Hello! I’m a professional retoucher Anna Rovkina. In this tutorial we’ll discuss the technique that allows to get beautiful and smooth-looking skin without losing its texture. Photos for this tutorial are the courtesy of Eugeniya Lungu.
Our final shot looks like this:
Now I’ll tell you how we achieved such a result layer by layer.
Let’s start from the bottom of the Layer palette.
1. We created a layer “Clean” and used Healing brush and Clone Stamp to remove pimples, moles and undesired distracting hair. We also cleaned background. That is so cold technical retouching.
2. Our next step is to remove color spots on the skin.
To see them better we’re gonna need an adjustment layer Channel Mixer (it is called “Help” in our Layer pallette).
Don’t forget to enable Monochrome mode (put a tick), the image becomes black and white. Then shift the slider of the red channel to the left until image is black and green channel slider to the right until the Total value equals 100%.
Now we have a black and white image which shows really well all of the spots, under-eye circles etc.
3. Create a new layer filled with gray color. Call it «Dodge & Burn» and use following settings:
Use Dodge Tool to brighten all the dark areas on the skin, hair, and clothes and Burn Tool to darken undesired bright spots.
If, after these steps, you see that the color on the edited portions of the image has changed (i.e. you see color spots on the skin, hair, clothes), create a new layer «Color» with the blending mode Soft Light. Then choose an appropriate color nearby using the Eyedropper Tool and paint those areas over with the Brush tool.
Here’s what you should get completing these steps:
4. Next we combine all visible layers into the active one (the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E). Let’s call this layer «High Pass». We will continue to retouch skin and smooth it.
We use Vivid Light blending mode. Let’s Invert it (Image / Adjustments / Invert).
Then go to Filter / Other / High Pass and enter this value:
Next call Filter / Blur / Gaussian Blur with this value:
Then go to Blending options of the Layer (Layer -> Layer Style -> Blending options) and dissociate two sliders holding down the Alt key:
Next hide layer using a black mask. Add smoothness to the skin in the right places adjusting the masked area.
I recommend putting the transparency of the layer around 40%.
Now we can remove the «Help» layer.
5. Next to work with the volume I created a new layer filled with gray “Volume” (created as described previously, the blending mode is Soft Light). I’ve used white brush to paint over areas I want to see as light, and black on the areas I’d love to she shaded. That’s how I treated skin, eyes, lips, hair and clothes.
6. I’ve used «Retouch» layer to remove minor bugs that I’ve missed before.
7. On the layer «Color Efex Pro 4" I applied Detail Extractor filter by NIK Software. It is then hidden using the mask and unmasked only on pupils, lips, hair and clothes.
8. On the layer «Liquify» I have corrected hair a bit, shoulder line, one of the eyes.
9. Then I’ve made ??a minor color correction using plugin Alien Skin Exposure / Color Film / Technicolor Process 4 — Faded & Scratched.
10. We’re almost done. Our final step is adding sharpness to the photo. Again, we merge all visible layers, apply High Pass Filter with 4PX setup, change the blending mode to Soft Light.
Here’s what we got:
That’s it. I hope this method for processing a studio shot was useful to you.
// This is an article from the PhotoCASA magazine, originally appeared in Russian. Stay tuned, we’re going to publish even more articles by Russian and Ukrainian photographers.
This tutorial is written by Anna Rovkina, professional retoucher from Ukraine. Contacts: retouch.anna@gmail.com; 500?? //
