Show Me The Pores Baby, My D&B Attempts ERRGH!

[SteveB2005]

I have read many of the D&B tutorials, soft light layers, painting dark pixels with white and light pixels with black, with 3-5 pixel brushes, hardness 80 % and experiments with opacity. My results look nothing like what the pro retouchers are getting. I seem to be following the directions, but nothing is blending right.

If anyone has a link to another tutorial I might try out, please post it. I will post one of my results as soon as I "finish" it and maybe someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong and how to make it look right

Thanks, Steve

[shellby]

Don't use opacity - keep that on 100%

Use flow at about 4%

Use a grey layer on softlight.

use the dodge and burn tools on this grey layer using the flow to reduce opacity.

Don't only zoom right in - do dodge and burn zoomed out too.

[snook305]

I use it on a daily basis.
I use the softlight layer 50% grey methods with Brush white and black paint at usually around 5%.
You cannot go outside the area you are D o B ing.
Post an image I I'll show you.
It takes get used to but works wonders.
I don't like the other methods like 2 curves levels b/c I do not like to switch back and forth. I do the same thing basically with saturation. on a separate layer over saturated then mask it off and paint it back where I want. I have not see any other methods for saturation as of yet. Apart from the sponge tool on a separate layer?

I like to just press the x key and switch from white to black.
Snook

[SteveB2005]

Thanks Shelby, lot of experimentin' goin' on, I'll try that out

steve

[snook305]

Hey Shelby how are you...:+}
You beat me to it ..
I write slower..
Snook

[shellby]

ha ha - been away for a while - busy doing lots of shooting!

[shellby]

oh, don't forget to sharpen right at the end of your retouching. Keep it on a layer at the top. If you need to do further work, delete that layer - do your retouch then re-sharpen.

[mihhailov]

Guys, what grey layer you mean here ? I have read DB tutorial on this website and there were no info about grey layer - only 3 layers, 3 copies from original layer - one dodge, one burn and one with high contrast. I paint white on black mask on D and B layers but I keep getting some yellowish color coming. Maybe the grey layer is the answer to this problem ?

thank you in advance

[santajuana]

Shellby means a new empty layer (ctrl + shift+ n =PC) (cmd + shift + n =Mac), set its Mode to Soft Light and fill it with Soft-Light-neutral color (50% gray), that way you don't need 3 different layers.

[Cryspatus]

I did it the way that santajuana just explained it and I'm pleased with the results. I kept the opacity at 100% and used the dodge and burn tools at about 7%-12%. I spent a lot of time going back and hitting fade so that I could make sure my change matched the surrounding skin. Just try to find dark and light patches and try to match them to the overall skin. Keep doing that until there's nothing left. It took me about 2 hours, but I'm really happy with it.

[nadeena]

i didnt understand the grey layer can u explain it with any picture plzz
best regards
nadeen

[santajuana]

there you have the images, tell us if you don't undestand something.

BRegards,
Silvia

[Cryspatus]

Originally Posted by nadeena

i didnt understand the grey layer can u explain it with any picture plzz
best regards
nadeen

After duplicating the background layer, I added a vector mask and filled the mask with 50% gray (edit>fill). After that it's as easy as lightening up the dark spots to match the skin and darknening the light spots. You only want to make them as dark/light as the overall skin obviously. I found going to edit>fade after using the dodge/burn tool was useful because sometimes you go overboard without even realizing it. I used 7-12% exposure. Here are my results so far

before:
http://i36.tinypic.com/5vd6ja.jpg

after:
http://i35.tinypic.com/6du690.jpg

You can see that the dark spots are slightly lighter and the light spots are slightly darker if you look at each picture. Thats all you have to do and it should work for you

[SteveB2005]

Nice model for this knowledge!
steve