D&B with this pic?

[JavierT]

Hi everybody:

I have been working in this aged woman pic (no too aged, but isn´t a beaty retouch). The thecnique I´ve used is D&B and, at this point I think: So many situations in beaty retouch presents this little hairs (down is the word?). And sure you are going to said to me that I have to use D&B to fix it. Don´t you?

Ok. But I have a problem. Working with D&B (two separate adj. layers for lightness and darken, setting both to luminosity) I have no problem lightening tones, but when I try to darken the highlights tones (like the down in the pic).
Using low opacity brush (6-10% more or less), I have to paint many times to dark the area, but i cant get the same tone of the nearest dark area, so I can´t get a regular flowless or flowing skin tone. And some times the begin to turn diferent, more saturate.

Can someby help me?. I am working a lot in this thecnique to be better.
Is D&B the only profesional way to fix the the down in this kind of pics?

Thanks a lot. And sorry, I hope my bad english would be enough for you.

[JavierT]

Sorry, forgot to add the pic.

Here it is.

[DCobb]

Hi Javier,

When you say "down" do you mean the light colored facial hairs in the image? I am not a professional retoucher so I may have completely misunderstood your question and missed the mark.

dc

[KR1156]

9 out of ten times i just burn in the hairs, since they're so light, i make a separate curve for them in my D&B folder, and i push the 1/4 tones to highlights part of the curve down to darken that targeted area. color work will usually be needed afterwards depending on how far you have to go with the hair.

-but, i will try a dust & scratches move first (verrrry subtle, and masked in carefully) to see how much i can get away with that. It usually doesn't take care of the entire problem, so D&B is needed to finish the job.

-I can spot a dust & scratches move very easily if it is done wrong, so be very careful with it. it is a way of looking for the short cut. so don't rely on it!!

[pixelzombie]

"masked in" in what way?

[JavierT]

Originally Posted by DCobb

Hi Javier,

When you say "down" do you mean the light colored facial hairs in the image? I am not a professional retoucher so I may have completely misunderstood your question and missed the mark.

dc

Hi Dcobb:

Thanks for your answer. Yes!!!! When I said "Down"=thal light colored facial hairs. Maybe isn´t the right word, I looked for the english translation from the original spanish word, and for that kind of tiny and thin hair in face or cheek it said "Down".

I have been looking your try and it looks very good. The jpeg compression from the original that i post doesn´t help you, sure. With the hig-res 16bit Digital back picture you will get a better result, sure.

Can you explain to me how you do this? Just D&B? anything else?

Thanks a lot

[JavierT]

Originally Posted by KR1156

9 out of ten times i just burn in the hairs, since they're so light, i make a separate curve for them in my D&B folder, and i push the 1/4 tones to highlights part of the curve down to darken that targeted area. color work will usually be needed afterwards depending on how far you have to go with the hair.

-but, i will try a dust & scratches move first (verrrry subtle, and masked in carefully) to see how much i can get away with that. It usually doesn't take care of the entire problem, so D&B is needed to finish the job.

-I can spot a dust & scratches move very easily if it is done wrong, so be very careful with it. it is a way of looking for the short cut. so don't rely on it!!

Hi KR1156:

First of all, thanks for your answer.

Today I will try the thecniques that you posted to me, but I want to be sure of the correct workflow:

First, a little bit of dust & Scratches (very subtle) to decrease the thing hairs a little. One you say "masking", I understand that I have to apply a mask to all the areas that is not afected of that little hairs or you want to say that I have to mask around every thin hair in the face?

Now D&B with a adjust layer Curves and pull down the curve in the highlights area to dark the zone. begin to paint and after that, color correction cause pulling down the curve we have a diferent color cast and have to fix it.

I will post my final result, your opinions are welcoming. Thanks a lot.

P.D.: I am learning a lot about retouching and photoshop at this forum, but I am not sure if I learn more photoshop or more English. Anyway, is good for me.

[KR1156]

you do your D&S move on a separate layer right, and what i mean by masked in is, fill the layer with a mask, all black....then start to paint in little by little to start showing your D&S move. you know, just start brushing with white on the layer mask to start letting your D&S move show. try and mask it in slowly, where you think it looks ok and you can get away with it. trial and error. definitely not the answer every time like i said, just something that can work nicely at times.

[JavierT]

Thanks a lot KR

It is just i have understood in the your first post. Now, painting and painting and painting, slowly, little by little, and a lot of pacience.

I think a good shaver would be chipper for the client, LOL

[DCobb]

Hi Javier,

I have a very hard time remembering what I do on pics and I just experiment. I think I used the dodge tool to lighten the area and then the degrunge to smooth things out. May have lowered the opacity some to bring back skin texture. The degrunge tutorial is on this site.

dc

[JavierT]

Thanks Dcobb.

I have seen that tutorial before, ByRO tutorial (I remember). I will work on it and post the result.

[dbarrack]

There are a few other things you can try. Here's a quickie retouch on your image. I like to use filter -> blur -> average on a separate layer and then reduce opacity as needed. I also did another move with the healing brush using a texture. If you like the result let me know and I'll post the moves.

[JavierT]

Hi Dbarrack

Thanks for your try. It looks great, detail a little bit lost, but interesting moves. Please, can you show me the steps you apply?

I am still working on it. At the end, I am using a mix of the techniques tha the forum members show (KR, the other boy (sorry, a dont remember your nick) an yours). I have few time for this pic right now, but i need to find a moment fo fix it.

Thanks a lot for your contribution.

[cainam]

To keep it simple: only cloning and healingbrush