How to do skin pores and skin tone like this

[jagerman]

Looks like August Bradley's work to me.

[flice]

Originally Posted by shellby

It is dodge and burn with sharpening at the end. As said already.

Couldn't agree more... if one does ones hard work and do it properly you can get supersmooth human skin with a simple D&B + USM.

Don't be affraid of USM. If you did your D&B nicely everything will turn out great. Depending on what cam you used you can put quite a lot on. The settings I work with most at the moment is 230% at 1.1... and no, the shots are not terribly unsharp

To be honest, I've never used a texturing thingy... there's simply no need.

[Funkimunkey]

If you just read the interviews from the attached pdfs on the website you can find out how to get this look. I don't know why so many people take a quick look at the low res uploads on the initial post and immediately decide that they have all the answers. There's a lot of arrogant ignorance on this site. They're not custom textures, it's not blurring and it's not noise.

They have a team of retouchers that work on each pore individually, 50 to 60 hours work per image is not uncommon. On the images that require different backgrounds, every hair is cut out individually. Read the interviews.

Good old fashioned painstaking hard work; The only way to get results like this.

[Vejitatoja]

They have a team of retouchers that work on each pore individually, 50 to 60 hours work per image is not uncommon. On the images that require different backgrounds, every hair is cut out individually. Read the interviews.

Actually I don't belive in those 50 to 60 hours per image. That sounds insane, only possible explanation would be that they have reaaally slow retouchers or realy bad photography that needs that much time in postprocessing. Even if they are extracting models and puting them on different backgrounds, even if they are dodging and burning on pixel by pixel level it still should take less than 10 hours.
Do you have any idea what can take so much time working on one image? just take a look on their portfolio...

[Qstudios]

This is multiple levels of highpass layers over a blur layer. First you need to clean the skin with normal retouching. I've had to do this for a number of clients. It's actually not that hard and really doesn't take that long.
50 to 60 hrs retouching on a single images is a bit excessive. Clients will not pay those prices anymore, 10 to 15 hrs is more realistic for some tight beauty Ads.

I actually don't think these images are that great, there are much better examples of this type of Retouching out there. These images lost all there subtly of light, but some clients want that. Check out the photography/retouching team of Markus Klinko & Indrani. They do this type of photography/retouching but very high end.

http://www.markusklinko-indrani.com/...llery/main.htm

[toxic_snake]

Originally Posted by Qstudios

This is multiple levels of highpass layers over a blur layer. First you need to clean the skin with normal retouching. I've had to do this for a number of clients. It's actually not that hard and really doesn't take that long.
50 to 60 hrs retouching on a single images is a bit excessive. Clients will not pay those prices anymore, 10 to 15 hrs is more realistic for some tight beauty Ads.

I actually don't think these images are that great, there are much better examples of this type of Retouching out there. These images lost all there subtly of light, but some clients want that. Check out the photography/retouching team of Markus Klinko & Indrani. They do this type of photography/retouching but very high end.

http://www.markusklinko-indrani.com/...llery/main.htm

Thanks for the tip, and yeah, I've always found markus klinko and indrani's retouching happens to be superior yet very natural.

[subxaero]

well the multiple highpass layer thingy is mainly for clearing the skin - but the i'm always interested in the recipe for getting the "look", meaning how to achieve the colortone, the histogram and the overall balance of light.
i know it's super effeciant to have the right lightning, but having this set and having the photo in photoshop does not mean you only d&b and apply highpass

[mayday]

Originally Posted by Qstudios

This is multiple levels of highpass layers over a blur layer. First you need to clean the skin with normal retouching. I've had to do this for a number of clients. It's actually not that hard and really doesn't take that long.
50 to 60 hrs retouching on a single images is a bit excessive. Clients will not pay those prices anymore, 10 to 15 hrs is more realistic for some tight beauty Ads.

I actually don't think these images are that great, there are much better examples of this type of Retouching out there. These images lost all there subtly of light, but some clients want that. Check out the photography/retouching team of Markus Klinko & Indrani. They do this type of photography/retouching but very high end.

http://www.markusklinko-indrani.com/...llery/main.htm

Do you use the highpass layers in overlay or linear light?
I guess you use the blur layer with the opacity reduced and a layer mask hiding the eyes and other elements?

