Your opinion on D&B Please

[fotogen]

Thank you all for posting your opinions on my previous post.
This is my 3rd D&B retouching, I used to do "healing" for skin work and lost texture.
It took 5 hours of D&B. Can you please give me your opinion? Can it be improved?

I'd like to get rid of the peach-fuzz hair below the ear, what is the best tool to do this? Healing does not give realistic results.

Image Photographed by me. The model is a beautiful young lady but was under stress before the shoot and broke out really bad. The shoot had to still go on.

http://www.pbase.com/fotogen/image/122366721/original

Thank You all
Hadi

[flexmanta]

The skin looks great. You're doing it already. Now, the healing, cloning and d&b should not only be limited to the skin. There's a lot of work to be done with that hair. Mainly, get rid of all the hairs that don't follow the main direction. You will be surprised by how much a photo gains when the hair is perfect. For the peach fuzz, try cloning on a pixel level, and then d&b. Some people do this kind of cloning stetting the brush to darken, sampling and painting over the same sampled area but with an offset of a couple pixels. That way the brush will only paint only where the target is lighter. I don't like that technique because if you look closely, you can even count the hairs and i don't see a reason why not to target each one individually. D&B after cloning is a must.

[fotogen]

flexmanta,
Thank you for your valuable input. By the hair that are not going the same direction, do you mean the strands above the ear? Can you please point me to the area's you mean?

Thank you again

[flexmanta]

This might explain.

[fotogen]

Originally Posted by flexmanta

This might explain.

Thank u very much, is this done with D&B?

[flexmanta]

Mainly cloning.

[flexmanta]

Originally Posted by fotogen

I used to do "healing" for skin work and lost texture.

Let me clarify something. Cloning and healing are still the main steps for retouching any image. If you are losing texture then you are doing it wrong. Use small brushes, at 100% opacity. Sample correctly and heal only the imperfections. Healing and cloning should not be used with a big brush over a large area of skin.

If you want to take it further, do a split, as in frequency separation. Then clone and heal only the high frequency layer.

So, first you clone or heal imperfections in detail, and then you dodge and burn.

[fotogen]

Originally Posted by flexmanta

If you want to take it further, do a split, as in frequency separation. Then clone and heal only the high frequency layer.

I never understood the frequency separation thing. Are you saying that I should do a high pass on the image and clone/heal on that layer? Isn't that layer all Grey? How do I heal on this layer and do I merge it back into the image once done?

Thanks again for your help
Hadi

[flexmanta]

No, dont use the high pass filter, it gets confused with pure black and pure white... quick steps.

-Mode RGB 16 bits.
-Make 3 copies of the main layer (copy A, B and C... C being on top).
-Leave A as it is.
-Gaussian blur B (radius till you dont see any more fine texture)
-Select layer C, image -> apply image... source layer B, invert, mode add, scale 2, offset 0. Set layer C to linear light, opacity 100%.

Now you got 3 layers. A = B + C.
Layer B contains low frequency (large stuff, color...). Layer C contains high frequency (skin texture, little color). Retouch each one independently as needed.

[fotogen]

Originally Posted by flexmanta

No, dont use the high pass filter, it gets confused with pure black and pure white... quick steps.

-Mode RGB 16 bits.
-Make 3 copies of the main layer (copy A, B and C... C being on top).
-Leave A as it is.
-Gaussian blur B (radius till you dont see any more fine texture)
-Select layer C, image -> apply image... source layer B, invert, mode add, scale 2, offset 0. Set layer C to linear light, opacity 100%.

Now you got 3 layers. A = B + C.
Layer B contains low frequency (large stuff, color...). Layer C contains high frequency (skin texture, little color). Retouch each one independently as needed.

I will try this, thank you for detail explaination

[Quantum3]

Try the Splitting as much times as possible, 'cause that's the right way to clone. You can also copy texture and not the luminance with this technique.

The skin looks pretty nice, really. What I see as something that needs to be removed is the eye veins in the right eye, there is a very visible patch of veins there.

Very good job you did. Keep improving!

[mistermonday]

A warning / reminder regarding working on a High Frequency layer is probably in order here. It is important to realize that A=B+C (Orig = Gaussian Blur + High Pass) applies at the pixel level. There is a unique relationship between the pixels on this pair of layers. As soon as you alter a pixel on either layer, the relationship no longer exists and A no longer equals B+C. Visually this may not be very noticeable or it may be very much so depending on what you do. Some people choose to treat these two layers as texture and color / tone. In fact, while the High Freq layer appears to be almost all gray, it is not. It is made up of lots of detailed edges with lots of colors surrounded by gray. The colors are adjacent to other colors which are low in contrast to itself but there is a lot of color information in that HF layer. You can get away with using the healing brush on that layer without creating too much of a mess. However, be very cautious when cloning as you can be introducing a lot of color polutioninto your target area.
Fotogen, you've done a great job on that skin.
Regards, Murray

[Der_W]

Originally Posted by mistermonday

However, be very cautious when cloning as you can be introducing a lot of color polutioninto your target area.

