portrait editing

K

kevtd

Messages
146
Name
kevin
Edit My Images
Yes
i know theres probably a post on here already about this but where would i start on CS3 to achieve these results?

rbp2.jpg


i hope you dont mind me using your image Betty, if you do i shall remove it :)

i'm ok on photoshop removing blemish's and things but i've never managed to figure out how to get that 'make-up' effect
 
free actions maybe. I think it would be a whole lotta work to do that by hand.
 
Do a google or youtube search for "beauty retouch" or similar. Loads of tutorials about.
 
I did that, and it took about 5 mins ;-)

As has been said above, there's a lot of tutorials around, and it's a case of finding what suits you. The process for the above was fairly short, and would probably be described as my typical workflow, although for the purposes of this shot, I took it to extremes.

1. Healing tool on any large blemishes - Not many on this image, don't go mad at this point. ;)
2. Skin Smoothing - I use an action / plugin for this, then mask, merge, blend accordingly.
3. Skin Lightening - actually part of the above process, but worth a separate mention.
4. Revisit the healing tool
5. Then break out liquify......(only one touch with liquify on the above image, can you guess where???)

That's all I did on the image, and I honestly spent no more than 5-10mins on it. Dee's got a good base to work from ;)

For me, I want the skin to retain its natural texture, and not look too "synthetic", ending up looking like it's been achieved with makeup, as described above.

Some methods will lose the skin texture ( pores, tiny creases etc) so bear this in mind when trying them out.

Once you get the hang of it, it can be done quite quickly, you just have to know when to stop!!!

Tools & Stuff

The commercial action I'd recommend looking at (at least to begin with) is from Mama Shan and called Powder, it's $25 ( so about £15) and a great place to start, because it saves faffing about with gaussian /surface blur high pass etc.

http://www.photoshopmama.net/index.html?reload

Demo video / tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3OS46DfykA

I started with Powder, but have progressed to another plugin, and still use it occasionally, I tried doing things manually but never got consistent results (and it took ages!!!!)

This is supposed to be quite good (for free) but I've never tried it

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchang...&extid=1044841

Try a few actions & plugins, and find which one suits you best, as there are several different methods to achieve similar results. Although I do have an aversion to "Portrait Professional". It mucks about with bone structure etc too much, and is not my cup of tea.


And finally....

This is one of many ways to achieve the results "manually"

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/phot...-tips-cs4.html

Oh, proper final bit, well for now...

There are several good retouching forums out there as friendly as this one.
 
I can honestly say I have no idea how this was done. I hate those overly air brushed faces anyway, although this one isn't too bad.

I use PSP, but try this... pick a smooth/blend type tool and set the opacity quite low. Vary the size of the tool where you need to -around the eyes etc.

Gradually work around the face, removing the skin texture, but being careful to retain the light and dark areas so there's still modelling in the face.

When you've done the face will look overly smooth so just add a bit of noise to give the skin some texture.

Quick 5 minute job..

2990362838_42bc1ebd42_o.jpg
 
JasonRS said:
Forgot to mention, the stuff I really struggle with getting retouched right is hair!

If anyone has some good tutorials for "enhancing" hair, I'd appreciate it.
Click to expand...

No quite sure what you mean but have taken a look at your fickr and if you mean that it is the lack of life and detail in brunnetes hair then thats always a problem unless you use a snoot as dark hair soaks up light.

A simple way to inject a bit of life and body into dark hair is to duplicate the image as a layer add a layer mask and fill it with black then change the blend mode to "Linear Dodge (add)" then using a brush and white paint on the layer mask paint in some highlights and detail. If this is what you meant I hope this helps.:)

2990870445_2f1a82c3b2_o.jpg
 
That's exactly the sort of thing, being able to add "natural" highlighting in post processing.

As my collection of lights increases I'll experiment with hair lights, but for now I've got to work with the tools at hand!

Thanks for the tip, I'll be giving that a go in the next few days.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top