INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
First and foremost I appreciate you for investing in me! Retouching is something that is extremely important when it comes to photography and I cannot thank you enough for trusting me to share my knowledge with you. Below you will find nine videos in which two images are retouched. The first image will be broken down into various videos, each one covering one step of the skin retouching process. The last video will use all of the steps that we covered with a different image, showing the versatility of the process. Next to each video lies a description that will further help you understand what is being covered in the video. If you run into any trouble with understanding or accessing the tutorial, please email me at breonnatcollier@gmail.com or use the form at the bottom of this page. Let’s get started!
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STEP BY STEP
Step 1: Enhancing Facial Features with the Liquify Filter
The very first step in my skin retouching process is using the Liquify Filter to strengthen features or enhance the body structure of the subject. In this video we are focusing on the face but you can surely use the same tools to change body structure. The liquify tool can be found under the “Filter” drop-down at the top of the screen and lets you push, pull, rotate, reflect, pucker, and bloat any area of the image. You can use various tools within the Liquify Filter in order to alter facial features. One thing to keep in mind when you are using the liquify tool to enhance features is symmetry. Professional cameras capture imbalances that we do not necessarily see with the naked eye.
Tool Highlight within the Liquify Filter:
Face-Aware Liquify - Automatically detects facial features and helps you adjust them to enhance a portrait or add creative character to a fun shot.
Forward Warp Tool - Pushes the pixels of an image forward as you drag.
Face Tool - Allows you to select and move individual facial features.
Step Two: Cleaning Skin with Various Photoshop Tools
This step involves cleaning the skin with tools that are located at the left-hand side of photoshop. This step lays a good foundation for frequency separation which we will be covering in later steps. There are so many tools that can be used for this step but I like to keep it simple and stick with three. Sometimes I may not use all three depending on how I feel. Below are the three tools that I mostly use when doing a quick skin cleanup.
Tool Highlight for Skin Cleanup
Patch Tool - Primarily used to repair larger areas of an image, or get rid of any distractions or blemishes.
Clone Stamp Tool - Allows you to duplicate part of an image. The process involves setting a sampling point in the image which will be used as a reference to create a new cloned area.
Spot Healing Brush Tool - Can be used to clone areas from an image and blend the pixels from the sampled area seamlessly with the target area. The basic principle is that the texture from the sample area is blended with the color and luminosity surrounding wherever you paint.
Creating the Frequency Separation Action for Step Three
Actions make life easier when it comes to your flow in photoshop. When I first set up frequency separation I was a bit confused. We are going to set up and create an action for Frequency Separation. Below are the steps listed to further help you understand how to set up Frequency Separation and make the action for it. Once you do this, you will never have to manually set up Frequency Separation layers ever again!
Press the Play(+) Button to start the Action and name it “FS” or “Frequency Separation.” Once you name the Action hit the Record Button
Duplicate your background copy layer two times(this will leave you with 4 layers). From top to bottom make sure the layers are named Texture, Skin, Background Copy and Background
Add a Gaussian Blur to the Skin Layer
Hide the Texture Layer
Make sure the Skin Layer is selected
Select the “Filter” drop-down at the top of the page
Select “Blur”
Select “Gaussian Blur”
Set the Radius to 9-ish
Change the Texture Layer Properties
Unhide the Texture Layer and make sure it is selected
Select the “Image” drop-down at the top of the page
Select “Apply Image”
Make sure the following properties are as listed:
Layer Selected: Skin
Channel: RGB
“Invert” should be selected
Blending Mode: Add
Scale: 2
Offset: 0
Opacity: 100
Press “Okay”
Set the Texture Layer mode to Linear Light
Press the “end record” button
Now that you’ve made the action for Frequency Separation, we can move on to Frequency Separation.
Step Three: Frequency Separation
Frequency Separation serves as the most important step in my retouching. Many people do this step differently, but in my process I discovered that the Clone Stamp tool works wonders when Frequency Separating. In this video I will show you how I solely use the Clone Stamp tool on both the Skin(blurry) Layer and the Texture(sharpness) Layer. On the Skin Layer, we have to use the Clone Stamp tool with low opacity and low sharpness. On the Texture Layer, we use the Clone Stamp tool with high opacity and high sharpness. Using the Clone Stamp tool for this process is the step you never knew you needed!
Creating Dodge and Burn Action for Step Four
This video explains how to make another action for one of the steps I take in my retouching process. In this step, you will create two “Curves” layers. One Curve Layer will be for Dodge and the other will be for Burn. When you make the Dodge Curve Layer, you have to make a point in the middle of the graph, raise the curve and then invert that layer. When making the Burn Curve Layer, you will have to make a point in the middle of the graph again, but now you will lower that point and invert the layer. For this step, the video will be easier to follow in comparison to my words. It’s way easier than it sounds.
Step Four: Dodge and Burn
This step is fairly easy and it uses the Dodge and Burn action that we created earlier. In this step we will essentially brighten all of the lighter areas with the Dodge Layer and darken all of the darker areas with the Burn Layer. In order to do this you have to use the brush tool(make sure the color of the brush tool is the opposite color of the little rectangle on the selected curve layer). Since the curves layers have black rectangles on them, we are going to use the brush tool set to white. The little black rectangle serves as a mask on top of your image. When you paint on top of the black mask(or paint on top of the image with that particular curve layer selected) with a white brush it '“reveals” the adjustments of the curve. The video will show better what I mean by this.
Creating Color Correction Action for Step Five
Creating this action is incredibly easy so I’ve listed the simple steps below…
Start Action with Play (+) button
Create New Layer (make sure that layer is at the top of all of your layers).
Change the Layer Mode to “Color”
Press the “End Record” button
Step Five: Color Correction
This step is so easy and it serves as my final step to retouching skin in Adobe Photoshop. It’s normal for humans to have various tones when it comes to their skin complexion but when it comes to photography, we want to make sure that all of the colors in the skin are the same. In step we use the Brush tool on the Color Correction Layer that we just made. With the brush tool, we sample tones from the image and we brush the sampled color over the subject’s skin. This creates an even skin tone all over for the subject. This layer can also be used to correct any color differences in your image such as yellow teeth or red/yellow eyes. We won’t be doing it here but you can use it to enhance and even lipstick colors and more!
USING EVERY SINGLE STEP ALL TOGETHER
Now that you know all of the steps that I use to retouch photos, we are going to look at all of the steps together in one sitting. Like mentioned earlier, this retouching technique can be used on any skin type or skin color.
CLOSING
You’ve made it all the way through! Thank you again so much for taking the time to invest in me and learn from me. I hope that you learned something and took away valuable information from this tutorial. Please use this form if you have questions, concerns, or need better understanding of this retouching technique! I am more than happy to further elaborate on anything you may not have grasped easily.