Educational Courses

Fine art portraiture and editing with Ashley Kirkland

Ashley Kirkland has a whimsical style and brings imagination to life! In this course, you will see how she creates these beautiful dreamlike portraits. Over 3 hours of video lessons and tutorials.

Now available!

Surreal Portaits - Photography and Editing

In this course, Ashley Kirkland reveals her personal process and shares her secret editing techniques. Learn Ashley’s creative workflow and begin creating your own surreal portraits. 

This course consists of six lessons that will cover specific topics and elements of editing. You will be encouraged with homework after each lesson to help you develop a better understanding of the process. As a bonus, this course also includes full editing tutorials and downloadable texture overlays. Once you purchase the course, you will receive a link and log in details to access the course. Students to this course will also have access to a private Facebook VIP group for continued learning and critique.

Programs used: Photoshop Creative Cloud and Adobe Camera Raw. We don’t use actions or plug-ins. For more information, check out the FAQ’s.

Course overview

Over three hours of educational content!

Lesson One - Concept and Design: This lesson covers the basics of building a concept. You’ll be encouraged to think creatively, to analyze your own thoughts and ideas, and learn ways to communicate your concept with design. We’ll also talk about the perspective on portraits and developing a style. This lesson includes a downloadable and printable guide to help you craft your own concept and design. This is a useful tool for planning and developing your portrait. Lastly, lesson one will begin covering the basics of raw processing and retouching. Raw processing will be done with Adobe Camera Raw. We will move into Photoshop where we will cover extracting and masking.

Lesson Two - Facial and Feature Enlargements: This lesson covers facial and feature enlargements with Photoshop tools and liquefy. You’ll learn our process and workflow to creating exaggerated and whimsical features.

Lesson Three - Painting and Light: Lesson three will cover changing skin tones, painting make-up effects, and painting light. We’ll take a closer look at layers and develop a better understanding of clipping masks.

Lesson Four - Dodge and Burn: Lesson four is all about dodge and burn. We’ll take a look at different techniques to create specific styles. Learn how to add dimension and depth to your image.

Lesson Five - Textures and Overlays: Learn how you can use textures to create different looks and styles. Lesson five will also show you have to create your own overlays and how to use them to add certain elements to your image, and even apply patterns and texture to your subject’s skin.

Lesson Six - Color: This lesson is all about color. We’ll cover color theory and how we can use colors to evoke certain thoughts and feelings. We’ll also talk about color groupings and how to create images pleasing to the eye. We will also take a look and analyze the color specific images. Lastly, we’ll cover color toning to apply final global edits to an image.

bonus content

Not only will you see the full process from start to finish of Ashley’s Butterfly Portrait featured in the lessons, this course also includes full editing tutorials of her popular Fire Portrait and more. Also included, a printable concept and design guide, downloadable textures, and access to a private Facebook VIP group for continued learning and growth.

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