A great tutorial on Skin

[shellby]

http://tutorials.smugmug.com/gallery/1169397/1

... and yes they use BLUR

[meok]

That's indeed a very interesting workflow. But I didnt think the final outcome of that technique was of much quality, the pores looks very unatural. Pretty cool technical info tho.

[shellby]

I guess it is a good technique if you have limited time to spend on an image. the dodge and burn method takes 3 to 5 hours on a single image. Some clients do not want / or do not have the budget for that amount of time. I know that we have discussed blur and bringing back texture with noise or sharpen before.

[studioj]

Where can I learn about dodge/burn method?

[byRo]

Ain't life funny.

Strange coincidences really do happen!

Both of us, separately, described the Gaussian Blur and the High-Pass filter using the exact same phrase (funny - and I always thought it was Brazilian)

The inicial retouching technique he describes, you will also find in this tutorial.

Yes, it does include a Gaussian blur, but when you combine it with a High-pass overlay the correct name would be "Band-Stop filter" (much better than just calling it a blur)

Agreed, the results may not be 100%. But between 95% in five minutes and 100% in five hours, it's gong to depend a lot on the client's necessities / possibilities.
Nice to have an option open for the quick fix when needed.

Rô

[shellby]

Further on in the tutorial he actually suggests using the Lens Blur rather than Gaussian Blur. I have found that Surface Blur is also pretty good or Median Blur in the Noise Filter as it keeps the lines.

For the Dodge and Burn look up the user HEYRAD and he outlines the technique

[shellby]

From Heyrad's post:


Everything being discussed here so far can be considered a great way of achieving the end result. The important consideration here is flexibility. If you use a GRAY layer in an overlay/soft mode, you can dodge and burn with white or black till your heart's content.. The problem is, that if your dodging and burning are on the same layers-- no flexibility... If you REALLY wanna get your hands dirty and do things the smart way... Here's a method that I developed to help get the job done with the most flexibility and control...

After I remove the pimples and do light spotting on an image, I create a layer set and call it "D&B". In that layer set I create(in this order from bottom to top) adjustment layers... Curve(LIGHTEN), Curve(DARKEN),HUE(DESAT),CURVE(CONTRAST). On the LIGHTEN curve, I lighten the mids and fill the layer with black to hide. With this layer, I'll paint with white at about 1-5% depending to lighten dark spots on the skin. on the DARKEN curve I darken the mids and fill with black as well so that I can use this to darken light spots on the skin-- the goal here is to even out the skin tones. The HUE layer is used to desaturate the image. Lord knows we get tired of looking at a monitor. Desaturating helps my eyes when I'm working on fine detail. The CONTRAST curve is helpful to display the dark/light spots better-- again for my old eyes... I select a point on the CONTRAST curve that represents the dark/light spotting of the skin and I pump an S curve in it to bring out the contrast so I can see it better... After zooming in to about elevendy billion percent to work on the fine points of the skin, I begin to zoom out and use larger brushes... When I'm finished and happy with the results. I turn off the CONTRAST and HUE curves and VIOLA.... total control. Now you can color adjust your little heart out and not effect the dodging and burning. You've got total control of the dark and light curves and you can easily revisit them with your little paint brush.

[leuallen]

Hi Shelby,

I thought the final result of the technique was rather poor. Not worth the effort compared to Ro's method.

I retouched the same girl, not the same pose, using several different methods.

The first attachment is using the Dodge/Burn method. As you say, 3-5 hours, but the results are very good.

The second attachment is using Ro's degrunge with a Dodge/Burn layer to even up the skin tones. Compare with the third attachment which is without the D/B layer. Note the blotchiness of the skin tones. The degrunge method does strange things to the transitions between skin tones and the skin highlight quality.

I find for quicker results than a full D/B treatment, that the degrunge method works well if you clean things up afterwards with a D/B layer. The work on this D/B layer is much less demanding than in the full D/B treatment because you are not concerned with the small stuff which the degrunge takes care of. All you have to do is even the skin tones which is a larger area operation and does not take as much time.

This is one of the first degrunge images I tried. I have since refined my technique and am sure that I would do it better if done over.

Some of the things I have found to work well with the degrunge method are:

Go for a slightly stronger skin texture and then back off the opacity rather than a lesser skin texture at full opacity. In other words, I take the bluring and HighPass a little past what I tihink looks good and then back off. It seems to give a more natural effect.

