How to make Plastic skin with Highlights ( sample)

[richardnyc]

I am new around here and marveled by the wealth and quality of the information posted in these forums. Like my most newbie's I am starting off with a question. Anyone know how to make plastic skin like this ? Its particularly noticeable in the blonde model.
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http://www.bwgreyscale.com/adimg11/adv_5768.jpg
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I suspect it is some variation on the post Dreamypix made of "metal skin"
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Any tips greatly appreciated.
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Thanks
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Richard

[mistermonday]

Richard, welcome to RP.
There are many ways to do this. If there is a relatively small area of skin compared to the rest of the image, I create a mask of the skin areas. I then remove all of the detail using either a noise filter like Noise Ninja or one of Photoshops filters - the Surface Blur filter in PS CS2 is particularly for this purpose. After smoothing away all the detail I usually increase the contrast significantly and then using Hue/Saturation adjustment lower the saturation and shift the hue to either a colder or a warmer tone.
Regards, Murray

[richardnyc]

Ok Murray thanks. And thanks for the welcome... Just a follow up question.
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It seems the effect I am after are in the highlights and making them blurred and contrasty makes sense. I can see the obvious highlights but it looks splotchy when I do it. Tried color range select highlights both pre-set and eyedropper... Still too broad.
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I guess I am lacking the technique of painting in highlights, that or my lighting is too flat, compared to the sample I showed...
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In your technique do you paint in highlights that were not there ?
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Ok thanks in advance
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Richard
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[mistermonday]

Richard, there are almost always some highlights in photographed images, When they are not pronounced I use curves to accentuate them which usually increases the contrast at the same time. It is rare that your starting image is completely flat. I recommend that you upload here, an image to which you would like the effect applied. You will likely find a number of people offering up their different techniques with details of their process for that image.
Regards, Murray

[richardnyc]

Ok. Not sure how to load an image here but here is link to an image that I would like to apply a plastic-like skin. Its fairly smooth already and does have some strong existing highlights..
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Thanks
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Richard
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http://www.pbase.com/richardnyc/image/57685961

[makeovermagic]

Hi Richard,

Is this close to what you are looking for?

M.O.M.

[arcadhia]

And? what about these?

Elisha

Natalia

[richardnyc]

Interesting... Two different approaches. MOM seems to have done a hue sat / density thing which does make the model look like plastic... Works but not exactly what I was looking for as I may convert this to grayscale .
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Arcadia's samples I am curious about. Not the eyes but plastic - like highlights with texture... Especially on the nose. Is this a trade secret or can you direct me to an online tutorial ?
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Thanks for the help
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Richard

[Cassidy]

Lovely Pic,

Gave it a go with a slight gaussian blur (masked to arms mainly)
Then applied a very very ever so slight plastic wrap filter (again masked)
Finally a levels adjustment

[richardnyc]

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Thanks for the compliment and the work you did on the image. Very nice and it sends me in the right direction...
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I know you did a quick sample and it could be refined, but the arm is too blurry. If you look back at the sample at the top of this thread you see that its not distorted.
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However blurring and brightening the plastic wrap effect is something I have not tried. I was only reducing its opacity and finally the effect was diminished.
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I was not looking for an exact "how to" for this and I think I have some stuff to try out now. Still wondering about putting texture back in the blown out highlights like Arcadia did..
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Ok thanks all !
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Richard
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[shellby]

Here's my shot at it

[richardnyc]

Please tell me how you did it ...
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Thanks for your time
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richard

[shellby]

Ok I have see attached for a screengrab of my layers for this one.

1) The blur and sharpen method is outlined in this tutorial:

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

Once you have done the Blur and then the High Pass Sharpen...

2) Apple, ALT, Shift N E to merge all to a new layer

3) APPLE (Control on pc) click on the RGB channel. This selects only the highlights in the image.

4) Go back to your layer and hit APPLE J to copy these highlights to a new layer

4) Apply the free downloadable action called "Daves Ethereal Glow" to the highlight layer

5) Mask this and paint in the areas of the skin that you want to have the glow. Lower opacity of the layer until you have your desired effect.

6) Use the channel mixer to desaturate by clicking on MONOCHROME and dial in 70% 30% 0% lower the opacity of this layer to 22%

7) Use a blue Photo filter layer at 33% opacity to cool the image's colour

[PatrickB]

I'm sorry for being completely wrong about what you want to achieve in advance

But maybe that one?

