Fashion Retouch

[rutherford]

Hi everyone,

We've done a series of 12 images for department store for this christmas consisting of placing 4 models on a scenary - photographed on day light - and making it appear as a early evening shot. The images were ysed on double page ads for magazines here in Brasil. To exemplify the process of work I chose one of the images and specifically one of the models to show you the workflow on producing the images. each image has a final size of 8GB as a layer file and 150MB as a flattened eps file. They were all retouched in RGB and converted to CMYK for output. We normally do it like this because the bigger colour space you find in RGB makes it easier to reach the final result without the technical problems and limitations of CMYK. Each image took about 15 hours of work to be completed from scan of the originals to the final assembly.

The images i posted show a bit of the process from extracting the models from the background, making the fisical changes (such as removing film grain and blemishes from skin, re-illustrating hair, toes and enlarging breasts), basic colour correction and final colour correction with ambientation.

I am open to questions.

Cheers!!

[palms1]

I have no question to ask you Rutherford but would like to thank you for this post, this sort of work is way out of my league, but i do find it interesting how the profesionals work and the work that they do, Meaning when i look at a magazine i do not think of all the work that has gone into the picture, i just think that there is a species of humans who are perfect

Palms

[Kraellin]

rutherford,

excellent work!

my only question here, and it's a question, not a criticism, is, why, on the last image did you want to bleach out the models? i think i know, but i'd like your reasoning on this.

Craig

[NancyJ]

Very clean but the lighting is all wrong.
The girls are on the beach at night lit at midrift height by yellow candlelight and from above by natural light.
It looks in the picture that they were shot during the day with strong studio lights (in fact your retouch appears to have strengthened the lighting)
The eyelines of the girls show that they were all shot separately. They're all looking at different things off camera - which looks very unnatural for this type of shot. It would be acceptable for them to be looking and laughing at something off camera if they were all looking at the same thing.
If you move the right(our right) two girls further back and the left girls further forward it will appear that they are looking at each other and perhaps sharing a joke or whatever.
Mostly nicework with the feet bit the girl the far right looks very lifted off the ground. The sand looks very soft, the girls in high heels should be skinking in more than the barefoot girl (from the position of the feet I'm guessing you've never tried walking accross a beach in stillettos ) I know you're probably trying to show off the shoes but they should be making more of an impact.
Also the candles arent casting any light on anything.

[Photo678]

yeah, thats the first thing that jumped at me, the color temp is incorrect.

There is no way those models would be washed out like that in that scene....shadows would need to be softer....they would need to have a warm light source pouring over them, as opposed to the cold one that it appears as.

Shadows are slightly inconsistent from girl to girl...in that it appears that this is a photomontage or composite image.

The girls on the left appear to have their light source coming from the high left, while the girls on the right appear to have the light high on the right...this is based on the way the shadows and highlights on the clothes appear.

The woman second from the right isnt giving off as harsh a shadow as the other models

Also the depth of field is a bit off,....the women on extreme left is standing mid table and is sharp...while the point of focus that starts to fade off into a bit of blur is also mid table...

and what the hell are they laughing at, are they making fun of me

Your masking and extraction is very tight.....great job with the hair


It's not horrific, but just needs some minor tweaking to get completely there

[rutherford]

Hi Kraelin!

This was the art directors decision (to bleach the models). He wanted a very high contrasted look on all images of the series. Though i like this type of look, I think a more natural look would, no doubt, be better for this work. But, unfortunately it was not my call.

Cheers!

George Rutherford
www.seagullsfly.com
www.fotolog.net/rutherford

[rutherford]

Hi Nancy,

Thanks for the comments!

[quote=NancyJ]"Very clean but the lighting is all wrong.
The girls are on the beach at night lit at midrift height by yellow candlelight and from above by natural light."

As you can see from the image, the torches are further back and theyr light is too dim to provide any yellow invasion on the shape of the girls. I agree with you on the "not so natural aspect of it", but, you see, this is an advertisement. We are selling the clothes, so, they have to be shown as clear as possible.



[quote=NancyJ]"It looks in the picture that they were shot during the day with strong studio lights (in fact your retouch appears to have strengthened the lighting)
The eyelines of the girls show that they were all shot separately. They're all looking at different things off camera - which looks very unnatural for this type of shot. It would be acceptable for them to be looking and laughing at something off camera if they were all looking at the same thing.
If you move the right(our right) two girls further back and the left girls further forward it will appear that they are looking at each other and perhaps sharing a joke or whatever."

