Problems with bad skin

[mistermonday]

Cuervo, I find that for D&B, using a 50% gray layer set to soft light tends to make changes less dramatically than dark and light curves. The curves tend to reduce the tone difference between the light and dark areas better but that seems to make it easier to remove all the texture more easily. I spent a little time on your image using a soft light gray layer and found I had plenty of texture left, perhaps too much. Not sure if this is heading in the direction that you like.
Regards, Murray

[Cuervo79]

As I mentioned, I don't use curves layres for D&B, I use solid color layers. I'm almost finished with the photo I'll post it so you can see the end results....
When using soft light on the layer you're using for D&B I increase the opacity and flow (I use a range from 5 to 45 % in opacity and 5 to 20 % in flow) I found that If I was working with lighten and darken using those opacities on the brush resulted in very little control you quickly turned anything really dark or white. That is what Mr. Tarantino was talking about in the article 0ldbaldy posted, you get more control with soft light. Although sometimes the work gets slower.

[mistermonday]

Cuervo, sorry, I forgot to point out that I use colored light and dark brushes on the softlight grey layer. I save brush presets as I work. I prefer to that that than to have a number of extra layers and the larger file size.
Regards, Murray

[Cuervo79]

I'm a control freak so to me even though its a bit of work changing from one layer to the other I prefer that when I need it I can change the opacity of just a certain layer, or like what happened here I just started from scratch but because the problem was with the fine details of the dodge layer I kept the work I did with the fine details of the burn layer and the "broader" details on the other dodge layer. If I had all in one layer I would of had to start from scratch with everything...

[Cuervo79]

OK here's the final image.... I still removed quite allot of texture but left some in so it doesn't look too blurred...

The original http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/att...2&d=1249329369

[mistermonday]

Cuervo, you've done a wonderful job!
Regards, Murray

[Cuervo79]

Thanx for the compliment, I feel I need to start learning a bit of drawing so I can give contour with shadows and highlights, I sometimes devoid volume from the stuff I'm retouching... Anyway this one's finished but there are 15 still to go from the session :s hahahaha

[alshaiji]

Hello All

After reading most o the comments I wanted to see how hard can this retouch be

I figured some cloning with the modeset to lighten and the opacity of the brush to the 70 ish % shouldgive youa nice job.

here is what I got

Before & After

alshaiji

[Cuervo79]

mmm I'll stick to D&B in your after there's still some stuff I define as bad skin...

[mikedimples]

I thought I'd take a stab at this one using my dreaded "frequency separation" technique. Before/after GIF here:

http://a7.vox.com/6a0110184cd071860f01101641d29f860b-pi

First I separated the frequencies into low (coarse detail), and high (fine detail). Details on how to do this found here: http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=439098

On the course detail layer (low frequency) I smoothed the skin tones with the brush tool set to lighten, darken, luminosity, and color.

I cloned away the eye-catching pores and wrinkles on the fine detail (high frequency layer), making a HUGE mistake. For quite some time, my cloning was set at lighten mode. I didn't even realize! I don't have a super-computer, so I have limited my history states and was unable to undo it. Surprisingly, it didn't end up looking too bad. If you've got a sharp enough eye you'll be able to spot the cloning areas done with lighten mode (especially in the under-eye wrinkles found beneath the inner-corner of her eye).

I noticed that the cheek was comprised mostly of low frequency data, so I added a 20% opacity layer of gaussian noise (amount 18) and used the blending sliders to fade the highlights. I then masked it out and painted it into the areas that were missing texture onto the low frequency layer.

I stamped the layers, then did some fun enhancements, dodged and burned noticeable dark/light spots, darkened eyeliner, and adjusted the color balance.

I split the frequencies again, applying a small sharpening to the low frequency layer and convolution sharpening (low radius high amount) to the high frequency layer.

By the way, when you posted the dodge and burn layers my jaw hit the floor. Like the others, I was certain it was blurred. You're really incredible! I love how you divided the detail amounts into separate layers. I'm guessing that's how you were able to do it so precisely; you were devoting 100% concentration to limited detail ranges. Great technique!

[Cuervo79]

Well its not that hard to dissolve the texture this particular kind of skin. I'm working on a new photo of the same session and I'm having almost the same problems as the one I posted in this thread. the thing is that in this example and the photo I'm working with you can see different skin textures in the face, for example in the photo I posted in this thread, below the eyelid texture there's one type of skin texture that gradually changes to the BIG pores you can see in the original. What I'm doing now is trying to make the pores a bit visible but not so much as they attract attention to themselves (if that makes any sense)... Anyway thanx for the explanation, I still find in your after image allot of "bad" skin texture that I hid in my final image....

[mikedimples]

I think you may have the wrong idea about retouching. The point isn't to remove every-single unflattering detail, but to make the unflattering details work together. You should sit back, pretend you are viewing your image for the first time, and let your eye travel naturally. What's the path it's taking?

Generally on standard beauty shots (pretend the model is looking straight at the camera) you want something like this:
-eyes, mouth, nose, hair, along the shape of the face, maybe down to the shoulders, then back to the eyes.

As long as the picture flows smoothly, without your eye getting "caught" on a blemish, detail should be retained as much as possible; lack of texture (created by removing too much texture or where no texture was present to begin with) CAN become "snags," like it did in your original retouch.

