There's a big bug biting me.
I am really curious how skin can be cleaned out.
i.e., blemishes removed while maintaining the depth and the right shading or shadowing and tones. So far my efforts seem to produce band aid patch style of effect.
:(
Perhaps someone can point out a simple PS tutorial on this... :Grin:
A sample of what I mean is what Dys did to Rolandos' KAT-ptivating photo regardless that is...

http://www.digitalphotographer.com.ph/forum/showpost.php?p=47649&postcount=26

Thanks in advance

Hi Archie, I'm not so good with photoshop but the quickest retouching technique that I do when I'm in a hurry is by using spot healing brush on photoshop. I adjust the brush size to be slightly smaller than the blemish. If the blemish is too big, i use the patch tool and a little bit of surface and gaussian blur. Sometimes If I need the skintone to really come out, i apply airbrush and drop the opacity so texture is still visible :-) hope this helps!

healing brush tool would clean blemishes and spots on the skin.

dodge & burn would emphasize depth.

smart blurring(channels) would smoothen the skin.

There is also a plugin when you're on a lazy day. Mediachance DCE Tools Portrait skin cleaner. It's fine with closeup shots with sharp details. But it isn't really all that good with waist-up and farther photos since it tends to add softness and a little blooming.

Edit: Here's a photo of it.
http://www.mediachance.com/plugins/images/skinbig.jpg

Thanks guys
I'll try these out.
need to increase my persistence levels too

:Grin:

always edit on a duplicate layer not on the original one. you can use combination of clone and healing brush tools.

I've recently been playing with a certain technique.

I duplicate the background layer.

I then go to Filter>Noise>Dust & Scratches and apply it to the original background layer with a setting of Radius 21 Threshold 9.

I apply a Layer Mask to the duplicate of the background layer. This layer also also has to be the topmost layer of my layer stack.

I pick a brush tool and set its hardness to 0% and its opacity to 20%. I then brush away on the layer mask the areas I want to retouch. I like using a low opacity setting because it allows me to have a greater degree of control over the areas I want to retouch and clean up.

I've recently been playing with a certain technique.

I duplicate the background layer.

I then go to Filter>Noise>Dust & Scratches and apply it to the original background layer with a setting of Radius 21 Threshold 9.

I apply a Layer Mask to the duplicate of the background layer. This layer also also has to be the topmost layer of my layer stack.

I pick a brush tool and set its hardness to 0% and its opacity to 20%. I then brush away on the layer mask the areas I want to retouch. I like using a low opacity setting because it allows me to have a greater degree of control over the areas I want to retouch and clean up.

Sir Jo!!

Thanks for sharing your latest technique.:)

You might want to adjust the settings for the Dust & Scratches filter to suite your taste and needs.

Sir Jo!!

Thanks for sharing your latest technique.:)

wow sir jo ok yan ah! have to try that one out agad! got to rush editing tons of photos!

healing brush tool would clean blemishes and spots on the skin.

dodge & burn would emphasize depth.

smart blurring(channels) would smoothen the skin.

Simple, direct, brief but concise. :)

To add... It's all in working with layers...

First, remove the blemishes using Healing Brush Tool / Clone Stamp Tool; then smoothen the skin using Blur Tool. Arter that, use Dodge Tool / Burn Tool for certain shadows / highlights effect or correction. Basically, the process revolves around those five tools.

Short cut methods would always include Blur methods, Gaussian, Surface, Dust and Scratches, etc. If you editing say yearbook pictures these filters become your best friends. However, for the truly finest retouch blur is never used. You will have to be patient and learn Dodge and Burn and work with zooms of no less than 100% but sometimes as high as 300%. If you zoom into a wrinkle, you will see that it is merely a shadow. If you painstakingly dodge this, you remove the wrinkle. Dodge and Burn also leaves the most natural looking skin with texture in tact. Once you get rid of skin pores, the image looks plastic. Have a look at the high end fashion ads, and you will see what is called the Natural retouch. Wrinkles not there but skin texture remains--all of it accomplished with painstaking D&B.

A flexible D&B technique would be to fill a new layer with 50% gray and change the blend mode to Soft Light. Paint with White to Dodge and Black to Burn. Use a very low opacity such as 3% and gradually work up. This technique is effective because you can flip back to white and black pretty quickly to undo changes.

Hope this helps.

wow sir jo ok yan ah! have to try that one out agad! got to rush editing tons of photos!

