I see this certain retouching style all over and it seems to be a huge secret as I searched so many places already starting from net to books and magazines and even asked studio retouchers I know and well..no one seems to know it however plenty of retoucher at pro level uses this same technique. If anyone knows where to find info about it or how to do it please post it here.I tried to copy it in many ways but it does not seem to be the same with the nice and natural glow etc.

Dee

I know good lighting, good skin and good make-up is there but that is not enough alone. As you can see the girls pores are totally perfect and on the forehead there is normally no pores like that.
Color tones I tried in many ways but there is sthg. extra to it.
Please enlighten me if you can! :)

custom skin textures.

custom skin textures.

no.....................

Those are not pores - that is noise. This is not a glamor retouch (attached) just a portrait retouch but these are pores!
~Nancy

looks like noise to me....the skin on the entire face is very uniform in texture which isn't natural...i don't think it looks "bad" but it just looks like they added noise...then again, i'm no pro :P

Noise?
Looks like d&b with maybe some sharpening to me...?

Apart from the terrible jpg artifacts, i can't see what you
guys are seeing.

The site is http://www.dbem.net/ go to > press and see > pdf magazines
That shows it better. I had to shrink file size too much here to post.
I agree too much artifacts visible to see it well. I had corrected my posting but it seems it did not work well. Sorry, I am a newbie.;)

There is many ways to get similar looks the only one knows exactly, is one who was working on this image....to me it looks d&b..etc
Tools,layers practice, practice...

alright fine ant youre right. after looking at the HQ photos, skin is not as uniform as added noise. its just alot of detail in the photo.

if youre still looking for the skin tone: there's a thread where they mentioned the "penthouse filter" and its probably one way to achieve this tone (or gradient maps or color overlays and lotsa moist skin)

I found this tuturial wich help you achieve the kind of "over human" look to the skin.

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1169397

There is a big problem here folks and that problem is your problem with seeing. You are going to struggle until you learn to see what is right and what is wrong. This deficiency will haunt you even though you might have all the technique in the world. If you can't see well.... train yourself. Be more objective. Really look.

the secret is jpeg artifacts.

i'm still wondering how to retouch skin to get this effect....
i've tried to blur skin with gaussian blur and then add noise - i take strong of noise 2-3 and i sharp it a lot...and get effect like this:

http://shrani.si/f/1X/dO/2TotjWOt/jasz01-1-e-potem.jpg

sometimes stronger...but i have never get effects like this... i hope someone will tell which tools we have to use :)

I'm just wondering why anyone would want to make a photo look like it was made in Poser?

I have tried that only with dodge and burn.

http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/mypics/454026/display/5169468

tom

It is dodge and burn with sharpening at the end. As said already.

Yes intricate, careful, time consuming thats the way most of it its done I'm afraid. Oddly there are some quite nasty smooth patches in there which look low opacity cloning or something. Sharpening (low radius) at the end.

Uh Duh..
A 20,000 Dollar a day girl to start with..
Then add+
A 5,000 a day make-up artist
The add+
A 15,000 a day excellent photographer.
A extremely talented several 1,000's Retoucher
and you to can have these same images!!

Not to mention the incredible lighting of Douglas Bizzaro!!

Snook

Uh Duh..
A 20,000 Dollar a day girl to start with..
Then add+
A 5,000 a day make-up artist
The add+
A 15,000 a day excellent photographer.
A extremely talented several 1,000's Retoucher
and you to can have these same images!!

Not to mention the incredible lighting of Douglas Bizzaro!!

Snook

apparently you can get this as a student.
chat up a girl in a disco, know one befriended student's dad with a studio and shoot for yourself.

you get out with nearlly the same result, only that you still have your money.....duh ;p

you get out with nearlly the same result

lol define nearlly.

There's no EASY WAY ppl... get that to your head.

lol define nearlly.

There's no EASY WAY ppl... get that to your head.

Ockhams razor tells us something else.:)

custom skin textures.

Oh yea those where included in the Instant Vogue Skin action :rolleyes:

It even says in the articles speding 50+ hours on each image with closeups in not uncommon....it doesn't take 50+ hrs to use a noise/skin map. After all the expensive makeup work some healing brush and hours of D&B would be my guess.

