfolio, made some changes to my website www.grace-kathryn.com and added brand new galleries with fresh work.

Once everything is finalized at the end of the month I'll be announcing a couple giveaways and other goodies for this August... so keep an eye out :)

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on hunting inspiration

I have no direction in my life, but I have never enjoyed living so much.

I have found myself in a bit of a creative rut lately and it has been a challenge to stay inspired. The last several months have been a whirlwind of website-building, portfolio printing, a retouching internship, five classes, and the occasional freelance gig--leaving me no time to even catch my breath, let alone stay inspired. 

Whenever I find myself too busy and stressed to be creative, I hit the road. I usually pick one I've never been down before and take turns at random, stopping here and there to take a couple photographs. Shooting with film is a breath of fresh air--I am tantalized by the unknown and consumed with the simple hope that the photos are good, that they turn out, that I have captured the moment. These are some film goodies from some of my recent adventures into the unknown.

There is something magical and revitalizing about letting the earth make you feel small. Driving on the open road, standing at the base of a mountain or the edge of a cliff, and gazing into the night sky--these leave me yearning to find a way that I--just another a fleeting speck of dust in this universe--can leave the world a more lovely place than I when I entered.

-G

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Studio GK | Sister Project Launched

Exciting news! I have just launched my new sister project for photo retouching. Studio GK offers a clean, professional, and elegant aesthetic to the art of high-end digital retouching.

Get regular updates by connecting on Facebook: www.facebook.com/studiogkretouch

And be sure to check out the full portfolio and before/after gallery on the new website: www.studio-gk.com

-G