How do you make even gradient skin transition?

[nebulaoperator]

Hi everyone,

I will start this thread with a positive and optimistic note that people will share their techniques.(some of them, maybe )
Lately I was observing a lot of high end skin retouching. What my retouched skin lacks is that fine transition. People talk that a lot of DnB required and when I approached one high end retoucher he or she told me that it sometimes requires even 9 hours of it. Beauty shots. Then I was told by same retoucher that these days not many clients prepared to pay that high price.Certainly there people who will pay that price and other retouchers successfully do that.
So for the less pixel level DnB involved what technique do you use or on the top of that to get that really good transition. But not plastic one.
I use grey 50%, usual curves DnB, also gradient map, colour mode painting.
Nevertheless I miss that nailed it factor in my retouching.
So I thought I give a go and ask how you manage to do it.
here is a sample of my later retouch : http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1322662836
Thank you, Tom

[Der_W]

Hi Tom,

you might want to take a closer look at bandstop filtration.
Natalia has explained what this is and how she uses it here: http://nataliataffarel.tumblr.com/po...rted-high-pass
And of course macro level dodge & burn (which I usually do with a 50% gray soft light layer).

[nebulaoperator]

That was rally quick reply. Thanks John,

I forgot to mention that I know about IHP technique. She also explained that this is considered to be a dirty trick. I was wondering to my self if that dirty technique has a certain category of retouch that she would not use. But I guess she would answer that her self.Would you ? I do a little bit of IHP but most of the time I try to avoid it.
By the way do you use a curves in colour mode t dodge at all?

[Der_W]

As I said, you could also use macro level (global) dodge & burn, it requires more skill but can lead to better results.
Sometimes I use lighting and darkening curves, but not for my usual dodge & burn, no.

Jonas

[nebulaoperator]

So what do you use it for then for? (lightening and darkening curves)
I also found this link from modelmayhem: http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?th...1#post11346441
This is part of the how to get skin transition good. i think you know that all ready.
By the way what do you normally use for carving?
Tom

[Der_W]

Well, mostly global adjustments, sometimes localized adjustments, but never as localized as pixel level dodge & burn :-).
This is because using curves really slows my workflow down when I have to switch layers all the time, so I rather use the soft light mode.

Uhm, you sure that the gradient map is used to smooth transitions in skin rather than smoothing color?
Because gradient maps work on luminosity information, so harsh transitions should and probably will remain harsh transitions unless you lessen the contrast which is not a really good way to smooth transitions globally imho (however you could use a midtone mask and lower the contrast there that might give you a little softer transitions though I don't like this technique as it doesn't give terribly much control).
For carving I use my soft light layer again :-).
However I do this on a new layer above my micro level dodge & burn layer so that I can blur the layer if needed to further smoothen the transitions.
I also use a much larger brush and zoom way out when doing this so I'm not distracted by details and can concentrate on the overall form.

[nebulaoperator]

You are right about gradient purpose.If I correct it will map from dark to bright as most but not really to unify gradient. I think I do it for colour uni purpose. Should have separate this one .
So you in fact blur 50% grey? Am I correct?
Thanks Tom

[Der_W]

I don't always blur my carve layer. Just when my strokes are too well defined and introduce harsh transitions :-).
In this case a little controlled blurring of the carve layer is most of the time a good way to smooth the transitions again.

[Siciliana]

I think that applying additional tailored blurs to areas of tonal transition on the low frequency in a frequency separation can give nice transitions without too much work. Again, not something to go overboard with or you will get a weird effect almost like the bandstop.

[Der_W]

FWIW blurring the low frequency information is technically a bandstop.

In all cases the important thing is not what you do but rather how you do it. You can do a number of different techniques and try out thousands of methods, but in the end, if you don't do them right, none of them will look any good.
Only practice makes perfect!

[adtechniques]

I think it good, although it needs a bit more carving light. To do this, properly as De_W say we need practice, or you can learn about human anatomy and try drawing exercises.
You can try softlight 50% gray fill (or curver) layer with big soft brush to carving light or you can see this video from a member of MM. I asked him for blur layer Softlight and he answered.
http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?th...46&page=1#last

Der_W: you should to post videos more often. You have many special techniques Thks for your videos.

[kvtoiy]

firstly ,i can not image the picture you link from the photobucket is a picture photoshoped .some times ,we spend hours to ps a cheap photoshopphoto,it is better find a real thing take a camera ,a real photo.

secendly,i to retouch the skin ,buy photoshop you d better create a layer and modify the effect you want ,slowly and slowly.

for me i prefer use a plugin ,TOPAZ。it can do some thing good effects .

[nebulaoperator]

@adtechniques
Thank you for this helpful video.Till now I never used blurred 50 grey. This is very helpful.
@Der_W
Can you explain a : ,,FWIW blurring the low frequency information is technically a bandstop.,,

[Siciliana]

@nebulaoperator:
I think if you google the way that high-pass, low-pass and band-pass filters work you will understand what Jonas means, in terms of which frequencies you are neutralizing. It is all over my head, so I will await Jonas' explanation.