Uh Duh..
A 20,000 Dollar a day girl to start with..
Then add+
A 5,000 a day make-up artist
The add+
A 15,000 a day excellent photographer.
A extremely talented several 1,000's Retoucher
and you to can have these same images!!

Not to mention the incredible lighting of Douglas Bizzaro!!

Snook

You are not up to date on the state of finances in the fashion world. These figures are history. Except for the retouching.

Maybe Not yours....!
Snook

Ockhams razor tells us something else.:)Ah yes, the simplest solution is the one to be preferred. Calculate in the time you have to spend starting over from scratch because all your efforts to make the quick fix work add up to mud, then make your choice.

And that's Occam's Razor.

I was really impressed by the photos of this guy. Even though they don't look so much glamour (I'm into glamour obviously) I still find his photos very artistic and totally outstanding. I also read the tutorial on skin effects, posted here and it works.. to some extent. I too think that you need quite alot to achieve such results. Personally I'd love to be able to come up with such results.

He must get his inspiration from somewhere.

I'm just wondering why anyone would want to make a photo look like it was made in Poser?

I agree I think the work looks so forced and fake its so obvious that its starts to look like those HDR images I hate so much...I dont find anything special about the lighting...very easy to recreate...the retouching??? not for me.

I dont know why magazines make evey one look fake. But here is a tutoral I found that alot of people seem to like the efect of and it doesnt take much time.. Its not natural to me and after learning the D&B I prefere that. So all I do is what the person wants. 9 times out of ten they pick this method
http://www.sxc.hu/blog/post/476

Looks like August Bradley's work to me.

It is dodge and burn with sharpening at the end. As said already.

Couldn't agree more... if one does ones hard work and do it properly you can get supersmooth human skin with a simple D&B + USM.

Don't be affraid of USM. If you did your D&B nicely everything will turn out great. Depending on what cam you used you can put quite a lot on. The settings I work with most at the moment is 230% at 1.1... and no, the shots are not terribly unsharp :D

To be honest, I've never used a texturing thingy... there's simply no need.

If you just read the interviews from the attached pdfs on the website you can find out how to get this look. I don't know why so many people take a quick look at the low res uploads on the initial post and immediately decide that they have all the answers. There's a lot of arrogant ignorance on this site. They're not custom textures, it's not blurring and it's not noise.

They have a team of retouchers that work on each pore individually, 50 to 60 hours work per image is not uncommon. On the images that require different backgrounds, every hair is cut out individually. Read the interviews.

Good old fashioned painstaking hard work; The only way to get results like this.

They have a team of retouchers that work on each pore individually, 50 to 60 hours work per image is not uncommon. On the images that require different backgrounds, every hair is cut out individually. Read the interviews. Actually I don't belive in those 50 to 60 hours per image. That sounds insane, only possible explanation would be that they have reaaally slow retouchers or realy bad photography that needs that much time in postprocessing. Even if they are extracting models and puting them on different backgrounds, even if they are dodging and burning on pixel by pixel level it still should take less than 10 hours.
Do you have any idea what can take so much time working on one image? just take a look on their portfolio...

This is multiple levels of highpass layers over a blur layer. First you need to clean the skin with normal retouching. I've had to do this for a number of clients. It's actually not that hard and really doesn't take that long.
50 to 60 hrs retouching on a single images is a bit excessive. Clients will not pay those prices anymore, 10 to 15 hrs is more realistic for some tight beauty Ads.

I actually don't think these images are that great, there are much better examples of this type of Retouching out there. These images lost all there subtly of light, but some clients want that. Check out the photography/retouching team of Markus Klinko & Indrani. They do this type of photography/retouching but very high end.

http://www.markusklinko-indrani.com/photoGallery/main.htm

This is multiple levels of highpass layers over a blur layer. First you need to clean the skin with normal retouching. I've had to do this for a number of clients. It's actually not that hard and really doesn't take that long.
50 to 60 hrs retouching on a single images is a bit excessive. Clients will not pay those prices anymore, 10 to 15 hrs is more realistic for some tight beauty Ads.

