Highend skin retouch problem

[JamesP]

Hello RetouchPRO

I'm a pro photographer and used to hang out here a while back.

A few days ago I shot some beauty shots where the makeup artist used a different way of "highlight" for the skin of the model - this combined with my choice of lighting really has brought some unpleasant details in the skin that I cannot seem to get rid of (i.e. in a realistic, yet of course "beautyshot" way).

I have attached a crop of the photo here. A hires crop is here : http://rapidshare.com/files/21265564...09347.jpg.html . I really appreciate any help, pointers, links and solutions. Thank you.

[dennisonb]

Hey man, I'm also a pro photographer and I know your pain on this one. It's a special sort of shimmer stuff which is essentially ultra fine grain sparkly stuff.

In my opinion, there is nothing you can really do to 'get rid' of this. You should just try to work round it. Dodge and Burn technique is the only retouch technique that can handle this one (with some noise on top). Think of it, essentially that shine is just the reflection of the flash, so in a way, each tiny pixel is a direct mirror reflection of the flash tube/light source. So there is no detail there that you can bring back, instead just find a way to even it out with Dodge and burn.

Do you have a full file to show? Cheers!

-dennison
www.dennisonbertram.com

[skauskas]

I had the same problem with this photo
http://skauskas.deviantart.com/art/P...hing-104675257

it's mainly D&B but takes longer then usually After D&B, in some parts where the pores are too visible just use tiny size clone tool, 80-90% opacity, soft brush and clone those pores pointwise

[madclark]

Do Select>Color Range using white as your foreground color at about 100+. Then fill with a midtone skin color. It makes the skin much less contrasted and shiny without losing the light.

[igot2pman]

Originally Posted by madclark

Do Select>Color Range using white as your foreground color at about 100+. Then fill with a midtone skin color. It makes the skin much less contrasted and shiny without losing the light.

very good advice, being oily sucks...

to add to it, if you cannot make a good selection, you can just paint over it.

-Keven

[madclark]

Yeah painting over would work too. Again choose a midtone skin color and use a soft brush in darken mode.

[des151]

JamesP,
I gave this a try,not sure if this is good enough. I used a threshold adj. layer to make my selection. Filled the selection with sampled skin color on its own layer, then add a curves adj. layer.
Ray

[KR1156]

madclark gave you a great suggestion to minimize the greasy shine....that is a very important step. many time you will still be directed to minimize the bumps though...my only advice to you...get in tight, very small...and TAKE YOUR TIME and reduce it little by little with whatever method you chose...d&b, cloning...etc. you want highend,,,gotta work for it. avoid all the quick fixes that are sure to be offered!!

[Beluca]

Hi, heres my quick fix (to the right):
1) Inverted black and white gradient map in soft light mode, "blend if" and opacity adjustments.
2) Luminosity masking
3) Some curve adjustments

[madclark]

That's a very elegant solution Beluca! Thanks for sharing.

See there's always at least more than one way to do something in Photoshop!

[holgaman]

Hi James,
I tried a surface blur with a radius of 17 and 15 levels. Then I took a 20% brush set to darken and sampled skin near the lighter areas and just kept painting over everything until it looked OK. You can go a bit higher with the brush opacity if it's building up too slow. Also, resample in different areas to match the skin color.