How do they do this??!!

button-moon

button-moon

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Tracey
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how do people do this with photoshop...they are so talented!!!
it looks awesome and id love to know how they did it!!!
have any of you ever had a go yourself??

face.jpg
 
button-moon said:
how do people do this with photoshop...they are so talented!!!
it looks awesome and id love to know how they did it!!!
have any of you ever had a go yourself??

face.jpg
Click to expand...

I use a program called Portrait Professional.
 
that retouch would have taken a long time using lots of different tools , if you want a quick insight youtube is the best place to go for that , It is what happens to most pictures you see in the glossy mags , some celebs would be ugly without it :)
 
wow just had a look at it on their site....looks fantastic!!
i know what your saying about it making them look plastic, but u show a girl a picture of her with spots, and one without...i know which theyd choose LOL i know i would anyway!!

lol about celebs being ugly...and its true...ive seen the pictures! LOL
 
yebbut you can take spots away and smooth the skin without giving them the orange tan and impossibly smooth skin
 
Portrait Professional ..... just watched the video ...... OMG that saves sooooooo much time think I will have a look at this
 
One of the easiest ways to do this within Photoshop is to duplicate the image. Then on the duplicate apply a Gaussian blur. This softens up most things. You could use the heal tool to subdue/ remove spots. Don't go OTT with the blur otherwise the subject could end up looking like a plastic Barbie.

Now on the duplicate layer, make a layer mask, and paint through areas to reveal the original subject in areas such as eyes and lips. In fact anything that needs a hard edge, such as eyebrows. Does take a little practice but not difficult . Finally whiten up ( don't overdo it) the eye whites and teeth.

Cheapest make over ever :lol:
 
youll always get a few people saying they prefer the one on the left, but i only used this pic as an example....ive seen before n after pics of people with deep pock marks or acne, and u cant tell me that the spots look better!!!
of course original pictures look better in most cases but u cant deny for SOME pictures abit of photoshop to smooth out the skin works wonders!!! ....like wedding photos for example, id want photos of my wedding day to make me look as nice as possible!!
all im saying is that in SOME CASES abit of photoshop wouldnt do any harm!!! :)

darren...yep smooth skin in photoshop is my next lesson LOL

chappers ive tried that gaussian blur.....on this one....dont think it worked too well though???
28967_388753733322_509248322_4014696_6828666_n.jpg
 
Did you remove the mask for all of the features? (eyebrows, nose, lips, ears, and hairline) they are still looking a little soft. Great pic though!
 
thanks :)

i made a gaussian blur layer, and then just used to eraser on all the details, eyes, nose etc.....her cheeks were very blotchy due to teething....but it still doesnt look right to be honest! LOL
 
Not a fan of Gaussian Blur. Once blur is introduced you lose detail. Detail in skin is one of the ways you can spot a good retouch from a fake-filter blowover

I've been testing a dodge and burn technique out. It's as a starter really, and only one part of the whole process. Take original image, duplicate the layer and make it black and white. Then create 2 new Curves adjustment layers, invert them. Whack one up in the middle and the other down in the middle.

With a white brush around 2px at around 15% opacity make the darks lighter and the lights darker. This will even out skin tone, shadow, excessive highlights etc
. Delete the dupe layer when done
It's not perfect, but I'm happier with it than a Portrait Professional approach
 
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button-moon said:
thanks :)

i made a gaussian blur layer, and then just used to eraser on all the details, eyes, nose etc.....her cheeks were very blotchy due to teething....but it still doesnt look right to be honest! LOL
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Contrary to what was advised to you earlier, I'd do it the other way round. Put sharp photo on top and blurred underneath. Then use soft edged eraser on the sharp image parts where you want to apply the smoothing effect (cheeks, neck, etc.). This leaves most of the photo sharp (as it should be) and selectively applies blurring. TBH it is still quick and dirty approach which does not produce stellar results all the time.
 
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andy_h said:
Not a fan of Gaussian Blur. Once blur is introduced you lose detail. Detail in skin is one of the ways you can spot a good retouch from a fake-filter blowover

I've been testing a dodge and burn technique out.
...
It's not perfect, but I'm happier with it than a Portrait Professional approach
Click to expand...

To expand on this for those interested - there was a thread from pellepiano about this kind of retouch so it may be useful. There is even a reference movie of the real retouch from there.
 
There's a good Photoshop tutorial on this sort of thing here. Also, there's a tutorial on making the eyes pop too. If you notice the right eye is brighter and more vivid.
 
button-moon said:
youll always get a few people saying they prefer the one on the left, but i only used this pic as an example....ive seen before n after pics of people with deep pock marks or acne, and u cant tell me that the spots look better!!!
of course original pictures look better in most cases but u cant deny for SOME pictures abit of photoshop to smooth out the skin works wonders!!! ....like wedding photos for example, id want photos of my wedding day to make me look as nice as possible!!
all im saying is that in SOME CASES abit of photoshop wouldnt do any harm!!! :]
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I have no issue with photoshop, but I do have an issue with airbrushed images used in advertising, this is one of the reasons that we have young girls aged 10-18 who have eating disorders, all because they want to look like the model/person in the magazine, when we know it isn't possible.

The other thing is the odd blemish removal I can except but change complete faces I feel is just wrong it is not the person that was photographed, you may have well photographed a mannequin. All just IMHO.
 
Tracey I have a few video lessons that I learned from that came with a magazine I used to read, I think it was called "Digital Photo" or something like that. There are a few about stuff like this and a few different views and techniques.

Spots, pock marks, moles etc can be removed with either the "spot removal" tool, brush OR the "clone" tool.

Smoothing the skin can be done in a number of ways.....
 