I actually don't think these images are that great, there are much better examples of this type of Retouching out there. These images lost all there subtly of light, but some clients want that. Check out the photography/retouching team of Markus Klinko & Indrani. They do this type of photography/retouching but very high end.

http://www.markusklinko-indrani.com/photoGallery/main.htm
Thanks for the tip, and yeah, I've always found markus klinko and indrani's retouching happens to be superior yet very natural.

well the multiple highpass layer thingy is mainly for clearing the skin - but the i'm always interested in the recipe for getting the "look", meaning how to achieve the colortone, the histogram and the overall balance of light.
i know it's super effeciant to have the right lightning, but having this set and having the photo in photoshop does not mean you only d&b and apply highpass :)

This is multiple levels of highpass layers over a blur layer. First you need to clean the skin with normal retouching. I've had to do this for a number of clients. It's actually not that hard and really doesn't take that long.
50 to 60 hrs retouching on a single images is a bit excessive. Clients will not pay those prices anymore, 10 to 15 hrs is more realistic for some tight beauty Ads.

I actually don't think these images are that great, there are much better examples of this type of Retouching out there. These images lost all there subtly of light, but some clients want that. Check out the photography/retouching team of Markus Klinko & Indrani. They do this type of photography/retouching but very high end.

http://www.markusklinko-indrani.com/photoGallery/main.htm

Do you use the highpass layers in overlay or linear light?
I guess you use the blur layer with the opacity reduced and a layer mask hiding the eyes and other elements?

There is no stock settings I use for my highpass layers it all depends on the image. I tend to use 2 to 3 different high pass layers with the settings ranging from .5 to 15 and the opacity from 90% to 15% receptively. I may set the highpass layers to Softlight, Overlay, Linear Light, it all depends on the image and the effect we are trying to achieve. The Blur layer I tend to keep the opacity pretty high. I put these all in a folder and will brush it in were needed.

As for the lighting, it's hard to fake lighting if it's not naturally there. You can dodge and burn with masks and curves to enhance the effect. You can also play with a high pass layer set pretty high like 20+ depending on the image and that some times will get you the look you want.

As for Color, If you look carefully at high fashion images in magazines (Fendi,Gucci,Prada, ...) you will see that the skin tones are very unsaturated and in the brown range and not the Orange Red. You need to keep your saturation down but maintain a natural warmth. Also you need to maintain a good contrast. You don't want skin to look grey and ashy but you also don't want it too saturated. It's a very fine line.

Remember every image will need it own settings with all these things. For a story with a number of images in it you should be able to figure out the setting for one and use that for the whole story.

I hope that helps.

As for Color, If you look carefully at high fashion images in magazines (Fendi,Gucci,Prada, ...) you will see that the skin tones are very unsaturated and in the brown range and not the Orange Red. You need to keep your saturation down but maintain a natural warmth. Also you need to maintain a good contrast. You don't want skin to look grey and ashy but you also don't want it too saturated. It's a very fine line.

Thanks Qstudios very helpful info. By the way your works very nice.

Regarding color do you often use the desaturate re-saturate technique to acheive the sort of skintones you are talking about?

Hi Mayday:

Maybe this link can helps you. I think this is the way that Qstudios posted. Isn´t it? In this post the blend mode is linear light, but it looks to crispy with some pics.

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1169397

Cheers....Javier

Hi Mayday:

Maybe this link can helps you. I think this is the way that Qstudios posted. Isn´t it? In this post the blend mode is linear light, but it looks to crispy with some pics.

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1169397

Cheers....Javier


You use the linear light setting more for sharpening a high pass layer, try softlight or overlay as well

You use the linear light setting more for sharpening a high pass layer, try softlight or overlay as well

Yes, a think is a good idea to use that blend modes. Have you used this method (multi high pass layer + blur layer)? If yes, can I know your opinion?

Thanks a lot...Javier

There is no stock settings I use for my highpass layers it all depends on the image. I tend to use 2 to 3 different high pass layers with the settings ranging from .5 to 15 and the opacity from 90% to 15% receptively. I may set the highpass layers to Softlight, Overlay, Linear Light, it all depends on the image and the effect we are trying to achieve. The Blur layer I tend to keep the opacity pretty high. I put these all in a folder and will brush it in were needed.

As for the lighting, it's hard to fake lighting if it's not naturally there. You can dodge and burn with masks and curves to enhance the effect. You can also play with a high pass layer set pretty high like 20+ depending on the image and that some times will get you the look you want.

