Retouching topics of interest

[KR1156]

Split these posts out from a thread on "skin retouching."

Whatever you folks want to talk about = fine with us.

Suggest you start new threads on specific topics of interest.

DannyRaphael

=============================

...subjects that rarely, if ever, get touched on here.

let's see...color can go on here for months, just like mark said.
only thing is, these "new" subjects (threads) will only make an impact if users participate in them and take an interest, seems skin is the only fad out there these days. here are some quick ideas from me…

•color correction (sooooo many different personal techniques)
•hair, meaning cloning flyaways and cross hairs and nasty hairlines, adding new hairs to the edges of bad or sharp masks, building body or volume etc.
•hair, as in masking techniques (we all know how to do the body already)
•building a proper workflow, something that can be useful to anyone looking to work at a multiple shift shop one day, or work with multiple retouchers interchanging the file. can be very useful to the junior.
•there's prob some minor stuff to be learned about body shaping, some cool tips that ppl might have on it. it seems pretty straight forward, but i am surprised at how many people use the liquify tool, and don't take the time to repair the "pixel tracks" they create!
•maybe how to add a subject to a composite, and learn to read the lighting direction and how to correct it if it is falling in an obviously wrong direction on one of the composited subjects.
•maybe a little bit on UCR/GCR...just the basic understanding of it helps much.
•maybe product retouching tips...don't see too much of that though, or at least anyone asking for help on it, other than jewlery. never know, i'm sure there are a lot of kids who don't know about cloning with a "solar" curve adj. layer active.

that's what i have off the top of my head for now, there's more out there just need to come across it to remember it!!

some pretty cool tips can come out of these subjects that might help ALL of us.

maybe not everyone is interested in sharing their best techniques, and I can understand why, but ya never know...

[JavierT]

Originally Posted by KR1156

chris, so many other subjects, that rarely, if ever get touched on here.

let's see...color can go on here for months, just like mark said.
only thing is, these "new" subjects (threads) will only make an impact if users participate in them and take an interest, seems skin is the only fad out there these days. here are some quick ideas from me…

•color correction (sooooo many different personal techniques)
•hair, meaning cloning flyaways and cross hairs and nasty hairlines, adding new hairs to the edges of bad or sharp masks, building body or volume etc.
•hair, as in masking techniques (we all know how to do the body already)
•building a proper workflow, something that can be useful to anyone looking to work at a multiple shift shop one day, or work with multiple retouchers interchanging the file. can be very useful to the junior.
•there's prob some minor stuff to be learned about body shaping, some cool tips that ppl might have on it. it seems pretty straight forward, but i am surprised at how many people use the liquify tool, and don't take the time to repair the "pixel tracks" they create!
•maybe how to add a subject to a composite, and learn to read the lighting direction and how to correct it if it is falling in an obviously wrong direction on one of the composited subjects.
•maybe a little bit on UCR/GCR...just the basic understanding of it helps much.
•maybe product retouching tips...don't see too much of that though, or at least anyone asking for help on it, other than jewlery. never know, i'm sure there are a lot of kids who don't know about cloning with a "solar" curve adj. layer active.

that's what i have off the top of my head for now, there's more out there just need to come across it to remember it!!

some pretty cool tips can come out of these subjects that might help ALL of us.

maybe not everyone is interested in sharing their best techniques, and I can understand why, but ya never know...

I agree KR.

I am a newbbie in this forum ( I´ve just arrived at it to months ago) and I have seen that people only post about skin, forgeting a lot of things that matter in digital retouch.

I am trying to be High End Retoucher and I am working a lot for it (sometimes more than 10 hours a day, 5 days a week at least). Sometimes retouching, sometimes reading and learning, seeing high-end retouchers webs or magazines, or everything, showing to my eyes and to my brain how to evaluate and image (what to fix or not to fix (that the question, LOL), how far go, the color (wow, I´m going to be crasy with the color), and many other things that involve digital retouch.

I use this forum like a big learning reference, but I have been looking for other things that I am interested, and can´t find anything.

