Ask A Pro

[heyrad]

Hi All...

Conrad here... It's been a little while since I've posted here, but I'm back for a quick hello and a question. I'm thinking about adding tutorials here and on my website, but need to refine my selection of ideas. If any of you maniacs are interested in learning how to become a master retoucher, whether it be fashion/beauty or even still life... comment here. I'll see what I can do.

For those of you who don't know me, I've been retouching professionally in NY and LA for 12 yrs. My retouching can be seen on the covers of every major fashion mag and in some very prominent ad campaigns.

Remember kiddies... keep it brief and easy enough for everyone to understand. Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Conrad
http://conraddigital.com

PS
Due to the sensitivity of my work and the privacy of my clients and their subjects, I can not release the before images on my site so please don't ask.

[cricket1961]

Welcome back Conrad.

Chris

[DiamondsDr47]

Welcome back Conrad.
I'm the one who would love to learn more and more.
Best regards,
Edgar

[heyrad]

Ok Edgar...

Let me ask you a question... what 3 issues would you like to have addressed in a Photoshop tutorial. keep in mind that revealing the meaning of life might take a few years to put together so let's start with the little pain in the butt issues you may have with color or a tool or masking or layer masks or what have you

-conrad

[JD Spears]

skin tones! And step by step, start to finish of an commercial image.
Thank you JD

[Julesj]

Hi Conrad,

I'm having problems with matching skin colours and tones. For example shooting outdoors in the uk, models often get cold and hands and feet often turn purple/blue. Also when retouching faces I notice parts are yellow, red, etc. How can I match different parts of the skin?

At the moment I'm masking the skin and pulling magenta out of the red's in selective colour and adding/subtracting yellow which helps, but isn't quite getting the result im after.

Also custom gradient maps and getting a nice tan skin colour would be helpful also.

Cheers

Jules

[heyrad]

Originally Posted by JD Spears

skin tones! And step by step, start to finish of an commercial image.
Thank you JD

Well, that might be tough-- ask Chris, he'll agree. Celebs don't want people to see them before retouching and many of my advert clients would drop me in a heart beat if I posted their "less than lackluster" products for the world to see. So commercial images are tough. Not impossible, just tough. I work with many high end photographers and might be able to score an image to use of an unknown with his permission. Now, when you say skin tones... are you talking strictly color? Are you looking for RGB/CMYK reference values? Each image is different and has different problems so be a tad more specific please.

Also, keep in mind that a traditional commercial image could have as many as 40-50 adjustment and retouching layers... and would take about 100 pages to discuss... crawl, walk, run grasshopper

[heyrad]

[QUOTE=Julesj;193003]Hi Conrad,

At the moment I'm masking the skin and pulling magenta out of the red's in selective colour and adding/subtracting yellow which helps, but isn't quite getting the result im after.

Hi Jules,

I won't tell you exactly HOW to do it as each image is different.. but here's the philosophy. If the color of the skin varies that greatly and you want to bring all the skin tones to a similar place the best option is to remove all the color and reintroduce the color you want. If you do this in a "group" you can adjust opacity levels to blend into the original. Keep in mind that humans often have tonal variations in their skin... it makes the image look human. I personally don't like an image to look as if it's been altered. That's the hard part.

let me know how you progress

c

[JD Spears]

Originally Posted by heyrad

Well, that might be tough-- ask Chris, he'll agree. Celebs don't want people to see them before retouching and many of my advert clients would drop me in a heart beat if I posted their "less than lackluster" products for the world to see. So commercial images are tough. Not impossible, just tough. I work with many high end photographers and might be able to score an image to use of an unknown with his permission. Now, when you say skin tones... are you talking strictly color? Are you looking for RGB/CMYK reference values? Each image is different and has different problems so be a tad more specific please.

