I am currently working on this photograph for a client. I am wondering if anyone has some good techniques to subtly smooth out skin blemishes - in particular some areas of the face and the sun mark accross the chest.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

any ideas on cleaning up the messy armpit would also be appreciated.

Hi jasosmith,

Welcome to RetouchPRO! :pleased:

I had a quick go at your picture ....

To smooth the skin I used a slight variation of the method described by MBChamberlain in this Thread (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10071) .. just scroll the page to find his posts ...

To remove the 'sun mark accross the chest', I created a new blank Layer (Blending>Lighten) and, with a soft brush (Opacity 20-30%), sampling lighter colour from the sorrounding areas, I carefully painted over the mark ... Blur the 'Lighten' Layer and tweak its Opacity until you are satisfied ....

Used the Levels to brighten and USM to lightly sharpen the bride only.

Hope this helps ...

Hi Jason,

which version of Photoshop do you use?

With Photoshop 7, I used to reduce blemishes by using a soft clone stamp with 50% opacity to paint over blemishes. Working with CS I'd try the spot healing brush, achieves very good results if you keep the radius so small it just covers the areas need to be retouched.

About the armpit, that's not an easy task since you don't want to wipe out the whole shadow but just flatten it a little. CS2s vanishing point filter might help.

Played a little with clone stamp only!

Patrick

excellent technique, flora!

i used flora's technique also and tried some other things after that. i cropped the image, blurred the background with selections and gausian blur, sharpened the whole picture, brightened up the face, masked the eyes and lips and ran a gausian blur on the mask. dropped the mask edit and ran a gausian blur on the whole. this left the eyes and lips sharpened but blurred down the sharpening noise on the rest.

Craig

I wanted to keep the texture of the skin instead of smoothing it out, although that looks great. I used the patch tool.

Just another solution.

Here's my version- Basically the same as flora with the skin smoothing only I used the method from Katrins book. I also used curves and desaturated the yellow a bit and I gauss blurred the background- Sharpened her, you know-the usual..:) But to make her really pop from the background- on a duplicate background change the mode to multiply, then use the marquee tool (feather 20) loosely draw around the bride. Hit delete, lower opacity to around 20% to darken the edges around her, make another dup layer and change the mode to soft light, again loosely draw around the bride, inverse the selection (under the select menu- Inverse) hit delete. lower opacity to your desire, mine was prob around 20% or lower. If you have any questions, please ask!

~Amber~

Here's my version- Basically the same as flora with the skin smoothing only I used the method from Katrins book. I also used curves and desaturated the yellow a bit and I gauss blurred the background- Sharpened her, you know-the usual..:) But to make her really pop from the background- on a duplicate background change the mode to multiply, then use the marquee tool (feather 20) loosely draw around the bride. Hit delete, lower opacity to around 20% to darken the edges around her, make another dup layer and change the mode to soft light, again loosely draw around the bride, inverse the selection (under the select menu- Inverse) hit delete. lower opacity to your desire, mine was prob around 20% or lower. If you have any questions, please ask!

~Amber~


AND, you've done away with her teeth braces! Brilliant work you've done, Amber.

Maureen :bigthmb:

Thanks for the kind words, Maureen.. :blush:

~Amber~

Thanks for the kind words, Maureen.. :blush:

~Amber~

No problem, Amber, I even saved your tutorial! :pleased:

Maureen :wavey:

Wow!!!

Great job everybody!!!! :bigthmb:

For the 'skin' I like Bujo's version the best ... He/she really managed to completely remove the sun marks keeping the natural texture ... very well done!!! :bigthmb:

... and Welcome to RetouchPRO! to those I hadn't welcomed yet!!! :pleased:

:classic: Thanks guys - some great ideas there for me to try.

Flora - loved your retouch overall although the most subtle was Bujo's.

Maureeno - which technique in Katrins book are you referring to....

Jason

Patrick B - Im using CS1 about to upgrade CS2.

The armpit is quite difficult to get a natural result.

Hi Jason,

CS2 includes vanishing point which I just tried and failed. Maybe someone in here can help ME now :) When I use vanishing point, I make the plane, adjust it, then start cloning. But instead of the clone tool when alt-clicking it sets a green crosshair in the image and makes it move along while I move the pen. No idea why this happens now, I used vp many times before and it always worked?

About Jasons armpit problem, it should also work fine if you just copy the arm below the pit to a new layer and then move this new layer further up to cover the armpit. Then just erase or mask out the real "border" between arm and chest, this should give you a lightened up armpit without losing the shadow of the arm. Same applies to the chest.

I used Vikki's technique of applying Median Noise, Gaussian Blur and Regular Noise and then on a black mask gradually painting in some improvements. I thought I would leave a little sun "blush" on her chest to naturally distinguish from where the sun don't normally shine.

Cheers

Dave

There are so many in her book but the one I used in particular is called Perfect makeup (pg.338)

Duplicate the background layer and select Filter>Noise>Median. Setting 3-9 Your call.

