New portrait retouch technique (for me)

[JasonRS]

I've tried a shift in direction for retouching portraits etc.

I've tried eliminating plugins, the healing tool and the use of blur. It takes longer, but I'm preferring the results. As an example here's a shot of Sarah, who some of you may have seen in my Breast Cancer shoot thread here in Nudes & Glamour

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=145432

The shots in the old thread were processed the old way...

Onto the newer method I'm now refining, the objective being to clean the skin, control the colours and keep the texture in the skin so it looks natural and not plastic.

Here's the original straight from the camera converted to JPG in Lightroom
Pretty good skin to start with, but a bit red, and a few minor blemishes.

The retouch

Brief Overview
Colour group (done first)
-Global colour correction / adjustment Curve (RGB done separately)
-Hue / Sat adjustment (pulled the reds out in this case)
-Curve to lift the eyes
-Black & White layer adjusted for contrast then blended Soft Light
Then, underneath all of that
Retouch Group (placed under the colour group)
-New empty layer created, healing done with the clone stamp set to lighten / darken as needed.
-Curves layer to lighten - Dodge (masked and revealed to correct dark skin tones)
-Curves layer to darken - Burn (masked and revealed to correct light skin tones)
(two other temporary layers used to add strong contrast and reveal areas to work on B&W then a curve for contrast)
-Skin selected using colour tools to create a new layer then High Pass filter used with low effect but high radius (1 / 50 accordingly)
Then right on top the Finishing group
-Selection created from the red channel to extract the highlights (inverted)
-Curve layer with a mask from the selection above, adjusted for a bit of shine. Blend mode of Luminosity used, then mask adjusted to only reveal areas of hair.
-Blank layer created for sunglasses. Filled with black, then revealed where needed via a mask.

Then I stopped!!

There are a couple of areas I should have left creases (corner of the mouth) and shadow (filtrum under the nose) for a little more shape. I may revisit those areas and bring them back as they're only masked out! which is what I really like about this method.

Then, just as an experiment, I tried popping a new image in as a reflection on the sunglasses. This took as long as all of the above, but I came up with a nifty way of getting the reflected hands back onto the lens.

Sources for the techniques were

Carrie Beene (http://www.carrienyc.com/)
Her skin technique is in the final chapter of this book

Amy Dresser (http://www.amydresser.com/)

Gry Garness - Finally a Brit! (http://www.grygarness.com/)
Her e-book is turning into my retouching bible!

I've still got a long way to go, and this is the first pass at refining my new workflow.

I'm going to shoot some specific beauty images in the next few weeks with a MUA so I've got some material to refine this properly.

BTW, I know this takes longer than hitting it with blur or a plugin, but sometimes speed isn't the issue, and Photoshop's a hell of a toolbox to just go and use the hammer all the time! That, and I want a beauty campaign in my portfolio

 

[wjames]

ah i tried to view the e-book but you have to pay

 

[JasonRS]

It's worth buying, there are some free tutorial on her site too

http://www.grygarness.com/downloads_free_new.htm

 

[DekHog]

Sorry, but I much prefer the original image - the edit looks very unnatural to me. The skintones and hair in the original are much nicer; the hair has lost to much natural colour and detail in the edit -the reflection in the glasses is also much better in the original.

 

[JasonRS]

And the beauty of this process is that in a matter of seconds, all of those areas can be addressed. My main objective here is to avoid reliance on blur/noise/plugins and do it in such a way that I can go back to any stage and adjust to the clients requirements.

e.g. Less contrast, adjust the B&W layer's opacity, more saturated, adjust the Hue/Sat layer etc.


Same as the final but with the colour and finishing layers groups disabled, (so essentially just the skin clean up). With this process you can easily go and adjust each layer if you want.

The Layers pallette

Another example, which didn't have such aggressive colour adjustment as the first.

Becky - from the camera

Becky - after

 

[DekHog]

Yup, def prefer that one, but please bear in mind that it's only my personal taste here. It seems to work well, but I don't think I could rule out plugins myself - although your method produces good results, it's undoubtedly going to take longer than using a plugin, especially one you are familiar with, and spare time is a rarity these days for most people.

I use the Nik plugins myself, and don't think I could live without them now - what takes me two minutes with them would probably take me hours doing it the 'proper' way with Photoshop, if I could even do it at all...

 

[JasonRS]

DH, I fully understand it's all a matter of taste, but I thought I'd take the chance to show how quickly it allows for change / rolling back, as what you pointed out is a fair example of what someone may ask to be changed.

I shelled out for the Portraiture plugin last year, but I'm no longer happy with the results, hence looking for this new way. I wish I'd spent the money on training instead now!