No texture is as bad as too much. Look at your original, again from a new viewers perspective, and where is the first spot your eye gets "caught?" Remove that item. Now check again, what's the next snag? I think your mistake is that you're starting in one area, and removing every single detail there is while you expand your "retouched zone."

I completely agree with you that there's way too much unflattering detail left in my retouch, especially if it were to be printed in an ad somewhere at just that crop. I assumed it was part of a larger image, was I mistaken?

[Cuervo79]

Yep its part of a larger image, I do understand what you're saying but I just don't like those big F@kin pores! lol the main problem is the model's skin, she's younger than me and she has almost the same big pore skin as me lol....

[mikedimples]

You could always use Portraiture to pulverize the texture.

[Cuervo79]

LOL you know what I probably should haahahahahahaha (kidding) , its pretty tricky to judge what is "good" and what is "bad" skin texture I bet it took you 5 mins or less with portraiture to get something similar to my "hours" D&B final. I'm thinking its the friking big pores, since I'm not having as much problem with other kind of skin texture. In the new photo I'm retouching it has less big pores and more of another kind of texture, and while I'm still having trouble with the big pore section, the other is going A OK without the blurred look.
Do you recommend any examples as to where to base one's judgment on "good" and "bad" skin texture?

[mikedimples]

It really depends on the size of the image. You need to evaluate what needs to be done while looking at the full image at 100%. If you were to do most of the retouching while zoomed in further, the skin will look too plastic once you zoom out. Here's a good example of good skin:

http://www.nataliataffarel.com/light.html

Notice that if you were to zoom in and only view the area around her eye, you probably wouldn't be happy with how it looked. At 100%, it's perfection. This was a dodge and burn retouch by Godmother.

[Cuervo79]

well that's the problem with these images, since there are a couple of Macro shots, the 100% zoom you still see just pores in the screen, you've got to zoom out to 25% to see the image completely at 50% you still can't see it all, and at those percentages the detail dissolves anyway.
I'll have to talk to Natalia again hopefully she'll respond LOL...

[mikedimples]

Weird, I didn't even notice your newer version of the retouch. It looks fantastic! All my advice was aimed at your original retouch. You don't need my help at all and could probably teach me a thing or two!

[Cuervo79]

LOL OK, thanx for the compliment

[freddie]

I know this is an old thread. However, it has a lot of good information in it.

I am very new to retouching. Matter of fact, its been just over a month since I've started. I've been reading many different tutorials and techniques about skin smoothing, and have tried doing various alterations to these methods to find something that is both efficient, yet that also preserves the texture. Of course, dodging and burning is the ultimate method to use to preserve the maximum amount of texture... but it is a very long and tedious process.

I took the original photo, and have applied my latest method (perhaps insanity) to it. Its sort of a blend of frequency separation, altered form of degrudging, and a false dodge and burn method. It took me about 45 minutes to produce this from the original photograph. There's no sense going over the exact method now... I just wanted to hear from some of the more experienced retouchers what they thought about the quality of this image. If its worth a damn, I'll go ahead and post the methods used. If not, I'd like to know what can be improved, so I can crawl back under the rock I came from until my next try.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/8...dieretouch.jpg

[mistermonday]

Freddie, nice try but it looks like a uniform blur with a back-down of opacity. The uniformity and the blurriness is quite prominent. This might do for some applications but definitely not high end beauty work. Like everything you need to make a "time vs return" decision.
Regards, Murray

[Boneappetit]

Originally Posted by Cuervo79

Thanx for the compliment, I feel I need to start learning a bit of drawing so I can give contour with shadows and highlights, I sometimes devoid volume from the stuff I'm retouching... Anyway this one's finished but there are 15 still to go from the session :s hahahaha

Would be interesting if you write 1 post, for each and every one of those 15 works left... LOL (Buen trabajo Cuervo, eres un profesional)

[freddie]

Thanks Murray. Your honesty is very much appreciated.

If you don't mind, could you also take a quick peek at this one? (Or anybody else for that matter.) I assure you, no blur was used at all. Oh, and no messing with the opacity whatsoever.

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/795/orgtry2.jpg

[mistermonday]

Freddie, see partial markup attached. It's better than your 1st one but a lot of work yet to do. Main cooments as follows:
- My 1st high level comment is you did not replace texture where it needed to be replaced. Look at the spots I circled and numbered 1 and then 2. On 1, you seem to have partially covered it and left the two dots in the center. The area around circle 2 looks blurred or partly dodged over. There are a few other examples. When you encounter texture anomalies like zits, bumps, etc you should clone / heal good texture over them instead of hiding or dodging / burning them.
- You seemed to have done a lot of dodging but not much burning. I circled a few spots but there are a ton of them particularly on the right side which were to bright and should have been burned. There are a few very bright spots that were not touched at all.
- If you zoom in to the lines under the eye you will see pink on the edges of a lot of most of them. They were in the original. After you dodge you should color correct them. There are some other random colors that need to be painted over on a color adjustment layer.
- Lower right arae of the image still looks a littel too pitted and grungy.
Please don't feel too bad. This image of C79's is one of the best examples of really bad skin and a retoucher's challenge. Definitely not recommended as an early retouching challenge and a lot of work to clean it up.
Regards, Murray