However, I will say that the method I use for blurring low frequency, which I kind of made up on my own, is much more refined than the inverted high-pass, band-stop filter. I normally lasso areas that need more transition, then I command J them to a new layer and then apply the right gaussian blur. I might then lower opacity, set to "lighter color" or "darker color" depending on my needs or mask out some areas. I put all those blends in a folder and turn it off and on to be sure I like the progress I am making and continue tweaking. I find that this gives me more of a nice control over the underlying tonal gradient to help me achieve a vision I already have in mind. This method is not something to use if you do not already have an artistic vision of what you want to accomplish but it is a more subtle way of blending tones in some cases. It sounds time consuming but it actually works very fast for me with keyboard shortcuts. We all have our own little weird methods we've evolved that work well for us

[Siciliana]

p.s.
for macro d&b (since most of it is dodge), lately I've taken to doing much of it with a screen dodge layer. I set the layer to screen bend mode and then I sample local color to paint with on low opacity/low flow. I've found that this method seems to give me more of the color shift I want, more so than the softlight method, because I can paint in screen mode with a dark color in the darker areas that need to brighten up. I feel like it offers me more control than the dodge curve does but maybe that is all in my mind.

[Siciliana]

Personally, I like your version, and I would say I prefer it, but in terms of creating a more surreal effect I gave it a couple more steps. Tell me if this is what you have in mind.

I ran another freq. separation on your file and smoothed the transitions using my blur on the low freq. method. (You could also get something kind of similar using the IHP painted in with a mask. I prefer to always use the 'blend if' sliders on the layer style menu when using IHP.) Then I added some global d&b using softlight, to increase/bring back the contrast of the cheek and the hair. Then I added a bit of a glow over the highlights using a color range selection filled with white, blurred on reduced opacity overlay blend mode. This highlight part may be too much for your taste, and maybe for mine, but it does heighten the drama.

Cheers,
Amy

p.s.
Very nice work and a beautiful image.

[nebulaoperator]

@Sicilian
I have tried your method of lassoing piece of skin/area and then blur it mode darken or colour it gives me no visible effect. Sorry
Then I tried to blur LF not sure if I get desired effect again. Maybe it is me doing it wrong way.
Isn't it bandstop a filter to allow only desired F to pass. But in this case which one?

[Siciliana]

Also, the eyes are really great on this image. For my personal taste, I would do a little more work to on the entire eye area. Maybe a tad more luminosity overall, especially under the eye in the shadow and on the lid. Really just micro changes here and there. I also feel like I am noticing the grayish tone of the roots of her hair. I might warm that up a little to match the surrounding hair.

[Siciliana]

If you give me an email address I can email you the PSD so you can see what I did. You can look at the blend modes and opacities of the blurs--often I leave them on normal.

[nebulaoperator]

@Sicilian
Hey thank you for that effort really appreciate. Please don"t get offended just I can sense that blur now. In terms of transition yes it looks better then my one.
What I also find on my one is the global transition between highlights and darks is not so smooth. It feels a bit fragmented to me if you know what I mean.

[Siciliana]

I'm not offended, I didn't mean to come across that way. Hard to communicate on the web sometimes

[nebulaoperator]

I know seems web has it's own band stop here

[Siciliana]

Here is a screen shot of how I copy and blur parts of the low frequency layer. All is eventually flattened again later.

[nebulaoperator]

@Sicilian
Thank you that is very nice of you. I am studying it now.

[Der_W]

Originally Posted by nebulaoperator

@Der_W
Can you explain a : ,,FWIW blurring the low frequency information is technically a bandstop.,,

Well, with spatial frequency separation we split the image into high frequency and low frequency information.
Now what a bandstop filter does is eliminate a certain frequency range from your image. However it doesn't just get rid of the high frequencies (like a low pass) or the low frequencies (like a high pass), but it will eliminate a middle range of frequencies that you can determine.

Now with that in mind, think a moment about what happens when you blur the low frequency information of a split image.
The low frequency information is further blurred, which means that the highest frequencies of the low pass get eliminated while the lower frequencies still remain. Now on top of that we still have the original high frequency information, so that is retained.
With the original high pass the upper limit for the frequency removal is determined, the amount of blur on the low frequency information will determine the lower limit for the bandstop.
That's why blurring the low frequency is the same as a bandstop :-).

I hope this is understandable to you :-)?


Now the huge disadvantage of using this method is that your upper limit is already predefined, so you can't change that.
To fix this and still profit from Siciliana's idea, I'd suggest to use the usual bandstop technique (IHP) and clip the layers to two Brightness/Contrast adj. layers.
One of them should be set to "Lighten", the other one to "Darken". That way you can still determine the blending and have the added flexibility of setting the upper and lower limits more freely.

[Siciliana]

I like your idea, Jonas, about the lighten and darken IHP layers. Will have to play around with this further when I get back to my computer this evening. Can you tell me how this might compare to using the 'blend if' sliders on the layer style panel?

[nebulaoperator]

@Der_W
Well from adding B&C layers I am getting lost there. How clipped lighten can influence mine (let's say) IHP21.??

[nebulaoperator]

Thank you everyone and here is my second try: http://i1119.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1322786667

[adtechniques]

Thks Jonas and Siciliana, I like your idea. I have to play with this.

@nebulaoperator
Well from adding B&C layers I am getting lost there. How clipped lighten can influence mine (let's say) IHP21.?? <<< make B&C adjustment layer, change blend mode to Lighten and put IHP layer above it and clipped.

[Siciliana]

Very nice effect Jonas with the bandstop clipped to B/C layers. Do you use this often or is this just something you made up for the purpose of this discussion? I was able to get interesting results using your suggestion in combination with luminosity masks. I'm too tired. Will post tomorrow.

Tom, I hate to say this but I liked your original better. The new one looks too obviously retouched and that angular line down the nose is too much for me. She looks a little too space-alien now. I also think it looks too obviously dodged or painted over. This is just my personal opinion but I think you went too far. It is easy to do... I know I have been guilty of this in my own attempts. You have managed a smoother tonal transition in the cheeks and forehead, but pull back on the reins.

I like to look at Amy Dresser's beauty retouch for inspiration. She has a way of making skin look very believable even when going for a surreal look.