Yes, they were shot during day light, as I have referred to myself on my post. They were shot together, on location, in several different positions. The client chose, what for him looked like, the best shot of each girl (and sometimes even parts of a girl from each shot like heade from a shot, loegs from other, etc) and we had to compose the image according to the clients lay out. Now, imagine you are in a party at the beach with som e friends dancing to nice music and enjoying the place. You would not necessarily be looking at each other if a picture was to be taken.

[quote=NancyJ]"Mostly nicework with the feet bit the girl the far right looks very lifted off the ground. The sand looks very soft, the girls in high heels should be skinking in more than the barefoot girl (from the position of the feet I'm guessing you've never tried walking accross a beach in stillettos ) I know you're probably trying to show off the shoes but they should be making more of an impact."

You are right, I never tried to walk on the sand in high heeled shoes . Originally, the girls feet are sinking on the sand a bit, but, like I said, we had to display the shoes, since it is a clothing advertisement.

Originally Posted by NancyJ

"Also the candles arent casting any light on anything."

The torches are on the background, and their light is dim comparing to the light on the foreground and the ambient light.

Thanks again for your comments!

[rutherford]

Photo 678,

Thanks for your comments. The answer to your post goes somewhat like Nancy J´s:

As you can see from the image, the torches are further back and their light is too dim to provide any yellow invasion on the shape of the girls. I agree with you on the "not so natural aspect of it", but, you see, this is an advertisement. We are selling the clothes, so, they have to be shown as clear as possible.

Yes, they were shot during day light, as I have referred to myself on my post. They were shot together, on location, in several different positions. The client chose, what for him looked like, the best shot of each girl (and sometimes even parts of a girl from each shot like heade from a shot, loegs from other, etc) and we had to compose the image according to the clients lay out. Now, imagine you are in a party at the beach with some friends dancing to nice music and enjoying the place. You would not necessarily be looking at each other if a picture was to be taken. An not laughing at the photographer, that´s for sure.

You are right, I never tried to walk on the sand in high heeled shoes . Originally, the girls feet are sinking on the sand a bit, but, like I said, we had to display the shoes, since it is a clothing advertisement.

The torches are on the background, and their light is dim comparing to the light on the foreground and the ambient light.

Thanks again for your comments!

[meok]

Good Job rutherford! It looks great!
For those who criticize, do realize that this is stylized retouching.

A question if you may, what technique did you use to smooth out the clothing? I love the look.

[NancyJ]

Originally Posted by meok

For those who criticize, do realize that this is stylized retouching.

...Do realise that this is a critiques forum.

[Nanls]

Originally Posted by NancyJ

The sand looks very soft, the girls in high heels should be skinking in more than the barefoot girl (from the position of the feet I'm guessing you've never tried walking accross a beach in stillettos ) I know you're probably trying to show off the shoes but they should be making more of an impact.
Also the candles arent casting any light on anything.

I agree with NancyJ. Standing "on top" of the sand with heels would be like walking on water.... doesn't happen! It would be more realistic if she was standing on something, she was in flates or heel was sunken.
~Nancy~

[Kraellin]

This was the art directors decision (to bleach the models). He wanted a very high contrasted look on all images of the series. Though i like this type of look, I think a more natural look would, no doubt, be better for this work. But, unfortunately it was not my call.

rutherford, ah, ok. yes, i thought the fourth picture would have looked better myself. maybe not as natural in lighting, but certainly a bit more aesthetically pleasing. i might add that a more contrasted look could have been obtained without the bleach effect. do a group selection around all the models at once and use an adj layer of contrast/lightness, perhaps. or a mask with a gradient around the models and do the same thing. just a thought.

i do like your workflow. the retouching and selection is very professional. i loved how you took out the extra wrinkles and folks in the girl's skirt. very nicely done.

Craig

[rutherford]

Hi everyone!

Thanks a lot for all the comments! It is always nice to share work experience with you! Nancy J, please don't think i was upset with your comments, afte all, as you said, this is a critique forum and we all have different perceptions of an image based on our visual culture, references etc. i think that all of your comments just added to the thread and I would be honoured to have your posts anytime!

Meok, to smooth the wrinkles on the clothes i did the following:
I made a selection of the blouse and
created a clean layer on top of the model. With the bandaid too I cloned the blouse to the removing the shadow areas of the wrinkes. As a result I had a blouse without any volume and texture. I put this layer in normal 60% oppacity and placed a " film grain" pattern vinculated to it in overlay 30% oppacity (to restore texture and re move the blurry aspect). After this, on order to even the tone of the blouse, I picked the tone of the blouse and placed a colour 40% oppacity color fill layer on top of it. After this, it is juste a question of redrawing shadow areas and high light areas with curves on top of the phisical changes.


Once again, thanks to you all for the tips and opinions!


Cheers!!!

[meok]

Thanks a lot for the info on the technique. I like your retouching style,hope to see more work from you soon!