As for Color, If you look carefully at high fashion images in magazines (Fendi,Gucci,Prada, ...) you will see that the skin tones are very unsaturated and in the brown range and not the Orange Red. You need to keep your saturation down but maintain a natural warmth. Also you need to maintain a good contrast. You don't want skin to look grey and ashy but you also don't want it too saturated. It's a very fine line.

Remember every image will need it own settings with all these things. For a story with a number of images in it you should be able to figure out the setting for one and use that for the whole story.

I hope that helps.

Hi Qstudios:

Very interesting information. Thanks a lot for it. Can you let me know your site to see your work? Thanks in advance

Cheers...Javier

Yes, a think is a good idea to use that blend modes. Have you used this method (multi high pass layer + blur layer)? If yes, can I know your opinion?

Thanks a lot...Javier

I used the method before but without the blur layer. It can work very well for bringing out tones and sharpening.
I am not sure I like the images posted on the thread but with the right photography and more subtle use I think it could work very well with the blur layer like on the markus klinko images

There is no stock settings I use for my highpass layers it all depends on the image. I tend to use 2 to 3 different high pass layers with the settings ranging from .5 to 15 and the opacity from 90% to 15% receptively. I may set the highpass layers to Softlight, Overlay, Linear Light, it all depends on the image and the effect we are trying to achieve. The Blur layer I tend to keep the opacity pretty high. I put these all in a folder and will brush it in were needed.

As for the lighting, it's hard to fake lighting if it's not naturally there. You can dodge and burn with masks and curves to enhance the effect. You can also play with a high pass layer set pretty high like 20+ depending on the image and that some times will get you the look you want.

As for Color, If you look carefully at high fashion images in magazines (Fendi,Gucci,Prada, ...) you will see that the skin tones are very unsaturated and in the brown range and not the Orange Red. You need to keep your saturation down but maintain a natural warmth. Also you need to maintain a good contrast. You don't want skin to look grey and ashy but you also don't want it too saturated. It's a very fine line.

Remember every image will need it own settings with all these things. For a story with a number of images in it you should be able to figure out the setting for one and use that for the whole story.

I hope that helps.

Love to see a tutorial using this method with all the layers broken down. I have to try this out and see what I get.....

Me too...:+}
Also..how do you reach more brown skin tones rather than orange..
What would be a good formula?
For example CYMK for skin tones... what would you get for a reading on the skin tones?
Thanks.
I would love to see how you make the skin tones more brown than orange?
Snook

Me too...:+}
Also..how do you reach more brown skin tones rather than orange..
What would be a good formula?
For example CYMK for skin tones... what would you get for a reading on the skin tones?
Thanks.
I would love to see how you make the skin tones more brown than orange?
Snook

I think many different techniques you can apply to get the brown tone instead the orange red one.

Try to use a gradient map, hide all and masking the skin. I think it can works.

15 lights on set, my Lord! They are big on double kickers and hard lights on fabrics.

While their skin retouching, super-fine texture look and lighting are beautiful, somehow their images look hyper unreal and very retouched...Yes its their style and artistry but I don't see this is what the current trend of retouching in fashion mags. In Paris Vogue, Numero, 10, cosmetic beauty adverts etc, the retouching trend is going towards realism and naturalism --lots of retouching done but the results are not looking retouched at all. The over cook retouching is going out of fashion these days.

Me too...:+}
Also..how do you reach more brown skin tones rather than orange..
What would be a good formula?
For example CYMK for skin tones... what would you get for a reading on the skin tones?
Thanks.
I would love to see how you make the skin tones more brown than orange?
Snook


I tried this in RGB. I am not familair with CYMK though.

You use eyedropper to analysis the RGB values of a reference brown skin tone that you want to achieve and get a crude idea of the portions of RGB. A bit like reverse engineering....Then you adjust each of the RGB curves for your own image, increase in red, small decrease in blue and very subtle change in green working on a standard skin tone straight out of the digital camera....something like that...it depends on individual image.

I think there is a more complicated way of matching skin tone sampled from a referenced image described by Martin Evening in his book...I read it a long time ago and can't remmeber how to do it his way.