*Portraits Retouching Learning thread*

[Tareq]

Hi friends,

i know there are plenty of threads with same idea, but i decided to make this to be more useful, so if some think it is not then just don't post, and if some don't want to share it is ok, no push or force.

So i hope people post there samples and post the retouch and pp processing and steps, we all would like t learn, and if some want to keep his secret tips then no need to share his works here.

So let's see what you people can show and teach us, i will start.

My daughter, original shot [I did little pp by DPP before converted to TIFF, but not a big difference anyway]
http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/6519/img1qz2.jpg

===================
Here is the first pp or retouch
http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/2255/img2wg7.jpg

The steps:
- Healing brush for blemish and so
- Applied Noise Ninja
- Curve [S shape]
- Saturation [+10] to add little warmth to the skin
- Applied USM [60, 0.6, 0]

==============
Second retouch:
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/36/img3pl6.jpg

The steps:
- Healing brush
- Applied Flawless Skin Action [do your adjustments as you like, i keep all same values with nothing changed]
- Create Layer
- Applied Gaussian Blur filter [value = 4 (optional)]
- Change the layer mode to Soft light, and set the opacity to 50% [My taste]
- Flatten Image [to merge the layers with background to be one layer]
- Add levels [set the mid-tone or gray to 1.10]
- Applied USM [60, 0.6, 0]


The sample is not that great maybe, but i only have my daughter shot to work on, and i will keep learning, and also if someone can do any pp better than what i did then it will be my pleasure if he can try on my daughter shot

5D, 24-105L, one light with octabox as main and 42" reflector as fill, no hair or background light.


Tareq

[edgework]

Cute kid.

First pass

•Plate blends for contrast. (Didn't do much and could have been eliminated.)
•Healing brush for imperfections.
•Smoothing based on these two articles, HERE and AND HERE courtesy of byRo.
•Two sharpening procedures via Dan Margulis' Professional Photoshop: HIRALOAM and splitting highlights and shadows.
•D&B to enhance face contours
•Blurred softlight layer, desaturated,
•Highlight/Shadow
•Lightened eyes, created new catchlights
•Removed some cracking from lips
•Final D&B to smooth any remaining blotchiness.

[Tareq]

WOW, great job., thanks!
I think i will spend weeks or months just to know your steps, i don't know these at all because the most things i don't know at all in photoshop are layers masking and blending and D&B, there are another things but i think those are most important to know first.

[snook305]

Edgework good work, Might help people as the thread is about retocuhing only if maybe you could post a PSD with all your layers so people can see how it looks in "reality"
Just a thought and might help some newbies...:+}
You have anymore references about Dans HIRALOAM technique? Are you sharpening for shadows and highlights seperately?

Snook

[Tareq]

Originally Posted by snook305

Edgework good work, Might help people as the thread is about retocuhing only if maybe you could post a PSD with all your layers so people can see how it looks in "reality"
Just a thought and might help some newbies...:+}
You have anymore references about Dans HIRALOAM technique? Are you sharpening for shadows and highlights seperately?

Snook

+10000000 agree, only by this i can see and know what you did, otherwise i will keep searching about your steps for long time.

[edgework]

The layer file wouldn't do much good. Settings are always image specific. Better to get a feel for the processes and figure out how apply to whatever your situation. I don't have a set workflow; it's more like Try A, try B, try C and see how things are working out.

SHARPENING
HIRALOAM: Dan calls it HIgh RAdius LOw AMount, which says how it's done, but I didn't get it, until I saw the same technique referred to as local contrast, which describes the result. I start with Unsharp Mask with the amount jacked up to 500, and then I adjust the radius until I get a nice haloing around all the areas. Then pull the amount down to a reasonable level. For this image an amount of 30 and a radius of 7 does a nice job of separating objects from their immediate background without wrecking everything with global curves.