There's quite a bit of work on that image, probably using 3 adapted RAW files to start with (cheek / rest of the face / eyes). Various layers using dodge and burn in multiple blending modes to smooth out the skin without losing the texture, using cloning in lighten and darken blending modes to get rid of stubborn areas.

Contrary to popular belief Portrait professional is poor at giving the high end retouch look, often making the skin plasticky or looking like an orange peel. It has it's uses though and for quick fixes of joe public can be very good! Blurring of any sort is a big no no in the high end retouching industry as standard because it's destructive and nails any skin texture, mention portrait pro and the work will dry up very quickly for you!
Then there's the use of frequency splits where the retoucher will split the texture and colour of the skin and work on each separately. It goes on and on, it's a job in its own right with images like the op posted maybe taking up to 10 hours to complete. Suddenly it's not the photographer that creates the magic but the retoucher - certainly true in the model world. Yes the better the image to start with the more the retoucher will love you but we can do some amazing things with crappy photos as long as they are sharp and in focus.
 
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This is a "makeover" of a young girl at a birthday party.

​

It wasn't taken as anything special, but once I cloned out spots and other imperfections etc and added some Gaussian Blur (with extra saturation) she was very pleased with the result.

.
 
Hi Tracey,

I see you are using Photoshop CS3 :) I'm not sure how to get this to you exactly but I recorded a photoshop action 5 years ago that does exactly this. If you want I can send it to you and you can have a play around with it to see what results you get. I will have a look on Deviantart later for a good stock photo to demonstrate my PS action on, and I will post the result here for you to see. When you know how, it's pretty easy to do :)

Ray.
 
Hi again,

Finally got some time this weekend to sit down and do this, so here it is



I know this is an "unnatural" look and can be OTT. But it is a similar look to what the OP was thinking of. I used to be a hardcore photomanipulator in my Uni days, before I got into photography :lol:

Ray.

PS - Credit on stock photo to rammkitty stock on Deviantart.
 
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This one is more apparant :)

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Credit on stock photo to yellow stock on Deviantart.

Ray.
 
Nice work ray, but I prefer the origional.
 
Shoot girls with good skin instead? You can overexpose a bit too which will make imperfections less obvious, some of the edited ones are terrible, in fact some computer games have characters that look more real.
 
lawrie29 said:
Nice work ray, but I prefer the origional.
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Thanks Lawrie :) I think you're right. Back then I was a huge fan of photomanipulation, using mostly stock photos on Deviantart. But then I got frustrated about not being able to find the types of pictures I wanted to work on so went about taking pictures of my own. That's when I got into photography :D

It's still fun to do now and again, but these days I use just a little bit of PP on my pics and I'm generally happy with it.
 
SparkUK said:
Shoot girls with good skin instead? You can overexpose a bit too which will make imperfections less obvious, some of the edited ones are terrible, in fact some computer games have characters that look more real.
Click to expand...

Very true Chris. Todays games like Final Fantasy on PS3, the characters have skin imperfections :lol: Can see the pores on their skin on close ups. Have you seen some of the editing blunders online, where they've rubbed something important out but didn't realize? Those are hilarious!
 
That first one is spot on imo Ray, very nicely done mate :clap:
It's very difficult & time consuming to properly edit skin, blemishes & all & I find that the blurring methods just destroy pore detail, dodging & burning is the way to go for major retouching jobs imho. I keep greyscale overlay layers of pores from when I was retouching a lot so as detail can be added, taken away & exaggerated. Will see what I can dig out :thumbs:
 
moomike said:
That first one is spot on imo Ray, very nicely done mate :clap:
It's very difficult & time consuming to properly edit skin, blemishes & all & I find that the blurring methods just destroy pore detail, dodging & burning is the way to go for major retouching jobs imho. I keep greyscale overlay layers of pores from when I was retouching a lot so as detail can be added, taken away & exaggerated. Will see what I can dig out :thumbs:
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Miiiike! How's things buddy? Hope all is well :) Totally agree on blur ruining pore detail, it's more of a quick fix. I tried to use the opacity slider on the blur layer to let some detail through, but it's limited and very much a compromise. I like the sound of your technique, I didn't realise dodging and burning could be used to that effect. Will be very interested in seeing the results :thumbs:

Ray.
 
I'm good cheers mate :)
It's a very very labour intensive technique at pore level magnification & far too much hassle for normal portraits but I'll see if I've got any images knocking about from old photoshoots that I could try it out on again - maybe would be good to have a portrait taken by someone that everyone could have a go as skin retouching on & share their workflow (I'm sure there is already a thread like that somewhere here :thinking: ) I was the same as you, loads of retouching work whilst at uni doing my photoshop classes but moved away from it slightly with more street & sports stuff. Definitely something I'd like to get back into though :)
 
My blog tutorial section covers retouching, including 3 different dodge and burn techniques, colour correction based on eyes, and how to safely use the clone tools.

Each is broken down into a short section that you go through in order, and there's HD youtube video's for each too.

It's not quick though.
 
JasonRS said:
My blog tutorial section covers retouching, including 3 different dodge and burn techniques, colour correction based on eyes, and how to safely use the clone tools.

Each is broken down into a short section that you go through in order, and there's HD youtube video's for each too.

It's not quick though.
Click to expand...

Nice one Jason :thumbs: Will love to learn more about it.
 
wow didnt realize there had been so many replies!! didnt get e-mail notification!! Doooohhhhhhh!

lol

thanks everyone for the replies, will look at each of the links....

i had a quick play with that portrait proffesional....its a good program really when u think about it, but sometimes it does things to the extreme and changes all the features and everything!!

i just wanted to make the skin abit smoother etc,.

o totally know where people are coming from with advertisers/young girls etc......but i dont want to use it for that.

just to touch up a picture here and there to make a few girls feel good about themselves....like me LOL
sometimes its just nice :)
 
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