De-grunge, but skin still uneven

[Hendrik]

I love the de-grunge technique. The skin texture is great. …but I need some help with difficulties I got.

Although it’s a great skin retouch, the skin still keeps its unevenness. These 'spots' distract from its result, and the picture looks retouched. I know this is why a good make-up artist is priceless, but not all my shoots has one around (will change in the future).

My question, how are others handling this? What is your workflow regarding this problem? I want to keep the skin structure intact, or else the de-grunge trick loses its advantages.

btw, the picture is 50% crop

[superkoax]

That is downside with the technique...maybe we do it the wrong way? Maby byro has some nice tips to us=?????


GERRY

[NancyJ]

Do you have the original?

[TheVeed]

That's pretty simple, you just use Dodge & Burn. Here's my pic, I didn't make it perfect, I spent under 5 minutes on it. Spending a little longer, and it'd look perfect.

Here's a tip: the less you rely on filters, and the more you do 'by hand', the better and more convincing your picture looks.

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by Hendrik

My question, how are others handling this? What is your workflow regarding this problem? I want to keep the skin structure intact, or else the de-grunge trick loses its advantages.

btw, the picture is 50% crop

I often do different parts of a face using different highpass radii. For large smooth areas, you need to use a larger highpass radius in the first step. Near the hair line, eyes and eyebrows, use another layer with small raduis. Around the nose use an in-between radius.

I did a highpass 7/blur 3 on yours and just blotted a few places with a soft white brush.

Bart

[Hendrik]

@ Bart It look like a good advice to use different highpass radii for different parts in the face. I assume you changed the Gaussian Blur accordingly (divided by 3). I shall try this tomorrow. Never thought of it.

Using a new highpass 7/blur 3 layer is indeed a good method to get better results. I assumed wrongly it would destroy the texture, but the effect is way more subtle then I thought.

@ TheVeed. Thanks for your advice. The dodge and burning technique is difficult, but I assume its because I never used these tools before. I shall try it tomorrow.

@NancyJ Yes, the original is a 11 Mp image from the D200. This sample was only a small crop.

Thank you all. I must learn to use a multi-step approach and stop trying to get perfect results in the first technique.

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by Hendrik

@ Bart It look like a good advice to use different highpass radii for different parts in the face. I assume you changed the Gaussian Blur accordingly (divided by 3). I shall try this tomorrow. Never thought of it.

Yes, I usually scale up the blur radius, but divide-by-3 is just a rule of thumb--not set in stone. It depends on the range of textures you're trying to get rid of. In your case, the uneveness was caused by variations of diameter roughly between 6 and 14, so that's why the choice of radii 3 and 7. If the original skin had a wider range of texture problems, you might blur with a radius smaller than divide-by-three.

In general, I turn on linear light blending and invert the layer ahead of time so I can see how it's going to look while you adjust the blur radius.

Soft light, hard light, and overlay blend modes also give more subtle results--often worth a quick look when you think your result looks too artificial.

Bart