Sabi ko naman kasi bumalik for the refresher course eh! :D

Short cut methods would always include Blur methods, Gaussian, Surface, Dust and Scratches, etc. If you editing say yearbook pictures these filters become your best friends. However, for the truly finest retouch blur is never used. You will have to be patient and learn Dodge and Burn and work with zooms of no less than 100% but sometimes as high as 300%. If you zoom into a wrinkle, you will see that it is merely a shadow. If you painstakingly dodge this, you remove the wrinkle. Dodge and Burn also leaves the most natural looking skin with texture in tact. Once you get rid of skin pores, the image looks plastic. Have a look at the high end fashion ads, and you will see what is called the Natural retouch. Wrinkles not there but skin texture remains--all of it accomplished with painstaking D&B.

A flexible D&B technique would be to fill a new layer with 50% gray and change the blend mode to Soft Light. Paint with White to Dodge and Black to Burn. Use a very low opacity such as 3% and gradually work up. This technique is effective because you can flip back to white and black pretty quickly to undo changes.

Hope this helps.

He he. I learned this very same technique from the seminar (Portrait Retouching Using Photoshop CS2 by Julieanne Kost) I attended last week in PhotoPlus Expo.

Thanks Nick.

A flexible D&B technique would be to fill a new layer with 50% gray and change the blend mode to Soft Light. Paint with White to Dodge and Black to Burn. Use a very low opacity such as 3% and gradually work up. This technique is effective because you can flip back to white and black pretty quickly to undo changes.

Hope this helps.

the thing i like about this technique is that you only need to brush on the area once. if you feel you need a stronger effect, just duplicate and stack another layer on top :)

to do the opposite (reduce strenght), just decrease the opacity of the 50% fill layer.

Short cut methods would always include Blur methods, Gaussian, Surface, Dust and Scratches, etc. If you editing say yearbook pictures these filters become your best friends. However, for the truly finest retouch blur is never used. You will have to be patient and learn Dodge and Burn and work with zooms of no less than 100% but sometimes as high as 300%. If you zoom into a wrinkle, you will see that it is merely a shadow. If you painstakingly dodge this, you remove the wrinkle. Dodge and Burn also leaves the most natural looking skin with texture in tact. Once you get rid of skin pores, the image looks plastic. Have a look at the high end fashion ads, and you will see what is called the Natural retouch. Wrinkles not there but skin texture remains--all of it accomplished with painstaking D&B.

A flexible D&B technique would be to fill a new layer with 50% gray and change the blend mode to Soft Light. Paint with White to Dodge and Black to Burn. Use a very low opacity such as 3% and gradually work up. This technique is effective because you can flip back to white and black pretty quickly to undo changes.

Hope this helps.

@nick- for the 50%gray layer is it better to use a soft light blend mode compared to an overlay blend mode? when should we use an overlay mode in retouching?

will the 50% gray layer method of dnb produce a better effect vs. using 2 diff. curves layers (one for dodge and the other one for burning)?

thanks!

You can use Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Vivid Light, Linear Light. I personally prefer Soft Light because the effect is not as strong and you can gradually build up. The other thing you have to pay attention to with the 50% gray method is that it can introduce color changes by increased saturation. Just keep that in mind.

Lately, I've been ditching the 50% gray and have just been painting directly to a blank layer at Soft Light mode. Try it. Works like a charm.

will the 50% gray layer method of dnb produce a better effect vs. using 2 diff. curves layers (one for dodge and the other one for burning)?

thanks!

This can work just as well but you need to make sure that the curve you use is consistent. That way you know how much dodging or burning each stroke provides.

For the 50% gray or empty layer to Soft Light method, I actually have two layers, one as a Dodge and the other a Burn. Its better to split these two into separate layers, at least you have the chance later down the road to play with layer opacities.

thanks! i'll try out the blank layer on soft light mode...

i've been reading a lot re retouching for glamour. one thing that i notice is that the 'high-end' retouchers usually have a very basic workflow. it really boils down to your persistence in using the basic tools. there really is no shorcut if you want high quality output.

I normally do away with filling the layer with 50% gray if the blend mode is set to softlight and I'll be dodging or burning.

The 50% gray layer with layer blend mode set to overlay does come in handy if I want undoable noise or a way move around a fake lens flare :D

Nick, with the blank layer, do we still use the brush set to very low opacity and only use either black or white color? Or can we use other colors in between? Or do you use the Dodge and Burn tool instead of the Brush?

I usually use separate layers (both set to softlight blending mode) for dodging and burning. I could just use the brushes at 100% opacity and adjust the layer opacity afterwards. Or just use the same layer (still set to softlight blending mode) and use brushes with an opacity setting of about 20% or lower so that I can gradually build up the intensity of the dodging or burning.

I just remembered something. A lot of post processing work and time can be greatly reduced in some shoots if the make up had been properly done in the first place :D