Depth and Dimension

How to Use Luminosity Masking to Add Real Depth to Flat Photos
Video Tutorials

How to Use Luminosity Masking to Add Real Depth to Flat Photos

Last month I delivered a set of beauty shots to a skincare client and got back a response I hadn’t heard in a while: “They look a little flat.” Not “plastic” (I fixed that problem years ago, painfully), but flat. Dimensionless. Like the light had been ironed out of the image rather than sculpted into it. I knew what they meant the second I looked at the files again. I’d been so focused on skin work that I’d completely neglected tonal depth.

How to Add Depth and Dimension to Flat-Looking Portrait Photos in Photoshop
Video Tutorials

How to Add Depth and Dimension to Flat-Looking Portrait Photos in Photoshop

A few weeks ago I was finishing up a batch of beauty edits for a skincare client and kept running into the same problem. The shots were technically clean, skin looked smooth, color was dialed in, but something was missing. Every image felt a little… flat. Like a drawing of a face rather than a face. I’d been so focused on removing imperfections that I’d accidentally ironed out the natural shadows and highlights that give skin its three-dimensional quality.