Also, keep in mind that a traditional commercial image could have as many as 40-50 adjustment and retouching layers... and would take about 100 pages to discuss... crawl, walk, run grasshopper

Hi Conrad,
I checked out your website. Beautiful images!
Color and tone. One problem I'm having is on some shots I'll get it where I'm fairly happy looking at it in Photoshop, but when I save off for web the contrast and color look very bad. Even B&W. Other make the transition better.
I know it's probably not possible but I'd love to see a step by step of something such as Butterfly Chocolate, Nokia, Jeff Reidel's Timberland.
You said Quote:
"Also, keep in mind that a traditional commercial image could have as many as 40-50 adjustment and retouching layers... and would take about 100 pages to discuss... crawl, walk, run grasshopper "
It could be broken down into an ongoing series. If it sounds like I'm begging; Well, Yeah, I am!
Great work.
Thanks, JD

[Sunniee]

Hi Conrad.... I'm new around these parts.... and would be honored to learn from someone of your caliber! So, first... thank you for your time.....

My question is.... how to effectively mask hair when replacing a background?

[041567970]

Thank you Conrad for your kindness! I am really honored that I can get tips from a professional retoucher.

1. I would like to know how you keep your layers organized.

2. Skin tones. Skin color. I read somewhere that one can desaturate image with one layer, than bring the colors back with curves layer blending mode color and than control contrast with curves layer set on luminosity blending mode. Do you use this?

3. The lips...how can we make them more "shiny".

4. How do you add the glow to the portraits?
I know of the technique "adding white to whites". I select the brightest parts of the photograph, copy them to a new layer and paint white on that layer with low opacity brush.
How do you do it?


Well, thats all for now...thanks again!

[palms]

Hello Conrad
I can be a bit more specific than everyone else so far

EVERYTHING PLEASE

Even down to the thought process would be interesting (well to me anyway )

I know it sounds a bit greedy but i think you would get different answers from everyone

Palms

[heyrad]

Wow.... you guys ARE hungry, aren't you...

Well, the desaturate/resaturate technique can be anything you like... it's personal preference. The theory is to not try to fix all the color inbalances, but to essentially start over and create a good skin tone and then add to the original. Hopefully not making the image look colorized.

As for adding shine... Kids... don't reinvent the wheel... Use your curves to brighten and darken areas. Just make sure that nothing goes to complete white.. that's bad. There must always be skin tone in the highlights, even if it's only 1 or 2%.

As for organizing layers... I do all of my color work on TOP of everything else, so that if any retouching needs to be "fixed", I don't have to reperform any color moves. I start with the base image, body and basic retouching above that(all in groups) and color and finishing above that. It keeps things organized. If I'm doing multiple rounds with a client. I copy the entire layer set into a comped layer and make a new group with the round number... start building up from there.

Hope this helped!

I'm thinking about releasing a tutorial set on DVD if anyone's interested. This method is too archaic and I need to add some screen caps and dialogue to get the point across. I'll keep you all posted

c

[DiamondsDr47]

I'm interested in DVD, what aspects it's going to cover?
Best regards,
Edgar

[041567970]

I am really interested into buying your DVD if you make it...

Thanks for the answers!!

[JayNads]

Hi Conrad,

While a soup to nuts explanation of your work might be neat, I think that what might best serve the community is your work-flow. I think most of us who are not pros get the general idea of high-end retouching, but only to a point. It gets confusing as you hear the tidbits of information and misinformation out there - that perhaps showing a little of how you take an image through your work-flow might be helpful. I think just enough to give people the idea of your general start-to-finish work-flow.

Thanks!

[KR1156]

i wanna see you brush a good skin mask, haha.

[Sunniee]

If you need a photo to use for the purpose of showing workflow, I could provide one.... since I understand the people you do this type of work for wont allow a before to be shown.

[heyrad]

brush a good skin mask? That doesn't make any sense to me. is that you Michael?

Workflow will be a good start... I'll keep you posted. I start production in the next week... stay tuned

c

[KR1156]

don't mind me c........i'm just delirious these days!

good luck with the dvd. i know it will help a lot of ppl.

[LESider]

How do Heyrads threads always wind up somewhere else other than the Retouching Forum? Last time we had to go to work/jobs to learn about dodge and burn!

I really am having trouble with skin tones, they are either to pink or yellow and am having trouble getting them to a little browner/golden. I suspect that it has something to do with the digital capture as I never had as much problem when shooting film and a trusty color meter.

I also think you and Chris Tarantino should be in touch about what your putting out on DVD maybe you can put out something that compliments each other instead of being redundant.