[Qstudios]

There is no stock settings I use for my highpass layers it all depends on the image. I tend to use 2 to 3 different high pass layers with the settings ranging from .5 to 15 and the opacity from 90% to 15% receptively. I may set the highpass layers to Softlight, Overlay, Linear Light, it all depends on the image and the effect we are trying to achieve. The Blur layer I tend to keep the opacity pretty high. I put these all in a folder and will brush it in were needed.

As for the lighting, it's hard to fake lighting if it's not naturally there. You can dodge and burn with masks and curves to enhance the effect. You can also play with a high pass layer set pretty high like 20+ depending on the image and that some times will get you the look you want.

As for Color, If you look carefully at high fashion images in magazines (Fendi,Gucci,Prada, ...) you will see that the skin tones are very unsaturated and in the brown range and not the Orange Red. You need to keep your saturation down but maintain a natural warmth. Also you need to maintain a good contrast. You don't want skin to look grey and ashy but you also don't want it too saturated. It's a very fine line.

Remember every image will need it own settings with all these things. For a story with a number of images in it you should be able to figure out the setting for one and use that for the whole story.

I hope that helps.

[mayday]

As for Color, If you look carefully at high fashion images in magazines (Fendi,Gucci,Prada, ...) you will see that the skin tones are very unsaturated and in the brown range and not the Orange Red. You need to keep your saturation down but maintain a natural warmth. Also you need to maintain a good contrast. You don't want skin to look grey and ashy but you also don't want it too saturated. It's a very fine line.

Thanks Qstudios very helpful info. By the way your works very nice.

Regarding color do you often use the desaturate re-saturate technique to acheive the sort of skintones you are talking about?

[JavierT]

Hi Mayday:

Maybe this link can helps you. I think this is the way that Qstudios posted. Isn´t it? In this post the blend mode is linear light, but it looks to crispy with some pics.

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

Cheers....Javier

[mayday]

Originally Posted by JavierT

Hi Mayday:

Maybe this link can helps you. I think this is the way that Qstudios posted. Isn´t it? In this post the blend mode is linear light, but it looks to crispy with some pics.

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

Cheers....Javier

You use the linear light setting more for sharpening a high pass layer, try softlight or overlay as well

[JavierT]

Originally Posted by mayday

You use the linear light setting more for sharpening a high pass layer, try softlight or overlay as well

Yes, a think is a good idea to use that blend modes. Have you used this method (multi high pass layer + blur layer)? If yes, can I know your opinion?

Thanks a lot...Javier

[JavierT]

Originally Posted by Qstudios

There is no stock settings I use for my highpass layers it all depends on the image. I tend to use 2 to 3 different high pass layers with the settings ranging from .5 to 15 and the opacity from 90% to 15% receptively. I may set the highpass layers to Softlight, Overlay, Linear Light, it all depends on the image and the effect we are trying to achieve. The Blur layer I tend to keep the opacity pretty high. I put these all in a folder and will brush it in were needed.

As for the lighting, it's hard to fake lighting if it's not naturally there. You can dodge and burn with masks and curves to enhance the effect. You can also play with a high pass layer set pretty high like 20+ depending on the image and that some times will get you the look you want.

As for Color, If you look carefully at high fashion images in magazines (Fendi,Gucci,Prada, ...) you will see that the skin tones are very unsaturated and in the brown range and not the Orange Red. You need to keep your saturation down but maintain a natural warmth. Also you need to maintain a good contrast. You don't want skin to look grey and ashy but you also don't want it too saturated. It's a very fine line.

Remember every image will need it own settings with all these things. For a story with a number of images in it you should be able to figure out the setting for one and use that for the whole story.

I hope that helps.

Hi Qstudios:

Very interesting information. Thanks a lot for it. Can you let me know your site to see your work? Thanks in advance

Cheers...Javier

[mayday]

Originally Posted by JavierT

Yes, a think is a good idea to use that blend modes. Have you used this method (multi high pass layer + blur layer)? If yes, can I know your opinion?

Thanks a lot...Javier

I used the method before but without the blur layer. It can work very well for bringing out tones and sharpening.
I am not sure I like the images posted on the thread but with the right photography and more subtle use I think it could work very well with the blur layer like on the markus klinko images