The items that KR has posted is a good reference to open new threads of discussing. High End don´t finish at skin, it goes so far away.

Thanks to everybody for all the things I am learning with you, day by day, and sorry for my English, once more time.

[cricket1961]

Originally Posted by KR1156

chris, so many other subjects, that rarely, if ever get touched on here.

let's see...color can go on here for months, just like mark said.
only thing is, these "new" subjects (threads) will only make an impact if users participate in them and take an interest, seems skin is the only fad out there these days. here are some quick ideas from me…

•color correction (sooooo many different personal techniques)
•hair, meaning cloning flyaways and cross hairs and nasty hairlines, adding new hairs to the edges of bad or sharp masks, building body or volume etc.
•hair, as in masking techniques (we all know how to do the body already)
•building a proper workflow, something that can be useful to anyone looking to work at a multiple shift shop one day, or work with multiple retouchers interchanging the file. can be very useful to the junior.
•there's prob some minor stuff to be learned about body shaping, some cool tips that ppl might have on it. it seems pretty straight forward, but i am surprised at how many people use the liquify tool, and don't take the time to repair the "pixel tracks" they create!
•maybe how to add a subject to a composite, and learn to read the lighting direction and how to correct it if it is falling in an obviously wrong direction on one of the composited subjects.
•maybe a little bit on UCR/GCR...just the basic understanding of it helps much.
•maybe product retouching tips...don't see too much of that though, or at least anyone asking for help on it, other than jewlery. never know, i'm sure there are a lot of kids who don't know about cloning with a "solar" curve adj. layer active.

that's what i have off the top of my head for now, there's more out there just need to come across it to remember it!!

some pretty cool tips can come out of these subjects that might help ALL of us.

maybe not everyone is interested in sharing their best techniques, and I can understand why, but ya never know...

All these are excellent suggestions and areas that would be beneficial to all to cover. I for one wouldn't mind talking about stuff other than skin retouching techniques.

The problem I see is that there is rarely anyone asking to see this kind of stuff and this forum is driven by questions from people and not the other way around.

And it happens with trainers all the time. I get asked a lot to do seminars or small group training. When I ask what they want to learn all I hear is "well you know... the usual" or How can I use photoshop better"

Now that we have a excellent set of suggestions from people how do we get it started?

This discussion should be moved to its own thread so that it doesn't distract from the posters question really.


Chris

[CaptainHook]

Okay Chris,
I guess the new thread is here.

I will start questions to who ever wants to give their experience towards them.
I like starting at the top of the list.

Color Correction.

What's your preferred method for what tasks? Why?
When do you choose curves over selective color over h/s etc?

How do your color moves relate to print?
What workflow do you use to ensure colors and contrast
are within bounds/gamut. (talk about profiles, using RIPs,
UCR/GCR, calibration across devices, the whole can of
worms..)

How could this all relate to someone working at home
wanting to get better color from their work when getting
prints done at a local printing lab for example? (for those
less interested in high end production, but still wanting
control and better color)

After this, what's the best method for converting to web
for online portfolio's etc.

I'm sure more questions will arise but that should get things
started no?

[yangez]

Originally Posted by CaptainHook

What's your preferred method for what tasks? Why?
When do you choose curves over selective color over h/s etc?

I'm interested in the answer to this one..

[JavierT]

me too.

Thanks for this new thread, I think it could be very interesting

[edgework]

Originally Posted by CaptainHook

When do you choose curves over selective color over h/s etc?

This one's easy. In the words of Dan Margulis, "It all depends."

Curves are great for global moves. Hot shadows in a face suggest deficient cyan in three-quartertones, perfect for a targeted curve. On the other hand, a face that tends toward both yellows and reds can be damn near impossible to balance with curves. Selective color works just fine: pull a little magenta from the reds and add yellow, pull yellow from the yellows and add magenta. If skin tones are overall hot, a cyan (or red) curve can be a little tricky to control across the whole range. But since cyan is the contaminating color for red, that is, pulls it towards neutral, a desaturation move to reds can sometimes kill the heat without turning some parts blue. It took me years to fully appreciate that less is more with any of the tools, and also that no one tool is the solution.