After that apply Filter>Blue>Gaussian Blur enter a radius of 2

Create a black layer mask (Select layer>add layer mask>Hide All)

Use a soft white brush to paint the soft skin back in. I use a low opacity like around 30% to paint in. Going over areas that really need smoothing 2 or 3 times, but some areas that don't only once. Avoid areas with sharp details such as lips and eyes.

The skin will look too smooth so we will have to add some texture back. I use several methods to do this, but this is the one from Katrins book. (Flora is right about MBChamberlain's method. It works just as good.)

Alt+Click (Option+Click) the new layer icon in the layers palette: Check Group with Previous, select Overlay, and check Fill with Overlay Neutral 50% Gray. Click ok-

Choose Filter>Noise>Add Noise and use 4% Gaussian distribution and Monochrome.

Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur with a radius of 1.3

Now apply Filter>stylize>emboss and use a height of 1 and a high amount-300%-500%. This will simulate skin texture.

Now her skin is too uniformly textured, a person has less texture on slightly stretched area such as the cheeks and forhead.

Add a layer mask (white) to the textured layer and paint on the mask with a 25% opacity soft black brush to gradually smooth the stretched skin on the nose, cheeks, forhead, and chin. Be careful not to remove all the texture.

To balance the textured with the less textured with the less textured areas, select Filter>Noise>Add noise and 3% or less with the monocrome check on the texture layer.


There are alot of different techniques so explore and find the right one for you. I highly recommend Katrin Eismann's book - if you don't have it already!

~Amber~

Pictures attached-

Before and After Perfect makeup technique. After layer lowered the opacity to 80%.

Before photo

100% Skin smoothed

60% Skin smoothed, lowered the opacity of the smoothing layer to 60% for a more natural look.

Dreamypix, that is a great description of the technique - thank you so much! I think this post wil become a reference from now on! ;)
(and I'm sure Doug will be around soon bugging you to write this up in a tutorial! :nod: )

Well after the skin treatment has been so well executed, I'd like to add some "other" comments.
1) Seems that hardly anyone worried about the photo being all skewed. Maybe it's just me but I find it pretty distracting when "verticals" aren't vertical.
2) There is a strong yellow light coming from above which doesn't seem to add anything to the photo.

Here's an effort without any special skin treatment:
- JPeg removal;
- Double size;
- Straightened;
- Cropped (nice backround, but too distracting);
- Local contrast ("Rounding");
- Colour declipping (repainted just about everything to get rid of skin blotches and yellow light - well, except the books);
- Made roses more colourful;
- General brightness / contrast / levels / hue adjustments.

Rô

Thanks Ro for the kind words! I just got through with my first tutorial today. And no, it wasn't for this! I'm not sure I could do a tutorial on this since it's the same technique from Katrins book. But check out the tut I did on metal like skin. To me it looks more slimy than metal, but I have been staring at this screen all day! :eek: Sooo maybe a break will make it look better. Going to bed now...Again thanks for the kind words!

~Amber~

Don't usually do this sort of image, but thought I'd have a play with it.

Greetings Retouchers,
This is our first post here but we have been observing for a few months. We completely agree with what Ro has mentioned about this image concerning the lens distortion that skewed the background. It may seem minor but it will create a distraction to the viewer that will hit them almost subliminally as "something being wrong."

We would like to add that the excessive noisiness of this photo only contributes to the problems seen with the irregularities in her skin. Using a Noise Reduction plugin such as Noise Ninja, Neat Image or others BEFORE trying to correct the skin helps a lot.

Like Bujo, we also prefer the Patch Tool for skin blemishes. It's wonderfully fast (once you get used to it) and keeps the skin texture intact. Of all the methods, this one makes skin look the most true to life (very nice when you DON'T want it to look 'shopped).

We actually like the yellow light from above and thought it added an angelic feeling to the shot (especially how it hits her hair and shoulder), but that's just a matter of taste.

Blurring the background a little helps to give it that short DoF that photographers love as well as focuses on the subject more while pushing some of that lens distortion out of view. A little tonal vignetting can also add to the drama of the shot and pull you into the subject.

Use Gaussian Blur until the skin doesn't look blotchie. Go back one step and use the history brush and set the mode to lighten this will clean up the dark spots do the same with the mode set to darken to clean up light spots. If the subject looks to "painted" start again using less of a blur! Thats it.

Amber - you also did a great job emoving the mouth braces and enhancing the teeth. I have tried the Patch / Healing brush tool but found it difficult to get a natural looking result once the teeth are whitened- any Tips ?

Ro - I agree with you on the background and would have used the crop/perspective tool to bring the bookshelf into alignement with the verticals.

I find the orange colour cast a little off putting also. In this situation I normally take shots with and without flash. In this case the client picked the photograph taken without flash which is less sharp and has the orange cast.

A great range of different techniques here guys - thanks. The greatest difficulty seems to be getting a natural result on the face without looking like the photo has been manipulated.

I will work on this one over the weekend. Cheers

For the teeth, I sampled a spot from her teeth without the braces and painted with a small soft brush at a low opacity and just built up. But the color sample will not be a white if I remember right. And if you paint just white it won't look right, so that is why I sampled. If I remember right, I think Flora also took out her braces as well. She may have a better technique than that! But that's it!

~Amber~