[5-30] "Photoshopping the full portrait"

The full-size portrait (head to toes) is a little more confusing than the half-size, or the modern headshot.

What we are looking at is a subject that is a bit taller than it is wide (a rectangular subject). This means the background has to be crafted as part of the entire image, to balance the disproportionality of a subject-tall image.

Fashion photographers have really thought about this for many years, in which the image has to reflect balance for a rather lanky subject.

Major considerations:

1) Even lighting (not top heavy)
2) Enough seamless paper to wrap under the subject's feet.

Steps:

1) Fill in more "paper" (grey) under the toes.
2) Content-aware (yes, a verb) everything around the subject.
3) Mask subject
4) Level background unevenness with a light adjustment tool (zero'ing)
5) Dodge/darken1 the background for tonal balance
6) Add a texture layer to make it less smooth
7) Reintroduce hue carefully to create a slight bluish tones.

That's it. Time permitting, one should retouch everything else, but that's another story. This method produces a coherent full portrait image that is more appealing better than the original.