How is this achieved?

Will James

Will James

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Will
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Hi all,

I was wondering how the skin is made to look SO immaculate! I've got a beginner's guide to photoshop which says to blur the whole image with a mask in Photoshop, then erase the blur on the important parts - nose, eyes, lips, mouth, contours, etc....but I can never get an effect as good as this!

This is NOT my photograph and it is being used for the purposes of the query only!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3126/5739466501_122d6ae9d6_z.jpg
First Perception by Fisher's Photos, on Flickr

Will :D.
 
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Make up, but you could also try Clear Skin FX which for a freeware program does a pretty good job.
 
jon ryan said:
Well, perhaps she simply has immaculate skin...
Click to expand...

Yeah OK but, his other photo's all have the same effect. She probably has got immaculate skin but I've seen so many photo's like this where the skin has been made from 'normal' looking skin to amazingly smooth and model-like.

Alan Clogwyn said:
Make up, but you could also try Clear Skin FX which for a freeware program does a pretty good job.
Click to expand...

Thanks Alan I'll give it a go :)

Will.
 
Also when I asked the question I also meant how do the tones get made so smooth too?
 
Wow, lovely skin! I'd be very surprised if her skin was actually that smooth though.

A combination of retouching with healing brush etc. and possibly the use of a PS plugin such as Portrait Professional could quite easily recreate that "perfect" skin look.
 
nickshek said:
Wow, lovely skin! I'd be very surprised if her skin was actually that smooth though.

A combination of retouching with healing brush etc. and possibly the use of a PS plugin such as Portrait Professional could quite easily recreate that "perfect" skin look.
Click to expand...


I use patch tool, healing brush, clone tool etc. In photoshop on separate layers to reduce wrinkles and remove blemishes, then blend in at reduced opacity. I also use portraiture plugin for photoshop to smooth and blend this in too.

There's lots of techniques and you can go from 'natural good skin' all the way to completely reworked. Some retouchers go so far as recreating skin textures and add/replace eye lashes, rework the eyes and add fake catchlights, remodel lips and face etc. Dodge and burn contours and add digital makeup. There really is no limit to what can be done with some skill, time, and the right tools. I couldn't be bothered spending that long on a computer so I just make people look like they are having a good akin day ;)
 
nickshek said:
Wow, lovely skin! I'd be very surprised if her skin was actually that smooth though.

A combination of retouching with healing brush etc. and possibly the use of a PS plugin such as Portrait Professional could quite easily recreate that "perfect" skin look.
Click to expand...

lensflair said:
I use patch tool, healing brush, clone tool etc. In photoshop on separate layers to reduce wrinkles and remove blemishes, then blend in at reduced opacity. I also use portraiture plugin for photoshop to smooth and blend this in too.

There's lots of techniques and you can go from 'natural good skin' all the way to completely reworked. Some retouchers go so far as recreating skin textures and add/replace eye lashes, rework the eyes and add fake catchlights, remodel lips and face etc. Dodge and burn contours and add digital makeup. There really is no limit to what can be done with some skill, time, and the right tools. I couldn't be bothered spending that long on a computer so I just make people look like they are having a good akin day ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help. Yeah I don't want to completely rework, just to make their skin look very smooth and free from belmishes, etc. When you say blend in at reduced opacity, what do you mean? Do you mean setting the blending mode to a certain setting? (Sorry I'm a newb). Which portraiture plugin do you use for PS?

Will :D.
 
Will James said:
Thanks for the help. Yeah I don't want to completely rework, just to make their skin look very smooth and free from belmishes, etc. When you say blend in at reduced opacity, what do you mean? Do you mean setting the blending mode to a certain setting? (Sorry I'm a newb). Which portraiture plugin do you use for PS?

Will :D.
Click to expand...


I use the tools in photoshop on a duplicate layer, mostly patch tool set to content aware to reduce wrinkles, and spot healing brush and patch tool for blemishes. Then adult opacity of layer to taste. If I need to even out colour more I will close stamp at 10 to 20% opacity, then blend at whatever opacity to taste and clean up with a mask around edges if needed.

Then I flatten and duplicate again and use a plugin by imageonic called 'portraiture'. It selectively smooth based in tones you select and you can tweak smoothing parameters. But I also often use a mask on the later if it goes into areas I don't want. Then I reduce.opacity of this layer to taste.

With a graphics tablet and practice you can retouch a face to a very good standard in less than a minute which is handy if you do a lot. I often just run the plugin at low settings and opacity for a quick improvement when the peoples skin only makes up a small percentage of the frame, for example group wedding shots etc.
 
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It looks as though the photographer is shooting into the sun and has used a reflector and/or off-camera flash. It gives him a head start when it comes to editing the photograph later on.
 
lensflair said:
I use the tools in photoshop on a duplicate layer, mostly patch tool set to content aware to reduce wrinkles, and spot healing brush and patch tool for blemishes. Then adult opacity of layer to taste. If I need to even out colour more I will close stamp at 10 to 20% opacity, then blend at whatever opacity to taste and clean up with a mask around edges if needed.

