high end skin retouching

[bandenk]

Hello masters of retouchers..
sorry for my english....

First off all i want to thank this incredible forum for the existence and all the nice people in it..

The question is (obviously) about skin retouching...
in some threads i have read that most of the pros don't use blur to retouch the skin (skin smoothing) so then what do they use? (degrunge? isn't that bluring too?)

Thanks to the free RAW a while ago i got my first experience with high resolution image and it helps me to see the detail of the skin structure (turns out that medium format cameras help to show the details.. ofcourse) so is it part of the photography too, to preserve (show) skin texture? (good glass, large formats?)

working with large formats picture is amazing... and an out of topic question.. how is it to define where the highlights are and shadows are? and what techniques? is it D&B on 50% grey? curves? tried them... but need some tips... and some highend retouch boost up colors and its somewhat so smooth and clean.. is it the noise reduced? (noise ninja? or other plug ins?)

sorry for the blabbering question.. these has been on my mind for ever since... thank you again for the reply....

[Markzebra]

"how is it to define where the highlights are and shadows are?"…you need taste. And generally if it ain't broke, don't fix it

[ray12]

Hi bandenk,

To locate the highlights in the image you can use the adjustment layer called "Threshold". Threshold will show you where the lightest and darkest existing areas are in the picture. You can then use this light and dark area and the blur command and softlight to put the highlights back in the picture or to expand them.

Beyond locating where the existing highlights are...you can look for a subject called "Facial Contouring" on Google. You can especially look at some of the girl makeup sites for videos that show you where they apply lightener and blush and shadow areas to get a more contoured or sculpted high-end fashion look.

Generally areas of the face that are nearest to you get the highlight treatment...the forehead, a stripe down the center of the nose, the area above the cheeks and under the eyes and then the chin. The areas that get the darker skin color are the areas of the face that are furthest from you...around the edges of the forehead, eqch side of the nose, under the apples of the cheeks, and along the jawbone.

Just like you would take a 2D solid circle and turn it into a 3D realistically shaded sphere is what you are doing...you are creating specular highlights and an edge shadow to get that feeling of depth...study a fine art book on how to draw 3D objects using shading...it will tell you exactly how to think, visualize and draw a good looking countoured image using just a 2D space.