problemskin

[Willow Photography]

[attachment=11646:problemskin.jpg]

Cold in Norway, you know  

[HarperPhotos]

Hi Willow,

Kodak do a good skin smoothing plug in.

http://asf.com/products/plugins/airpro/pluginAIRPRO/

Cheers

Simon

[Hans_de_Kort]

portraiture

[Anthony R]

Hire a retoucher.

[woof75]

Oh go on then, I can't resist myself. Here, for a start it seems your way dark, that accounts for half of it, is the model caucasian? I did a few tricks too, what do you think?

[Willow Photography]

Hi guys

Thanks for answering.

Simon: Kodak just gives blurry skin with the miscolouring still visible.
           Not what I want  

Hans:  Maybe I should look into it, but I do not think auto-anything works.

Anthony: Nice result, but I think you understood that  answer was not what
              I was looking for. If you explain how you did it, I would be grateful.
              I know my way around PS pretty good, so dont underestimate me  

woof75:  She is caucasian, but not albino he he.
             I am not sure your effort is serious, but if it is, it was not what I was looking for.


Willow

[jimgolden]

take a look at the channels - one will probably reveal a good mask, use that to D/Burn and cc w/ curves or selective color -it's going to be a tone move if you want to maintain the texture - this is my usual technique and I do a lot of skin like that - athletes who are cold at the shoot and dont see the sun much (oregon)

[DesW]

[attachment=11646:problemskin.jpg]

Cold in Norway, you know  

Hi, You know that program on US TV--"Magics Greatest Secrets Revealed" well I'll probably get frogmarched out of the  Pretend Retouchers Lot but anyway --while I can appreciate AntonyR not disclosing his technique,after all if he makes his living from that work, he is entitled to keep these to himself.

Anyway this is I think how he did it--bear in mind the amounts mentioned /etc are variable to taste/final output/print/etc


A: Dupe the  B/Ground Layer

B: Filter> Other > HiPass  set say 15px( 5-20)

C: Gaussian Blur> say 3-8 Px

D: Invert

F: Change blend Mode to Linear Light and add BLACK layer Mask

G: Brush the  the skin where you want smoothness but texture in WHITE

Careful to keep away from hard edges/etc

Good Luck.

DesW






[attachment=11657:DW_Version.jpg]

[Willow Photography]

I have made this mask and adjust selectiv colour and D&B thing.
It looks nice if you work very hard ( and long ).
But if you have a lot of pictures, in many cases it takes too long time.

I do not think that is what Anthony does, because the skin details he gets, is not there
in the original picture.
I think he paint/clone it in someway. And it looks good and even and I like it!

Maybe the best retouchers have a skin detail archive  
Hopefully he will tell us whats the secret.
And I need it before monday  

willow

[Willow Photography]

Thanks Des.

That looks good.

Tried it and it works like h..

A little tweaking from case to case and it is a jewel for me.

I owe you a beer or two if you come to Oslo  

This forum actually works from time to time.

Willow

[DesW]

Thanks Des.

That looks good.

Tried it and it works like h..

A little tweaking from case to case and it is a jewel for me.

I owe you a beer or two if you come to Oslo  

This forum actually works from time to time.

Willow

Great stuff Will-- Ssssssh just between you and me-Ha!

Good luck,

Des

[haefnerphoto]

Des, I've been wondering how the smooth skin look is achieved, now I know.  It works great, thanks!  Now how do I apply that to a car?  Jim

[Imaginara]

The best results are gotten with a technique which is usually refered to as Dodge & burn. the theory is to burn (darken) the highlights and dodge (lighten) the shadows and thus evening out the 3D appearence of the skin detail.

This can be achieved in a few different ways but the two most common is either use a 50% neutral grey layer in soft light mode. Paint with a very very faint (3-5% opacity) brush on this layer, white to dodge, black to burn. Its quite common to also have a color layer for any discoloration that may occure when the tone is different in the shadows/highlights.

The second method is to use two curve layers, one slightly raised (to lighten/dodge) and one slightly lowered (to darken/burn). The disadvantage of this is that you have to switch layers to switch between dodge and burn, but this usually means you start with one layer and finish that, darkening all the highlights for example. The big advantage is that you can adjust shadows and highlights separately.

Now this is what a professional retoucher will charge you a LOT of money for because as you may understand it takes a looooooot of time. The results however is without a doubt the best you will get and will far surpass any automatic method since the artist can make valued judgement exactly how hard to apply the modifications on every wrinkle and skin pore.

Note that this is usually done after you remove larger blemishes.

One example of this can be found at http://imaginara.tumblr.com/post/55912597/...al-about-how-to

(And since im not a professiona retoucher, it wont be perfect. It will however explain the technique

[E_Edwards]

The best results are gotten with a technique which is usually refered to as Dodge & burn.

Your dodge and burn technique is reminiscent of the old days with chemical retouching, with reducers an dyes. However I think it's too slow for practical commercial purposes. I find that the healing brush for quick larger spots followed by the technique that Des explained is a more practical way, at least for me.

Talking of retouching, could you guys share what's your best way to give a pale(white and pinkish) caucasian skin a bit of a treatment to get a nice, evenly darker and cold tan, similar to the initial sample here (but a touch cooler). I've tried things like multiplying a layer (at various opacities) to build up tone and then play with hue/saturation, but it's always interesting to see other ways.

Edward

[woof75]

Hi guys

Thanks for answering.

Simon: Kodak just gives blurry skin with the miscolouring still visible.
           Not what I want  

Hans:  Maybe I should look into it, but I do not think auto-anything works.

Anthony: Nice result, but I think you understood that  answer was not what
              I was looking for. If you explain how you did it, I would be grateful.
              I know my way around PS pretty good, so dont underestimate me  

woof75:  She is caucasian, but not albino he he.
             I am not sure your effort is serious, but if it is, it was not what I was looking for.


Willow

I think your idea of what caucasian skin looks like is actually quite different to what it is. Hold your arm up to the monitor and compare it to what you have, I think your file is way too dark.

[ziocan]

I think your idea of what caucasian skin looks like is actually quite different to what it is. Hold your arm up to the monitor and compare it to what you have, I think your file is way too dark.

DesW, technique plus a blurred layer of dodge and burn gave me a great result with this pic.

DesW, gave a few thousand grands worth of tip, if you think the time it will spare on using it on the long run.

[Graham Mitchell]

I'm a professional retoucher too, fwiw. Here's my quick fix.

[Willow Photography]

I'm a professional retoucher too, fwiw. Here's my quick fix.

Now we only want to know how you did it  

Willow

[Willow Photography]

I think your idea of what caucasian skin looks like is actually quite different to what it is. Hold your arm up to the monitor and compare it to what you have, I think your file is way too dark.

First of all - how one wants the skin to look is very personal.
It is not IMO a correct skin or a incorrect skin look.

Second - my example was not a finished example, only a raw starting point.

Third - your example is IMO too white/grey. But it can be cool as an effect, if that is what you want.

Fourth - my arm does not compare to most of my sun loving female models    

Willow

[woof75]

First of all - how one wants the skin to look is very personal.
It is not IMO a correct skin or a incorrect skin look.

Second - my example was not a finished example, only a raw starting point.

Third - your example is IMO too white/grey. But it can be cool as an effect, if that is what you want.

Fourth - my arm does not compare to most of my sun loving female models    

Willow

Yes different countries like different skin tones too, newscasters in america are orange but in western europe there quite cool tones. Different markets have different skin tone preferences too, my work is editorial fashion in NY Paris and London and for that cooler skin tones are the norm. (there are exceptions of course).