Then I flatten and duplicate again and use a plugin by imageonic called 'portraiture'. It selectively smooth based in tones you select and you can tweak smoothing parameters. But I also often use a mask on the later if it goes into areas I don't want. Then I reduce.opacity of this layer to taste.

With a graphics tablet and practice you can retouch a face to a very good standard in less than a minute which is handy if you do a lot. I often just run the plugin at low settings and opacity for a quick improvement when the peoples skin only makes up a small percentage of the frame, for example group wedding shots etc.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for the tip Graham, I'll do some practice :) :thumbs:

Terry St said:
It looks as though the photographer is shooting into the sun and has used a reflector and/or off-camera flash. It gives him a head start when it comes to editing the photograph later on.
Click to expand...

Yeah good point, thanks for your comment.

Will :D
 
For what can be achieved in post, take a look here (roll over the images to see what the starting point was): http://www.msethjones.com/rollovers/ (in case you haven't seen it before)
 
There are hundreds of ways to smooth skin like this, there is no right or wrong way.
Start by using your clone tools to get rid of any imperfections, this should always be done first & on a duplicated layer so you can always go back to the start if you need to. A lot of the time, extensive healing and cloning is all that needs to be done. If you look in any high fashion magazine you can always see texture in the skin, without this texture the model will look extremely fake. It's OK to use blur on the skin as long as you have some way of bringing the natural texture back in, again there are loads of ways to do this. I'd steer clear of the skin correction plugins, they might work, but sometimes they can be very destructive and 99% of the time you will get a better result through mastering the tools that are already in photoshop. Just my 2 cents..
 
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SamuelHearn said:
There are hundreds of ways to smooth skin like this, there is no right or wrong way.
Start by using your clone tools to get rid of any imperfections, this should always be done first & on a duplicated layer so you can always go back to the start if you need to. A lot of the time, extensive healing and cloning is all that needs to be done. If you look in any high fashion magazine you can always see texture in the skin, without this texture the model will look extremely fake. It's OK to use blur on the skin as long as you have some way of bringing the natural texture back in, again there are loads of ways to do this. I'd steer clear of the skin correction plugins, they might work, but sometimes they can be very destructive and 99% of the time you will get a better result through mastering the tools that are already in photoshop. Just my 2 cents..
Click to expand...

:clap:
 
SamuelHearn said:
There are hundreds of ways to smooth skin like this, there is no right or wrong way.
Start by using your clone tools to get rid of any imperfections, this should always be done first & on a duplicated layer so you can always go back to the start if you need to. A lot of the time, extensive healing and cloning is all that needs to be done. If you look in any high fashion magazine you can always see texture in the skin, without this texture the model will look extremely fake. It's OK to use blur on the skin as long as you have some way of bringing the natural texture back in, again there are loads of ways to do this. I'd steer clear of the skin correction plugins, they might work, but sometimes they can be very destructive and 99% of the time you will get a better result through mastering the tools that are already in photoshop. Just my 2 cents..
Click to expand...

Hi Samuel, that's great advice, thanks very much! The texture is the thing I tend to get stuck on the most. Sometimes I spend a long time using the clone and healing tools, but I lose the texture of the skin - I noticed lots of magazines have even texture throughout the skin - like some of the rollovers on the link above. WHat are some ways to bring the texture back in?

Also would you say it's a case of 'practice makes perfect' and trial and error with these tools? I should get better the more time I use them?

Many thanks :)

Lez325 said:
you could always buy, Portait Professional a snip @ £30

Here; www.portraitprofessional.com

Les :thumbs:
Click to expand...

Hi Les, yes that looks great - thanks for the recommendation.
 
Will James said:
Hi Samuel, that's great advice, thanks very much! The texture is the thing I tend to get stuck on the most. Sometimes I spend a long time using the clone and healing tools, but I lose the texture of the skin - I noticed lots of magazines have even texture throughout the skin - like some of the rollovers on the link above. WHat are some ways to bring the texture back in?

Also would you say it's a case of 'practice makes perfect' and trial and error with these tools? I should get better the more time I use them?
Click to expand...


When using those tools you should try and sample from areas near to where you are painting in order to keep it consistent, keep regularly re- sampling to make sure it doesn't all look the same. Take samples from areas with regular and clean texture. Sadly this takes ages - doing a proper retouch isn't easy work - expect to spend a long time, especially when getting to grips with the tools. You'll get there :)

A widely used method of softening the skin after initial healing is to duplicate the healing layer twice, blur the bottom duplicated layer, then to use a high-pass filter on the top layer and set it to soft light blending mode. Then you can mask these layers so that they only affect the skin, and adjust the opacity of each to suit the image. I haven't explained it particularly well here.. There's much more you need to know, this one method does not work in every scenario. That is the general idea of it though, a smooth layer and a textured layer blended together just the right amount. There are loads of ways to do it, this is just one.
 
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