Dodge and Burn to Smooth Skin?

[rnbluvva]

Hi!

I've been reading a lot here about people using Dodge and Burn to retouch skin. I was just wondering if there is a tutorial that talks more about this? What is the premise behind the technique. Is it to be used when you want to preserve skin texture most? Can you really get very smooth and clean looking skin using Dodge and Burn?

I'm really interested in learning more.

Thanks!

[solitear]

Hi mbluvva........ I'm with you on this...... I keep thinking there must be something I'm missing...... I'll create a soft light layer, filled with 50% gray then use a white brush to paint over dark spots and black brush to paint over light spots............. then I've read that it works best if you do this on the green channel.......... then adjust the opacity.........GAaaaaaahhhhhh........

By the time I've finished a cheek or forehead the whole thing just looks lighter or darker without a trace of pores or texture of any kind...... I'm going to be watching this thread hoping to get in on the technique.....

Thanks for asking about this one......

Beth

[Godmother]

I'll give it my best try.

Once you have taken out mayor skin marks (Beauty marks, pimples, etc) with the patch tool (or what ever you use)

You create the Dodge and Burn Layer Set (D&B)

The dodge and burn is done with a set of curve adjustment layers.

From bottom to top:

Curve(LIGHTEN) lighten the mids and fill the layer with black to hide. In this layer, paint white at about 20% depending to lighten dark spots on the skin
Curve(DARKEN) darken the mids and fill with black as well so that you can use this to darken light spots on the skin.
HUE(DESAT) The HUE layer is used to desaturate the image and see better.
CURVE(CONTRAST) is helpful to display the dark/light spots better - an S curve in it to bring out the contrast so you can see it better

Both of them (Desat and Cont) can be turn on and off as you please.

After zooming 500% to work on the fine points of the skin, zoom out and use larger brushes to change light.
Then turn off the CONTRAST and HUE curves.

This takes a lot of time, but the result is the best I could achieve.

Hope this helps...

More... Sometimes, I duplicate the set in case some dark spots are really dark and just one lighten won't do it.


More2: English is not my native lenguaje... so sorry in advance

[Peter S]

I don't think Dodging and burning by itself can soften skin, it tends to just lighten or darken. I think this could be used for emphasizing areas, cheekbones etc. but would not smoothen.

Another way is to paint with History (don't gasp its rather simple). Dodging and burning can change the colours slightly. I also find dodging and burning to be quite harsh even at low opacities for the brush strokes, easy to over do things.

When you have smoothed the skin with other methods, Byros degrunge is good, dupe the pic and set your history to this point. then select the history brush set it at Screen to lighten or Multiply to darken. Set the softness to the lowest setting and the opacity of the brush quite low (4-5% is quite good). then paint on the duped layers wherever you want to lighten or darken.
The low opacity means you can build up the effect slowly, doing it on a new layer means you dont lose any earlier work if you over do it.

Hope this helps

[Godmother]

Actually... I do use Dodge&Burn for my skin retouch

And you really can get very smooth and clean looking skin using Dodge and Burn

[CMS]

Thanks Godmother!!!!

The information is very useful but i think that people want to see a step by step tutorial with lots of photos!!! I can contribute with some high resolution face images!!!!

[Daviskw]

Say Beth

Some folks select the skin, excluding the eyes mouth and nose. Then on its own layer they desaturate and use a highpass filter.
This layer can be hidden and brought back after the skin is smoothed and shaded. The layers blend mode needs to be soft light. Add a mask to adjust or lower opacity.

The bottom line... this does a good job of bringing back pores after the basic skin tone has lost detail.

Another way for shading is to use soft light modes on shade layers. Just paint with a hard brush in black or white. Then use gaussian blur to blend... adjust opacity as desired.

The texture mask idea above was taken form the tutorial below if you did not see it.

http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=209

Butch

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by CMS

Thanks Godmother!!!!

The information is very useful but i think that people want to see a step by step tutorial with lots of photos!!! I can contribute with some high resolution face images!!!!

I'm willing to do it... Send them to my email. nataffa@hotmail.com

[solitear]

Hi Butch...... I'm going to try your method..... it sounds familiar to me but the tutorial I used (I think) stated to make your selection, feather it, then Ctrl J two times, turn off top layer, select middle layer and run high pass filtering in only what you want to show, turn off middle layer and select top layer and Gaus blur out all the junk...... then adj. opacity of the layers.......