That's why I always suggest using another copy of the original on "Color"-mode above all these layers.
Using the Desaturate-command on the B+C-layers and fading it to "Hue"-mode will eliminate the color from those layers and keep it all safe on the topmost layer (the fading is important because otherwise desaturating will change the luminosity as well).
However sometimes that's quite annoying because every time you heal a large red spot on the high layer, you have to fix the color on the Color-layer as well.

But that's not the discussion here ;-)
Apart from getting the hair a little cleaned up, I'd also suggest you to remove the hair on the arm and cheeks, removing some veins in her left eye and fixing her left eyebrow (tidying it up that is).
Very good job so far!

[mistermonday]

Jonas, at some point we need to apply a sanity check before working on a particular image. The whole point of Frequency Separation is to save time in the project, particularly when a lot of repair work needs to be done on the HF layer. The downside is that you now have a destructive flow compared to the traditional separate Clone/Heal layer. Sometimes the old traditional processes are still the best way to go.
Fotogen, good luck with the rest of the retouch. I am sure it will turn out as good a job as you've done with the skin.
Regards, Murray

[Flashtones]

What is the downside to just desaturating the hi freq layer?

I get that there may no longer be an exact mathematical equivalency to the original (IOW, A would no longer be the exact equivalent of B+C) but in the small testing I've done that difference was undetectable to my eye (which could be a limitation of my eye, but I did score 100% on the X-riteg color accuracy test. http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77)

Point being, is it not advantageous to isolate color from texture in this technique, and cannot whatever changes occur from a desaturation of the hi freq layer (if visible at all) be compensated for with a minor curve tweak?

[Flashtones]

Or possibly better yet, setting the hi freq layer to luminosity blend mode via a smart object?

[Flashtones]

I have a feeling someone is going to tell me that you can't clone on a smart object. The process would be:

1) create the hi freq layer as a smart object
2) double click the SO thumbnail to open it, run apply image on it, set the blend mode to luminosity and save the changes to the smart object
3) set the layer mode to linear light
4) rasterize SO.

[mistermonday]

Flashtones, try playing with the attached zipped psd file. Two colors, one edge, frequency split. A simplified exaggeration to demonstrate what happens on an image when you disturb the relationship between the GB and HP layers. Try to heal and clone from a solid color to a section of the line. See the difference between heal and clone. Healing has a lot more forgiveness than cloning. See what happens when you desaturate the HP layer. Yes you can convert HF to SO and and clone / heal and come back. Same results, but just slows down and complicates the process.
I do use Freq Separation but not always - depends on the image. And it is important to keep into perspective what is really is that you are physically working with on that pair of layers.
Regards, Murray

[Flashtones]

Originally Posted by mistermonday

Flashtones, try playing with the attached zipped psd file. Two colors, one edge, frequency split. A simplified exaggeration to demonstrate what happens on an image when you disturb the relationship between the GB and HP layers. Try to heal and clone from a solid color to a section of the line. See the difference between heal and clone. Healing has a lot more forgiveness than cloning. See what happens when you desaturate the HP layer. Yes you can convert HF to SO and and clone / heal and come back. Same results, but just slows down and complicates the process.
I do use Freq Separation but not always - depends on the image. And it is important to keep into perspective what is really is that you are physically working with on that pair of layers.
Regards, Murray

I see, more complicated than I thought. That's why they pay you guys the big bucks. ;-)

[fotogen]

Thank You everyone for your help and comments.
I watched a video that was available via download on this forum. I am not really sure who the instructor was. It was Free and had Indian music over it and had two parts to it, Part 1 was hair and Part 2 was skin. I don't have the link to it any longer but have watched it a few times already. Excellent video. That is the first time I learned how to do D&B on an image.
The instructor however does not do frequency separation, am I correct?

Thank You
Hadi

[Der_W]

The video is from Natalie (http://nienna1990.deviantart.com/journal/28623923/) and no, she didn't use frequency separation.
As Murray said, it's just a technique to speed up your workflow, if it isn't necessary, you don't have to use it.

[fotogen]

Originally Posted by Der_W

The video is from Natalie (http://nienna1990.deviantart.com/journal/28623923/) and no, she didn't use frequency separation.
As Murray said, it's just a technique to speed up your workflow, if it isn't necessary, you don't have to use it.

Thank you for your reply. I don't actually use "separation frequnecy" method. I do very little healing in my new work flow, the past 3 images that I have done. Most of the skin work is done with D&B. The key for me is the "tools" layers that converts the image to a very contrasty B&W so I can see all the imperfections in the skin. I change the contrast of this "tool" by adjusting the curve so I can see other areas of the skin, such as the dark shadows though out my the skin work.
I do love the results. I get the B&W contrasty image with the "tool" layer ON is flaw less, so when you turn the "tool" layer off, the skin is just perfect with all of its textures.
One questions is. it can take me about 3 hours to do the face alone, especially the model that I posted in this thread. Is this normal or am I am too slow or doing something wrong???

[flexmanta]

3 hours on the skin is about normal. Once you are done with the skin, everything else is a lot quicker.

[fotogen]

Thank You. I should read my postings before I actually post them. I type really fast and change sentences at times and result can be sentences that don't make sense or have serious spelling or grammar errors. Sorry about that.