One thing that makes me grind my teeth is when I pick up a file from and see Channel Mixer layers used for color moves. Drives me crazy. Not a big fan of flat tones in Color mode either, though sometimes a low opacity color blend can pull an image back into balance. Gotta be careful of any moves (like the last two examples) that merge colors since carrying them to their extemes gives either a neutral or a duotone.

Often, after a series of moves, I find the hues are in the right place, but the overall effect has been to deaden the impact, I'll pop a duplicate into Lab and pull the anchors of the a and b channel curves towards center about 5 or ten points, then drag the result back to my original, in color mode with opacity to taste, just to pull the tones back away from each other and give them back some vibrancy.

[LESider]

thanks edgework, now I have something to try and wrap my head around for a couple days.

I feel as I'm getting the repairing of an image down and just need more practice but my weakness is color in skin tones, color by number in curves in ok but I still can't get the skin tones to where I really want them.

Chris if your reading this please include some color correction tech. in your dvd.

[DiamondsDr47]

Agree to that "It all depend". First thing is what are you trying to achieve. Where you want to bring the image. Or what is client desire...Also want add the clothing is very important.
As for skin for example the image given by JavierT(Thanks!) i have used curves for general color balance and hue/sat for desat, but still was fixing the color shift with curves through retouching. Here is that link http://edgarmaivel.com/client/retouch.jpg
But for example when i work products i might do it with the curves(for color balance) and selective color and lab mode, landscape i like to do in lab mode(but first fix cb with curves).
Best regards,
Edgar

[cricket1961]

am swamped with work for the next week. I will try to contribute to this when I can. (If I remember) Getting back into my lack of sleep patterns.

Chris

[JavierT]

How do your color moves relate to print?
What workflow do you use to ensure colors and contrast
are within bounds/gamut. (talk about profiles, using RIPs,
UCR/GCR, calibration across devices, the whole can of
worms..)



I'm sure more questions will arise but that should get things
started no? [/QUOTE]

Hi Captain:

Sorry for my ignorance but, can you tell to me de meaning of UCR/GCR?

Thanks a lot.

[saby]

UCR: undercolor removal
GCR: gray component replacement


http://www.usink.com/acrobat/ucrgcr.pdf

[JavierT]

Originally Posted by saby

UCR: undercolor removal
GCR: gray component replacement


http://www.usink.com/acrobat/ucrgcr.pdf

Thanks Saby.

[Markzebra]

Thank the stars, a thread about something other that skin! In some situations the best (or as good as best) way to achieve certain massive shifts in color is in fact with Channel Mixer. Knowing where you are headed comes with knowing a bit about color theory, so its a dark art, but there comes a point where everyone needs the channel mixer.

[Hello_taipan]

Guys, just wanted to say i'm really glad to read your posts again. I have to say I got tired of these "Demystification of Mr or Mrs..." and it was months and months before something constructive were posted.
Thanks for coming back!

[CaptainHook]

Originally Posted by Markzebra

Thank the stars, a thread about something other that skin! In some situations the best (or as good as best) way to achieve certain massive shifts in color is in fact with Channel Mixer. Knowing where you are headed comes with knowing a bit about color theory, so its a dark art, but there comes a point where everyone needs the channel mixer.

I know it's a giant can of worms, but can you elaborate on how you
use the channel mixer this way?
What do you consider a massive shift in color?
Are you talking about basically re-coloring?

Can you give an example of a situation where you will use color theory
to dictate where you're headed, and how you get there?
I know that ain't easy, but i'm sure people will appreciate anymore
you can add.

[JavierT]

Originally Posted by CaptainHook

I know it's a giant can of worms, but can you elaborate on how you
use the channel mixer this way?
What do you consider a massive shift in color?
Are you talking about basically re-coloring?

Can you give an example of a situation where you will use color theory
to dictate where you're headed, and how you get there?
I know that ain't easy, but i'm sure people will appreciate anymore
you can add.