I'm going to copy and use your version in a little while..... Thanks!

[rnbluvva]

Thanks to those who contributed on this thread. I'd love it if someone did do a tutorial on it, as the method escapes me.

Will keep checking back.

[superkoax]

In the last couple of months I have learne tremendouse things training with dodge and burn on a 50% grey softlight layer!

My tip is:

1: Open up desired picture
2: duplicate background to a new layer
3:get rid of hard skin problems like scars or pimpels with clone or patch tool( I always make a selction of the area with the skin problems and copy it to a new layer...
4: Make a new layer, use blend mode Soft light, then push the box that say soemthing with 50% grey all the way down on the menu!
5: The first thing I do is to go over the very dark and light areas with dodge(lightens skin) burn(darkens skin). I zoom in around 300%(depends on pciture size). And then start working!
When you feel that the darkest and lightest areas are done

6: you open up a layer curve. Make the picture very dark so you can see the darkest areas good...Then start to even them out on the 50% grey layer. With the layer curve you can really see where the areas are darkest and lightes and it helps you to even out the skin...
7:do the same only make the curve very light to see the lighest areas...

I have small example on what D/B can do for you...I think that my thanks should go out to THEVEED who have given me som very good tips and advice on how to do it...D/B looks very good in theory, but when using it it can take a while to learn...I'm still training my eye to really keep the pictures real and not fake...

Hope this was helpful....

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/att...oo-much-db.jpg

Gerry

[rnbluvva]

Originally Posted by Godmother

I'm willing to do it... Send them to my email. nataffa@hotmail.com

Any word on this tutorial... I am very anxious to get working with this method and so far none of the explanations have yielded smooth skin results.

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by rnbluvva

Any word on this tutorial... I am very anxious to get working with this method and so far none of the explanations have yielded smooth skin results.

Actually... he never sent the pics... I have one interesting pic, but it's going to take some time, because I have a lot of work to do for the hollydays

[rnbluvva]

Originally Posted by Godmother

Actually... he never sent the pics... I have one interesting pic, but it's going to take some time, because I have a lot of work to do for the hollydays

Awe bummer about him not sending the images. I really appreciate that you are still going to do the tutorial Natalia. Please do keep us posted on your progress!

[kmcamera]

I'll supply the pics if Godmother is still willing.

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by kmcamera

I'll supply the pics if Godmother is still willing.

sure... I have a lot of work to get done... and I'm wanting to do a video tutorial just for fun... but yes

Send it to me at ntaffarel at ciudad.com.ar

High quality I prefer .nef

[CJ Swartz]

While waiting for a dodge/burn skin-so-soft tutorial, let's also look at other techniques used in the pursuit of good skin --
Kiska, a past member here, and a member at Innographx.com forum located a smooth skin tutorial that uses the healing brush with a grain pattern to retain some skin texture.

http://leonsandoval.com/tutorials/sm.../Part%20I.html

Part two contains the explanation about defining the pattern to use with the healing brush -- I'll look for an appropriate image and post it to show how nicely his technique works.

As for dodging/burning, I attended a seminar a few years ago that taught dodging on an overlay blend layer to reduce the wrinkles on a face (when appropriate). The instructor explained that we need to start at the end of the wrinkle and work BACK towards the beginning -- reducing the effects of age in increments and not necessarily taking all the wrinkle away. She explained that those wrinkles that move across the face (forehead) should often be left, or only reduced (for non-fashion/glamour situations, anyway), but that those wrinkles that move diagonally across the face from top towards the bottom are the ones that really add age to a face -- literally pulling the shape of the face away from its original form. These lines are the ones that we would often want to address in retouching where we want to show renewed energy and youth to a person. Again, we start at the bottom, the end of the wrinkle, and move backwards (through time) towards the beginning and stop where we think appropriate for the customer, the situation. On the overlay blend layer, using a brush that fits within the width of the wrinkle line, at low opacity, we dodge the layer beneath -- then we can use the layer opacity to reduce the effect even further if necessary and build up the effect gently and gradually so that it is (hopefully) not seen -- we just see the skin renewed.

