Order of Proceedures for Skin Retouch

[rnbluvva]

Hi!

Just wondering if people could share the order of proceedures they work in when retouching a skin image.

Do you do a curves level first, then get rid of the big blemishes, any marks, flaws that your client wants removed, then do you improve skin color/tone etc.

I was just wondering what the best order is.

Also, how the heck do those Blender and FHM people retouch all those bikini models and still have the pores show? How do you add back in the texture after softening everything?

If you have tips, I am all ears.

Also, I came accross a great site the other day and it has some very helpful tutorials regarding improving skin texture and color.
http://fotofects.com/v2/adobe-photos...etouching.html

Thanks for always sharing your golden nuggets of knowledge!

[PatrickB]

Hi Nat,

the story I can tell you is:

When I started retouching glamour, I used to clone away some big blemishes, then applied a gaussian blur layer and went away with that plastic look. Progressing and learning I found out the very simple reason for my bad results: Impatience! Nowadays I remove every tiny little blemish I can find and THEN apply some smoothing to the skin. Hence I can keep down the blurred layers to an absolute minimum and keep all the pores and stuff visible.

Hope this helps a little?

Patrick

[Flora]

Originally Posted by rnbluvva

Hi!

Just wondering if people could share the order of proceedures they work in when retouching a skin image.

Do you do a curves level first, then get rid of the big blemishes, any marks, flaws that your client wants removed, then do you improve skin color/tone etc.

I was just wondering what the best order is.

I agree with Patrick ... first the blemishes ('cured' at a very high zoom for a seamless result) ... then the smoothing .....

Originally Posted by rnbluvva

Also, how the heck do those Blender and FHM people retouch all those bikini models and still have the pores show? How do you add back in the texture after softening everything?

If you have tips, I am all ears.

I don't usually do 'glamour' retouching, but smoothing skin in a natural way is something I do regularly in my restorations .... In this Post you can see what was done to smooth the skin of a model while maintaining a 'natural' look ... there is also a link to a Thread where MBChamberlain describes a great method for doing it ...

The Other method I use is:

1. duplicate the background,
   
   
2. Run Filter>Noise>Dust&Scratches on the duplicate using a layer mask as described in this Tutorial... .... the trick is to increase the Radius until all blemishes and blotches have disappeared ... then increase the Threshold until you get the 'maximum' texture, but before getting the blemishes back ...

It might not be 'sofisticated' enough for 'glamour' retouch ... but it surely works ... (see Attachment)

Hope this helps ...

[Vikki]

I would recommend levels/curves corrections first, along with color corrections.
The link below is to a tutorial of the process I use for retouching skin.
Skin Retouching Tutorial (page 16)

[Flora]

... Well, rnbluvva, there you are ...

Just great Vikki! Congratulations!!!!

Thank you so much for sharing it!!

[rnbluvva]

Patrick, Flora and Vikki!

Thanks for sharing your tips and links.

So the general concencus is to heal all the blemishes first, color correct and then smooth skin? I suppose it will sometimes depend on the image?

Thanks again

[Flora]

Hi again, rnbluvva,

Originally Posted by rnbluvva

Patrick, Flora and Vikki!

Thanks for sharing your tips and links.

... You are welcome ... Glad if we could be of help!

Originally Posted by rnbluvva

So the general concencus is to heal all the blemishes first, color correct and then smooth skin?

Yes...

Originally Posted by rnbluvva

I suppose it will sometimes depend on the image?

doesn't it always? ...