Photoshop Tutorial - High Key

In this tutorial we will give your picture a High Key effect. Enjoy reading ^^

Step 1:

High key effect looks good mainly with portraits. It enhances the emphasis of the subject’s gaze while leaves the rest of the features less powerful. It is also suitable for facial skin smoothing. In order to emphasize the eyes, we’ll leave their color, or even enhance it.

Step 2:

Now go to Image>>Adjustment>>Curves, now make it a bit like the picture. 

You can fine-tune the picture by dragging the handles to very small distances. Lighten the image until fine details get whitened out but the main features of the face still remain recognizable.

Step 3:

...color usually gets bleached along with other facial parts, or it may already lack saturation in the beginning, so you might need some post-coloring. This way, you can lend the eyes any color you like. We’ll keep the greenish-grey tint but boldly over-emphasize the greens. This won’t look natural, but we don’t want it to, anyway.

First, select the eyes with the elliptical selection tool. After selecting the first one, hold SHIFT and select the other, so that both will be selected and you can work with them at the same time. After the selection, right-click one of the eyes and click Feather in the context menu. Set Feather value to 3 to 5 pixels. By doing so, you soften the edges of the selection.

Step 4:

Make a new layer, this layer will be for the eye color. Now choose a suitable foreground color. In this case, it will be a green hue. Click a selected area with the paint bucket tool to fill it with this color. For the time being, the subject looks like that "green-ey'd monster", so select the Overlay blending mode on the Layerspalette and decrease Opacity to make the green filling fit into the picture.

Step 5:

Press Ctrl + D to deselect. Now delete the places were the skin turns green with your eraser tool.

Step 6:

To end select the layer containing the original picture on the Layerspalette and click Image>>Adjustments>>Desaturate to make the colors of the image vanish, except for the greens on the upper layer, which will provide a startling—and effective, albeit excessive—eye color in the high key image.

Please post your outcome in a comment!