The other approach I used works on the highlights and shadows separately, and is also based on a version from an early edition of Dan's book. Set the amount low, somewhere between .75 and 1.5, and then increase the amount until you have a definite over-sharpened effect with white halos all over the place. (If your amount gets to 150 and it's not significantly oversharpened, increase the radius). Then dupe this sharpened layer, set one to lighten, one to darken, reduce the opacity of the lighten channel to 50%, group both layers together and lower the overall opacity to anywhere between 30% and 60%. Play with these settings for maximum effect. I grouped both set of sharpened layers and then lowered to 70%. Looking at it now, I probably could back off the sharpening a little more.

CONTRAST
Sometimes this can create a more dramatic lighting effect. Copy the blue, green and red channels each to separate layers. Start with blue=luminosity or multiply @30%; green=soft light @60%; red = overlay @ whatever seems right. Raise or lower the three channels until you get an effect you like. This will plug the shadows, so copy everthing to a new layer and run the Shadow/highlight filter to bring back shadow detail. Then you probably should copy the original layer on top, in color mode at 50%, since the layer blends desaturate the tones. Sometimes the result is striking. In this image it didn't do much.

SMOOTHING
Read the linked articles. Anything by Ro (is it Ro, or byRo? Never could be sure) is worth reading. If you've used his degrunge technique, these articles are the underlying principals that make it work, and show the full-blown version. I usually use 6 High-Pass layers. Most high res images can work using a max radius of 20, and incrementally reducing down to 1 or .5 for the radius. Very low opacity for large radius layers, higher for the fine detail.

For the blur layer, make a good skin mask with eyes, lips, hair and clothes blacked out, and use that mask with Lens blur to avoid the dark pixel bleed that you'll always get with Gaussian Blur.

Then group all the layers and use the same mask as a group mask. Paint around the edges of the eyes, lips and edges of the face to reduce haloing. Pull the group opacity back to around 70%.

RETOUCHING HAIR
No quick fix. Small radius healing brush, one hair at a time. Sorry.

RETOUCHING SKIN
See above

D&B
For face contours: been discussed to death. I use Overlay mode (sometimes Soft Light, sometimes both) with the darkest face shadow and lightest face highlight. Low opacity, big soft brush. One layer, flip from dark to light with the "X" key. No need to fill with grey, it has no effect. Keeping your strokes to one layer guarantees that a lighten or darken stroke will actually have the effect you're looking for, without other layers interfering.

For imperfection correction: I use a Hard Light layer and a brush at 5%, pressure sensitive of course. Small radius, slightly smaller than the artifacts you're working on. White and black, or sampled tones from the skin, whichever works best. One layer.

EYES
When they're plugged up this bad, I'll fill with white in softlight mode and trim with a mask; that'll bring out the detail. You might need to darken the pupil again. Clone out the catchlights. Add a lighter, more saturated version of the iris color with small, low opacity strokes in overlay mode to enhance the texture of the iris. Build new catchlight artifacts and position.

SOFT LIGHT BLUR
Copy everything to a new layer, desaturate, blur enough to soften all the edges, set to soft light. Dupe everything to a new layer, run Shadow/Highlight, set to luminosity mode and opacity setting to taste. Sometimes it gives a nice result, sometimes it's forgettable. I left it in here.

All this duping to new layers can probably be eliminated by smart filters in CS3 and CS4. I'm a dinosaur and old habits die hard.

The Rule of 70: Any move you make will probably look better the next day if you pull it back to 70%.

I think that's about it.

[Tareq]

Originally Posted by edgework

The layer file wouldn't do much good. Settings are always image specific. Better to get a feel for the processes and figure out how apply to whatever your situation. I don't have a set workflow; it's more like Try A, try B, try C and see how things are working out.

SHARPENING
HIRALOAM: Dan calls it HIgh RAdius LOw AMount, which says how it's done, but I didn't get it, until I saw the same technique referred to as local contrast, which describes the result. I start with Unsharp Mask with the amount jacked up to 500, and then I adjust the radius until I get a nice haloing around all the areas. Then pull the amount down to a reasonable level. For this image an amount of 30 and a radius of 7 does a nice job of separating objects from their immediate background without wrecking everything with global curves.