As to the black ringing that you get near high contrast edges. Ro says paint the skin back using a mask and staying away from these edges. What I have tried with some sucess is: (1) get rid of major blemishes with healing/cloning. (2) add a hide all mask to a COPY of the fixed layer (3) on the mask paint in the skin areas, staying slightly away from and feathering to the high contrast boundrys. (4) of course the eyes, eyebrows, and lips are not included. But I go further. If there are dark lines still in the skin, I take a small, soft brush and remove them from the skin. Areas tha usually get this treatment are under the nose and between the chin and neck. This allows these areas to be more sharply defined in the final image without any transitions being apparent. Whether to remove lines or not is a matter of judgement. If you want the features to retain definition, remove the lines as nose and chin. If you want the features to be reduced, leave the lines in as in laugh lines. (5) now instead of keeping the mask, I attatch it to the image. This gives me a cutout of the desired skin areas on a transparent background. (6) now run the HighPass and blur degrunge steps on this cutout layer. Little or no black/white areas between high contrast transitions. This layer is placed over the fixed layer and the opacity reduced. (7) D/B layer to even out skin. (8) Often the skin result looks a little flat and too soft. On the degrunge layer (skin cutout) run USM as 10-30 amount, 50 radius, 0 threshold. This perks up the skin texture without effecting the rest of the image.

If I get time I will redo the degrunge version using my latest techniques. I am sure that it will be closer to the full D/B treatment with much less time invested.

Larry

[Nanls]

Originally Posted by leuallen

Hi Shelby,

I thought the final result of the technique was rather poor. Not worth the effort compared to Ro's method.

I retouched the same girl, not the same pose, using several different methods.




Larry

Larry would you mind posting the original image? BTW, the first thing I noitced was the difference in the eyes. Was the reflection in the first image there originally?

~Nancy~


www.fixthepixs.com
www.datepixs.com

[aylaah]

Can I second the request for pointers towards the dodge/burn method please?

If this doesn't produce the results that the above method would, then I guess it's good to have options, right? Its fair to say in most lines of commerce you get what you pay for, and so it is up to a client whether they want something that bit rougher for much less cost, or something tailored and flawless for a premium.

To me though I see it that having access to a faster, easier method is not a bad thing. You don't have to prefer it, but it means you can still land the work that you'd otherwise miss by only offering the premium service.

I'm still a total baby in this field, mind you, and have had a workable camera for only oh a week? lol (as in one that takes a picture that can be worked) it just seems like logic to me, though to have options available to gain a wider scope of the market

[leuallen]

Nancy,

Don't pay too much attention to the eyes in the degrunge method. Since this was an experiment, I did not do too much with the eyes. The D/B method had more work done on the eyes. Compare the skin tones.

Original attatched.

Larry

[meok]

Just as a note; When I say that the results that guy got wasnt of quality, I didnt meant to bash the technique, quite the opposite. I think the technique makes a lot of sense. If it can be use to save some time retouching without sacrificing too much quality, It will be a major breaktru as far as Im concerned!

Anyways Im trying to play with it to see how it compares. This is a quick retouch I did with the B&D workflow which I'll compare with the highpass one as soon as I figure it out. http://byloc.com/temp (rollover for before)

[shellby]

Really good

Yip, all of the examples - bar one - on my website are with the dodge and burn method.

There are some clients like portrait photographers who want retouching done in a shorter time as they do not have a big ad agency budget.

I am always on the look out for new techniques to play around with.

[ray12]

Tried one pass.

This one uses the lowpass - but then substitutes back an "original skin" texture - touched up for the final. Have to experiment more with the high pass parts. Looks interesting.

Ray12

[meok]

Ok.. I tried to get decent skin with the highpass/blur technique but I havent had the type of results I was expecting, which was a bit dissapointing. I get very unatural artifacts, especially in highlights.. Thus, so far, I dont see how it would work for me. I am waiting for someone to prove me wrong. Im really rooting for this technique since it makes so much sense (in theory).

[studioj]

Meok: The problem most be the values that you are using for the GB and the HIGH PASS, if you use a higher value that the one byRo recomend, then you don't get any results.

I have being using this method in the last week and it works really fine, I did an action to simplify all the steps, and I'm very pleased

[buchner]

As I can see, you guys are using my photo (thats my girlfriend Irene on it) on the posts here.

Ricardo Büchner

[buchner]

and I dont mind at all! Use my image at will. I hope it helps people improve this technique.
And Irene said: "They better make me look good on the final results!"
Shes watching it... You guys take care

Ricardo Büchner

[pure]

i am really glad to use the "high pass" filter now in daily work.
my steps are more simple:

1. duplicate skin, repair, soften, brush it, that it looks smooth and soft.
2. 2nd. duplicate the original above and blend it "soft" or "overlay", then selecting "high pass" lets you see the effect easily and you push the slider in high pass as far or less as you want providing the desired sharpness of the pores and skin details...

by the way, is there any difference in effect in your method/the tutorial and this short one?

perfect!
thanks