Complete portrait retouching - 26 July 2010 - Photoshop tutorials, free design resources, writing

4:45 PM Complete portrait retouching
Okay, retouch again.... I didnt know why i made this tut but i just followed my inspiration . In this tutorial i will tell you how to make a complete portrait retouch. You will know how to remove blemishes, retouch and enhance the skin, eyes, eyebrows, lips, as well as improve the highlight and shadow to make your picture look natural, vivid and beautiful. During this process many different techniques are shown and everything is explained in detail. After and before retouching: , 1. Duplicate your pic twice to get layer 1 and layer 1 copy. I will soften skin on layer 1. I will tell you why i prefer to soften the skin before removing blemishes while other people do in opposite way. Because after softening, we just need to work on less blemishes skin. I suggest you to use some methods : - Gassian blur: it works well with small pixel, from 3 to 5 - Smart blur, Surface blur, or Dust & Scratches, Median ( from Noise filter): no matter what filter you use, remember choose value not to let your pic has "dead pixel", like this: Get rid of it otherwise it will ruin your photo. Here i choose Surface blur with radius =4, threshold = 12 Then Choose Layer-Layer mask-Hide all. Choose soft white brush and start painting on the skin avoiding the edge of the face, eyes, eyebrows. You can hit X on keyboard and use black white brush to edit any area softened unintetionally. Layer 1 copy is used to make your pic sharper to look more natural. Two methods can be used are Smart Sharpen and Unsharp Mask. Amount shows magnitude and contrast of each edge. Radius controls the size of the edges you want to enhance so a smaller radius enhances smaller-scale detail. Threshold shows the minimum brightness change that will be sharpened. This is useful to reduce amplifying noise or roughening the texture of skin. Choose correct value for your pic. Here is my choice: Lower opacity to 50%. Result after doing this step: 2. Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E. Now i will improve shadow of the pic but not affect the light on the model face. Choose Select-Color range- Shadow: Then right click on created selection, choose feather = 10 we have : Choose Image-Adjustment-Brightness/ contrast: 3. Now the time for removing blemishes. Create a new blank layer, choose Spot healing brush and make sure that "Sample All Layers" is checked on property bar. By this way we can edit the skin without affecting all the pic and can go back anytime to adjust it. I choose parameters for this brush: 24 px, Hardness=0 and Spacing = 43%. Spot on the blemishes. It works better in highlight and worse in shadow. Be careful because Spot healing brush is not a miracle. But dont worry if there is any skin area that cant be fixed by this brush. Leave it and we will use another methods that i will tell you right now. Choose Clone Tool in the Toolbar ( make sure "Sample All Layers " is checked too). Click the skin area near to the one you want to fix while holding the Alt key. Then paint on it ( remember change opacity to fit ). About my part, i use it to fix the eyes area, forehead, chin,...like you see on the pic below: Pay attention and patient. The result will be worthy. Create a new blank layer, choose Eyedropper Tool. The aim is to smooth skin again, adjust the light of model face and fix any unsatisfied areas. Click it on the skin ( better choose bright area) and foreground color will be set like this: Then choose soft brush with opacity 15%, flow 18% to start painting on areas that need to be fixed. Notice to keep correct shadow of nose and right eyelashes. We can see the light in shadow is increased and in the highlight is decreased. Look much better ? 4. Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E. Apply Unsharp Mask again. Its to make the skin look more natural and more visible. Add a layer mask to eraser all too much sharp areas. 5. Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E again. Use any tool you like to create selections on white sclera of left eye ( hold the Shift key to create many selections on the same layer). Right click on it, choose feather = 1.5 Press Ctrl+L to adjust brightness: Do the same with right eye, notice the light on it must be a bit less than the left because its in the shadow. Now i just notice that iris on left eye is deformed and i dont like it. Use clone tool in the way above to make it rounder. Create selections around irises, press Ctrl+B to adjust color, change Cyan and Blue: Remember she is Asian so let the color be natural: 6. After doing it, we need to enhance the light of eyes by Dodge and Burn tool. Like the way to use Clone Tool i want to apply it on a new layer so i create a new blank layer and set it to overlay like this: Now i can use Dodge Tool on a transparent layer. I choose Highlight Range and Exposure 58%, paint around the pupil and light blobs on the eyes. Remember that you must lower Exposure when you paint on the right eye. Be careful otherwise it will look unnatural. I also use Burn tool ( Midtones Range) to strengthen the eyelines. 7. Create a new layer and use Clone tool to make the stroke of eyebrows look finer. Click on area above the eyebrows with opacity 42%, flow 46% to paint the stroke. I use Sharpen tool after cloning to make the eyebrows more visible: 8. Create a new layer, use soft brush with color code is 715e66 paint under the eyebrows like this: remember that the tails of eyes are painted darker) Apply Gassian blur with 5px. Then choose Add noise from Noise filter: Set this layer to Color Burn 20%. Erase gently on the corner under tail of left eyebrows we have: This step is to set off the eyes. 9. Create a new layer to make up the lips. The lips look pretty fine so i just enhance its color. I use color f97560 to paint on her lips and set this layer to Soft light 60%. 10. Now we will retouch the nose. Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E to get a new layer. Choose Filter-Liquify: Use Forwarp Warp Tool to make the bridge of nose thinner and more straight. 11. Create a new curves layer, lower opacity to 30%. This step to increase light for the shadow. Choose layer mask, use soft black brush to erase the right eye. PS: i dont make up the cheeks because they look fine already. But you can do it to your pic by use colored brush on a new layer, lower opacity, blur it and set to correct layer mode.
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