[crazyfly1]

Conrad, I appreciate your asking for input here.
As you are a professional beauty/fashion retoucher, that is what I would like to see.
What I mean is, If I want a training video on color correction, for example, I can Google that and I will find scores. I watch a lot of Lynda and vtc and such and I would want to see the opposite of those from you. Instead of a 12 hour DVD with 60 videos one each on everything from the path tool to channel masking, I would much rather see you take an image from out of camera to ready for print.
You could do some different things in post like high tone this one or Orton that one, what have you but the main thing is face, hair, skin tone. What do you do to an image to get it ready to recieve those final touches.
Maybe do that with 6 different images, all different, blonde, red head, dark skin tones, great lighting, poor lighting. Poor lighting is important to me as not a pro but as a gwc. Nothing is so annoying as looking for a tutorial on making a selection for beauty retouching only to find that the guy is working on a 60 meg picture of a dark skinned brunette in dark blue dress shot against a white background with excellent lighting and not a trace of shadow. My pictures don't look like that, so my masks aren't that easy.
So I’d ask for the entire process on an image that you maybe only glanced at before filming. All of the planning and figuring and trying the patch tool and “oops, that won’t do, I’ll try d&b here”. Now that’s work flow! All the mistakes left in.

One thing more I can say is I really like Deke McClelland’s training, largely because he is not afraid to state a negative opinion of something Photoshop. He will come right out and say “never use the brightness contrast filter” (prior to cs3). That is something that I would love to gain from you, your experience. If there is a filter under the noise menu for example, that you have not used once in the passed 5 years I want to know that. I can remove it from my retouch menu arrangement and never look back and you will have saved me countless hours of screwing around with a filter that you already know isn’t good for anything.

[heyrad]

Hey Blake...

I hear ya buddy... and I'll do what I can to help. Keep in mind that repairing bad photography with retouching is not my schtick... Dan Marguilis is the man for that job. I do, however, have to fix the random mistake from time to time but not bad lighting. The reason is that the photographers I work with are WORKING photographers and they have to know what they're doing. Not that you don't... your issue may be budget or what have you... My point is that I simply don't do that kind of retouching. I'm more of an artist, not a repair man

Cramming 12yrs of retouching into a DVD is not going to happen, but I'll do what I can to inspire you all to get better.

thanks

c

[Julesj]

Hi Conrad,

I've had a go at destaturating the skin and then adding colour, it looks awful! I think i'm barking up the wrong tree as the colours are not blended. Can you give me some steps to follow to clarify things?

Cheers

Jules

[heyrad]

Hey Jules...

I can't give you the skill or the eye you need darlin. The theory is the same... you desaturate, then resaturate... but blend the move in. 100% looks too fake. you have to know what you're doing with the color numbers to get it right. THAT'S how you learn. If I simply told you what numbers to put in, that would be wrong... every pic is different. All skin is not the same... you have to develop your eye now. Keep working at it

[rovis]

Desat: hue/sat layer - drop global saturation, usually 30-40%
Resat: curves layer - red goes up, blue goes down - but carefully.

Both layers masked to affect only the skin.

Thats how I usually get the tone I want.

[crazyfly1]

Conrad, I understand. I am not a pro and mostly I average one photo out of 2000 that doesn't need any retouching at all.
I saw that you retouched for playboy, I don't imagine there are a lot of amateur photog's running those shoots.
I would be very happy to see one video (make it on a perfect image if you must ) of one of your beauty retouches from start to finish in real time. (Not one of these youtube things where you see 12hrs compressed to 6 min.)
I’ve never seen a professional work before and I know I would be fascinated and learn a lot just watching. In my opinion, how you are doing what you are doing in the video is not nearly so important as why you choose that method in that order. If that makes sence.

[heyrad]

That's funny to me... retouching is not like watching a pole dancer... it's more like watching paint dry if you ask me... if it takes me 4hrs to retouch a beauty shot... who on earth would sit there and watch me do that... there has to be some kind of edit, don't you think?

c

[crazyfly1]

Hmmm, beer.
Nope, if we get bored we can fast forward to the good parts. Nope just record the whole thing.

[JD Spears]

What crazyfly said! I agree!