[byRo]

I was wondering why nobody changed the skin colour.
Plastic doesn't have the nuances of real skin - so just make all the skin exactly the same colour and it looks more "plasticky".
(The opposite problem to colourizing greyscale images )

Did my usual GBlur / High-pass tricks to get the texture right and then added (in LAB) a curve adjustment with a wavey metal-type luminosity curve and a flattened curve for the regions of skin in the A and B channels (masked to only the skin).

Rô

[lkroll]

Opened the shadow areas a bit and then created an overal highkey (minus the hair of course). I then ran PS's surface blur to further soften the skin. I then sharpened just the hair. Could have done some more things, but I leave this one as is.

[richardnyc]

I agree that the plastic look should include a monochromatic approach. Plastic dolls etc are always one shade...
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Thank you everyone. I learned a lot. I am most appreciative
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Sincerely
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Richard
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[Verywierd]

Thought I would give it a try. Plastic should be hard and shiny, so I kept the image sharp with increased highlights and oversmoothed skin.

[Ziaphra]

I just had to give this a go. I believe in the old fashioned smudge tool as you have greater control on following the contours of the arms etc. Steps taken:

1. Used a fairly large smudge brush at about 49% opacity and quickly smoothed out the skin following the contours of her arms etc. (I did not smudge her eyes, eyebrows or lips).
2. Swapped to a smaller brush to finish off the edging.
3. Brushed some highlights on a new layer (using the existing highlights as my guide) and then gaussian blurred that layer at radius 10 and set the blend mode to screen and 56% opacity.
4. Blended these highlights in on a new layer with the smudge tool until I was happy then merged all the layers.
5. Duplicated the layer again and blurred the new layer to radius 25 and set the blend mode to screen and 56% opacity. Then I erased everything on this layer except for the skin...even the eyes, eyelashes and lips as I did not want to lose them in the blur. Again I touched up with the smudge tool...and then merged all the layers.
6. Duplicated the layer again and desaturated this layer to -28 and again erased everything but the skin...don't forget the eyes etc.

There are probably easier ways and faster steps to do what I did but I like the total control of the smudging, blurring and highlights this gives me.

In the second attached pic I duplicated, inverted this layer, set the blend mode to overlay and 20% opacity...then erased all but the skin etc...this seems to give a more alabaster (sp?) feel to the skin.

The 3rd attached pic is where I have darkened the shadows and midtones and upped the highlights.

The 4th attached pic was more simple. (I went back to this as I thought maybe I had gone a bit overboard with my others).

1. Adjust Higlight (+50), Midtone (-10), Shadow (-30) to 'pop' the highlights.
2. Duplicate layer, blur at radius 25 and set blending mode to overlay at 100% opacity, then totally desaturate.
3. Duplicate the initial layer again, blur at radius 25 and set blending mode to screen at 56% opacity.
4. Your layers should be as follows...initial layer, screen layer then overlay layer.
5. Add a new layer at the very top and smudge at 49% opacity until the skin is smooth and once you're happy, merge all layers.
6 Duplicate layer and desaturate until you are happy then erase all but the skin etc.

[richardnyc]

Smudge tool ? Ok whatever works...
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thanks
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richard

[Ziaphra]

That is how I did this image and here is my tutorial on it.

http://www.worth1000.com/entries/180500/180570INpm.jpg
http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161136

[ffureel]

I didnt have time to do skin blurring which would of made it look much more plastic, but you get the idea.

[Gigadals]

Here's my try =)

[Tadeuz]

Ideas behind.
- Plastic -> shiny highlights, high local contrast.
- Skin colors unnatural ( result is rather waxy in ths respect)
- plastic -> desaturated highlights

http://www.tadeuzjalocha.cl/images/plastic.jpg

regards.

Tadeuz

[d4ws]

just practice..

[dudtyman]

Wow!!!!!
I also look for some online help to get the plastic skin effect too.
This thread is exactly what i was looking for.
Thank you

[James Penner]

Thought I'd give it a try, too. A little surface blur, plastic wrap and curves for contrast adjustment.

[pellepiano]

Thats more like it, as reflections in shiny plastic has this certain look.Nicely done.

[alshaiji]

Well,
after 20 minutes of playing around with the photo let me say this:

I guess one of the ways you can do it is
creating a new layer of your photo
add median effect
then add blur effect
under layer go to Layer Mask --> hide all
then with a white brush (20% opacity) start smoothing the skin
here is the ironic part
if you over do the smoothing ----> you get plastic effect

Good Luck
alshaiji

[nevie]

I thought I would try my hand at it as well. I'm not sure it is exactly plastic but I wanted to got for a smooth approach.