The other approach I used works on the highlights and shadows separately, and is also based on a version from an early edition of Dan's book. Set the amount low, somewhere between .75 and 1.5, and then increase the amount until you have a definite over-sharpened effect with white halos all over the place. (If your amount gets to 150 and it's not significantly oversharpened, increase the radius). Then dupe this sharpened layer, set one to lighten, one to darken, reduce the opacity of the lighten channel to 50%, group both layers together and lower the overall opacity to anywhere between 30% and 60%. Play with these settings for maximum effect. I grouped both set of sharpened layers and then lowered to 70%. Looking at it now, I probably could back off the sharpening a little more.

CONTRAST
Sometimes this can create a more dramatic lighting effect. Copy the blue, green and red channels each to separate layers. Start with blue=luminosity or multiply @30%; green=soft light @60%; red = overlay @ whatever seems right. Raise or lower the three channels until you get an effect you like. This will plug the shadows, so copy everthing to a new layer and run the Shadow/highlight filter to bring back shadow detail. Then you probably should copy the original layer on top, in color mode at 50%, since the layer blends desaturate the tones. Sometimes the result is striking. In this image it didn't do much.

SMOOTHING
Read the linked articles. Anything by Ro (is it Ro, or byRo? Never could be sure) is worth reading. If you've used his degrunge technique, these articles are the underlying principals that make it work, and show the full-blown version. I usually use 6 High-Pass layers. Most high res images can work using a max radius of 20, and incrementally reducing down to 1 or .5 for the radius. Very low opacity for large radius layers, higher for the fine detail.

For the blur layer, make a good skin mask with eyes, lips, hair and clothes blacked out, and use that mask with Lens blur to avoid the dark pixel bleed that you'll always get with Gaussian Blur.

Then group all the layers and use the same mask as a group mask. Paint around the edges of the eyes, lips and edges of the face to reduce haloing. Pull the group opacity back to around 70%.

RETOUCHING HAIR
No quick fix. Small radius healing brush, one hair at a time. Sorry.

RETOUCHING SKIN
See above

D&B
For face contours: been discussed to death. I use Overlay mode (sometimes Soft Light, sometimes both) with the darkest face shadow and lightest face highlight. Low opacity, big soft brush. One layer, flip from dark to light with the "X" key. No need to fill with grey, it has no effect. Keeping your strokes to one layer guarantees that a lighten or darken stroke will actually have the effect you're looking for, without other layers interfering.

For imperfection correction: I use a Hard Light layer and a brush at 5%, pressure sensitive of course. Small radius, slightly smaller than the artifacts you're working on. White and black, or sampled tones from the skin, whichever works best. One layer.

EYES
When they're plugged up this bad, I'll fill with white in softlight mode and trim with a mask; that'll bring out the detail. You might need to darken the pupil again. Clone out the catchlights. Add a lighter, more saturated version of the iris color with small, low opacity strokes in overlay mode to enhance the texture of the iris. Build new catchlight artifacts and position.

SOFT LIGHT BLUR
Copy everything to a new layer, desaturate, blur enough to soften all the edges, set to soft light. Dupe everything to a new layer, run Shadow/Highlight, set to luminosity mode and opacity setting to taste. Sometimes it gives a nice result, sometimes it's forgettable. I left it in here.

All this duping to new layers can probably be eliminated by smart filters in CS3 and CS4. I'm a dinosaur and old habits die hard.

The Rule of 70: Any move you make will probably look better the next day if you pull it back to 70%.

I think that's about it.

Thank you very much
My head is up now so i will read it another time when i am more relaxed, and i will see what you can do with another shot better.

[chal]

Hi.
A nice tutorial,always rewady to learn more things.
regards.
charles

[StormFX]

Thank you very much Edgework! Very detailed and interesting answer. Some new approaches here.

Best!

Steve