help with mottled and goose bumped skin

[sakurama]

First of all let me say thanks to the site. I don't post at all really but I do frequent the site when I need to figure out a way to retouch something I have trouble with. Generally that is people related since I was primarily a still life photogrpher but have been branching out to more and more location work.

While I'm not troubled by most retouching skin and beauty skin especially can be tricky. I've been using the "degrunge" technique for a while but on this shoot it's actually worked against me as it's enhanced the goosebumps the model had. Before you say turn up the heat this was a shoot in a commercial garage that was opening and closing the door in February and the temp, despite heaters at full tilt, was in the mid 40's and our model took many breaks to warm up. There's a limit to what you can do.

This shoot is a favor for a location scout friend so there's no budget to send the shots out to be retouched and, now that I finally have some time to devote to it, I don't actually mind working on it as it's a chance to improve my skill set.

So. I've uploaded two shots. One is the raw file (shot on a Hasselblad) with the usual curves and sharpening favoring the model. The trick with this shot is the model needs nice skin but the bike is the hero (these are destined for a "biker magazine" as my friend built the bike and my contribution was to make it irresistible to any photo editor. I probably have nicer shots but this one is tricky because of the shadows which are showing her mottled skin and the edges of the light which play up the goose bumps.

I handled the skin with Dust & Scratches (layered over sharpness and masked) but haven't found a way to get rid of the mottling of her skin - one of the troubles of a cold white girl with pale skin.

I welcome your suggestions as I've got a bunch more of these to do and I'd love to find a way to smooth her out some more without making her look plastic smooth or fake.

Again, thanks for the forum. I've gotten a lot of good information here.

Gregor

PS I don't see how to insert a photo link but here's the link to the gallery - hires jpegs are downloadable.

[Flashtones]

I'm sure you'll get better/free solutions but this is the plug-in: Portraiture by Imaginomic, at close to max settings.

[sakurama]

Wow, I downloaded the trial and while I wish the mask preview was larger I'm overall pretty impressed with how good it is. Once I have the settings it's pretty consistent. It's more expensive than I'd expect but not if I consider how much time I wasted yesterday.

Thanks for the tip.

G

[KTG]

Your shot doesn't feature the bike very well if the bike is the "hero" IMO

[Flashtones]

Originally Posted by sakurama

Wow, I downloaded the trial and while I wish the mask preview was larger I'm overall pretty impressed with how good it is.

Glad you like it.

You can see the mask larger by clicking the Show Mask White or Black radio buttons in the mask settings.

[sakurama]

Originally Posted by KTG

Your shot doesn't feature the bike very well if the bike is the "hero" IMO

The girl is the hook. I have plenty of shots of the bike and I don't have any problem retouching those but since this is being aimed at a certain magazine we need to target their demographic. Covers always feature a girl first and a bike second so we give them the girl to increase the chance for a cover.

G

[julianmarsalis]

A job for frequency separation and the inverted high pass filter dynamic duo would easily handle the skin imho. Actually makes skin work a breeze do a quick search on those and a new world opens up for ya.

[sakurama]

Originally Posted by Flashtones

Glad you like it.

You can see the mask larger by clicking the Show Mask White or Black radio buttons in the mask settings.

Ah, that helps. Thanks a bunch for that suggestion again. It really beats messing around with the other methods I've been doing and it's super fast. Never was fan of plug ins as they seem to be the modern equivalent of the star filter but this is actually really useful. More like the black dot filter.

G