Captain, I remeber one pic I posted to retouch where yo got a nices skin color (sorry if that pic not have high res enough for you, I will post another, bigger).
That skin looks nice and you posted many moves you have done, but, may be you can post here de before and after and explain to us how you evaluated the pic and the moves you did, if it is possible. She looks grate, really. Thanks.

[CaptainHook]

JavierT ~ I appreciate the kind words, but i was kinda having fun playing 'interviewer'
so would rather keep firing out questions if that's okay.

Me harping on about some curves/gradient maps/etc prob won't lend much to the
discussion at this stage.

It would also be very easy to point out things i did that would be better
achieved with other methods. I was quite lazy with the D&B too. :P

To satisfy your curiousity though, i have put up the psd file for you to download.
I may have been lazy and not named layers so if so, i apologize but you should
be able to 'deconstruct' what i did from that.

PSD for Javier Pic

[JavierT]

Thanks Captain for the psd.

And don´t misunderstand me. It´s just a joke, really

[edgework]

Originally Posted by Markzebra

Thank the stars, a thread about something other that skin! In some situations the best (or as good as best) way to achieve certain massive shifts in color is in fact with Channel Mixer. Knowing where you are headed comes with knowing a bit about color theory, so its a dark art, but there comes a point where everyone needs the channel mixer.

Agree completely. Massive moves, or severe repair work on a damaged plate. But if a standard move is called for (say, increase magenta in the mid-tones) the Channel Mixer is so wrong in so many ways... Unfortunately, I still see it used this way by people who are supposed to be professionals.

[Markzebra]

No increasing magenta in your midtones matey, curves would obviously be your tool there.

Heres an example I have a car where the bodywork heavily saturated bright yellow, I need to change it to a dark red or black. Problem is the red channel in my cars bodywork is fragile and has no usable detail . Where do I get that detail from? I'll tell ya, Channel mixing my green and maybe some of my blue channel into it. No simple move will do the same thing, no shifting of the hue slider or hugely damaging contrast blowing curve will do it. Thats where color knowledge comes in, knowing beforehand what the channels in my dark red car will look like before I do it. Works in CMYK too for creating a stronger black channel for all sorts of things. Glad you asked

[CaptainHook]

Thanks Markzebra, i must play with this.

[bartjoosen]

Hi

I've been following this thread and the previous of which this one is a split-off with growing interest and learing more than a lot.

I'm wondering if anyone is interested to make a sort of an overview of the techniques that are mentioned in this threads, along with some workflow, ....
Don't misunderstand me, it's not I'm too lazy, I'm a volunteer to set the whole thing up, but before I do, I should know if its managable.

My target is to setup some website/document (maybe a tutorial on RetouchPRO?) that is accesible by anyone who wants to learn about retouching, and contains lot's of usefull tips, trick, techniques, ... a kind of a summary of the threads.

A lot of the techniques mentioned are new for me, so I'm not the person who should write a tutorial, but I will try to write down the whole thing if there is someone (like Chris for example) who is willing to read through it and correct if I'm going wrong.

Any more volunteers?


Bart

[Markzebra]

Isn't that a direct invitation for someone like Kelby to just lift the techniques off the forum, pretend he thought it all up, and write a book?

[CaptainHook]

Not to mention in my opinion, this has only just got started.

[bartjoosen]

Originally Posted by Markzebra

Isn't that a direct invitation for someone like Kelby to just lift the techniques off the forum, pretend he thought it all up, and write a book?

Oké, you are probably right.

[DiamondsDr47]

Reminds me the story with Gate's "windows".
And i think it's useless to ask someone for their workflow(unless you looking for steps). Since it their personal way to achieve results they (or client) want, the technique(actions) you can adopt to your workflow, but without understanding what exactly going one, it’s like just a plug-in.
Best regards,

[purpletofu]

This is a really broad topic that also takes a lot of work on the camera before you even use photoshop but here goes.
I would really like to learn how to get the crisp, dramatic colouring used in fashion photos be it a desaturated dreamy look, a popping colourful photo. There is something about the shawdoing and crispness in editorial fashion that I can't really explain, but would maybe like some more ideas on how to achieve those looks.