Found this image on stock.xchng (no usage restrictions) - we can use her to show some techniques while we wait for a tutorial on dodge/burn for skin smoothing.

Here she is -- Original and after a "scrubbing" with a healing brush set to the noise pattern created according to the tutorial link above (set healing brush mode to "multiply", clicked on "aligned", and just painted over her skin in sections at a time. I think there is a skin texture appearance left, and it certainly took out most of the wrinkles. I made no effort to be discreet about which wrinkles should be smoothed -- I just swabbed her face/neck all over and tried to take out everything that I could. I could have lowered the opacity of the layer to reduce the effect, but I didn't -- it may look like a "blur job" except I think there is some texture -- see cropped area.

Now I'll try to show the dodge on the overlay layer method in my next post.

[CJ Swartz]

Okay, this is only a little start, but here's a before/after of a wrinkle line that is being reduced by dodging on the layer above.

This is what some folks do, I guess, with a younger face that has irregularities and little rough patches, to smooth and soften it to look regular all over. Godmother can do it with curves instead of needing a brush. (I have trouble doing it with a brush.) The healing brush with a texture pattern seems "easier", but does it do the needed job?

[Godmother]

Originally Posted by CJ Swartz

Okay, this is only a little start, but here's a before/after of a wrinkle line that is being reduced by dodging on the layer above.

This is what some folks do, I guess, with a younger face that has irregularities and little rough patches, to smooth and soften it to look regular all over. Godmother can do it with curves instead of needing a brush. (I have trouble doing it with a brush.) The healing brush with a texture pattern seems "easier", but does it do the needed job?

Ok this is almost the same (With curves you have more control and the colors are better when extreme touch up)

The ther one I don't like because it's not skin texture it's grain and you can tell. Skin texture doesn't look like that

I actually like to mix: Patch or Heal + Degrunge + D&B and that gives me the result I want.

[aaRonology101]

i believe dodge and burn is the best method of retouching. its mainly what i do when i retouch my photos. i dont really mess with anything else but that.

dont get me wrong, cloning and healing is essential as well, but only for certain areas ... like solid areas. but when you are talking about skin and texture, its all about dodge and burn.

you can take a look at my some of my before and afters at www.xanga.com/aaronology101 . all those images were about 80% dodge and burn, 20% everything else.

enjoy!

[CJ Swartz]

Originally Posted by rnbluvva

Hi! I've been reading a lot here about people using Dodge and Burn to retouch skin. I was just wondering if there is a tutorial that talks more about this? ...Can you really get very smooth and clean looking skin using Dodge and Burn?

Here's a short tutorial with photos and a dodge/burn layer shown from Digital Grin (while you're waiting for Godmother's tutorial).
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1170442/1

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1169397 -- use of other techniques

[solitear]

CJ..... thank you so much for another great link !!! You've given some really different and interesting links ..... I had to settle down and pay attention to the part about a curve adjustment layer and setting midpoints in the color channels but.... I think I've got it and can't wait to try this.....

oxoxo
Beth

[pure]

how do you do exactly 50% grey in RGB?

thx

[CJ Swartz]

Originally Posted by pure

how do you do exactly 50% grey in RGB?thx

In Photoshop 7, you add a blank layer, select that layer, choose Edit --> Fill, a box pops up that lets you choose what you want to Fill that layer with -- includes Foreground color, Background color, Black, White, AND 50% gray -- choose the 50% gray and set the layer blending mode for that layer to Overlay -- it will look like the layer is invisible when set to Overlay.

[pure]

thanks

in another topic they say "soft light" instead of overlay.
i tried both. there is a little difference but i cant say which....

[Cassidy]

Originally Posted by pure

thanks

in another topic they say "soft light" instead of overlay.
i tried both. there is a little difference but i cant say which....

Overlay is much stronger than soft light, playing tonght in hard light tone, even stronger relationship

Patience is a gift, not a reward

[CMS]

Originally Posted by Godmother

Actually... he never sent the pics... I have one interesting pic, but it's going to take some time, because I have a lot of work to do for the hollydays

So sorry

I have moved my studio in a different location with no web connection.Now everything is solved !!! An idiot excuse i know !!!Now i can send high resolution photos (raw files from Canon 5D) but i need someone to explain me step by step how to send it or use a FTP connection.