Best "quick and dirty" technique for skin?

[marcchristopher]

Hi all,

I have received quite a few requests from non-professionals lately, asking for some very basic skin retouching (and some "glamourisation"). Obviously, D&B would be overkill here. And for the fee that seems to be the upper limit in such cases, I guess, even the "quick degrunging" method would take too long. Which started me wondering...

What techniques are you using for some really really basic skin retouching, which can be done in a few minutes, and doesn't look too bad?

Thanks in advance,
best,
Marc

[creativeretouch]

Re: Best "quick and dirty" technique for skin?

Hi Marc,

you can try frequency separation method, but it will take some time and skills to master it. I suggest D&B

Filip

[Der_W]

Re: Best "quick and dirty" technique for skin?

If you have a few minutes, I'd do basic clean up with the healing brush and IHP (quick degrunge derivate) applied selectively with multiple radii (use an action to set it up, so you'll just have to enter the radii for high pass and Gaussian blur).

If you have even less time, this plugin should help: http://www.imagenomic.com/pt_de.aspx
I've never tried it on my own (the technology is the same as IHP), but some people swear by it and it has a trial.

[marcchristopher]

Re: Best "quick and dirty" technique for skin?

Thanks for the quick replies. Admittedly, D&B would be the optimum. I doubt, however, that D&B can be done in "a few minutes".

Jonas, what is that IHP you are referring to? I know the quick degrunge technique and really like what can be achieved by it. Is IHP an improvement?

Best regards,
Marc

[Der_W]

Re: Best "quick and dirty" technique for skin?

It is :-).

It's basically just the same, but instead of copying the layer, inverting it, setting it to "Linear Light" and reducing the opacity to 50%, then running high pass and Gaussian blur on it, you replace the step where you've reduced the opacity by halving the contrast beforehand (e.g. directly apply a Brightness/Contrast adj. to the layer with "Use legacy" checked and contrast -50 or for smart objects use the "Filter"-"Other"-"Custom", enter a scale of 2 and an offset of 64).

An example of this (with the Brightness/Contrast adj.) can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0IrnjfCgPQ

[Boneappetit]

Re: Best "quick and dirty" technique for skin?

Degrunge technique will help, after applying healing as Jonas mentioned earlier. Here is a quick way of doing it...
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=213 Be careful not to over do it...

Another alternative is the Smooth Skin plug-in, by Shadowlights here in RP.

[fraiseap]

Re: Best "quick and dirty" technique for skin?

My "quick & dirty method" is;

Make a copy of the background layer
Clone, healing brush to get rid of major blemishes
Copy this layer twice
Blur bottom copy using surface blur (or median noise) until all skin pores and blemishes are no longer visible (usually about 30 pixels)
HP filter on top layer until skin pores are maximised (usually 4-5 pixels), linear light mode.
Apply mask to blurred layer so only skin is affected
Copy mask (alt+drag) to HP layer
Adjust opacity of top 2 layers to taste.

Takes about 5 mins, not perfect but clients are usually happy with this

Here is an example

http://www.adamfraise.com/photo7648426.html

[sid_v]

Re: Best "quick and dirty" technique for skin?

I have a beauty retouch action which is quick and not at all dirty. It is based on frequency separation with some modifications. The quality is as amazing as the best D&B and other techniques, without the hours.

It is designed for two different file sizes. You can see it with the rest of the actions on my blog:

http://sidvasandani.blogspot.com/p/p...p-actions.html

You can see the before after in the online retouching section in the two beauty shots. One was a 15min work and the other with lot of facial hair, took 30mins.

[nadaman]

changes to fraiseap quick and dirty method

I tried this with a 28 meg file, (shot is a female model, camera cropped just below the breasts, with pro make up and exposed shoulders wearing a necklace, shot with a medium grey no seam background. her hair is up so I'm seeing lots of skin):
copy background layer
Clone/heal major blemishes.
Copy merged layer twice.
Blur bottom copy surface blur (i used 21/21) until skin pores/blemishes are no longer visible.
Apply Image to top layer - choose the bottom blurred layer, Blending @ Subtract, scale 2 offset 128, leaving preserve transparency mask and invert unchecked (just as in the 8 bit frequency method).
Apply mask to expose skin only and copy mask to blurred layer.
Adjust opacity of both layers to taste.

I found that the HP filter layer was flattening out the skin causing a loss in depth. I was also getting some ghosting on some edges that looked as if it could be a registration issue. Apply Image retained the depth in the skin and left just a hint of ghosting that could be easily cloned out.
I also tried byRo's "quick de-grunge method" as a comparison and found the same issue with the HP filter on the skin.

I can't post my result as it is a job that I'm working on now but I was impressed with the difference. I have to find an image I can post but I'm under the gun for a bit.

I tried cloning/healing further on the top Apply Image layer and it worked fine. I know a bit about the frequency method but still need to experiment with it more to see if it can save me time.
D&B yields the best results but the hours are a killer. I also worry about billing clients for it.

I'm very much interested in this thread to find out more about the latest cheap and nasty skin tricks.

[julianmarsalis]

Re: changes to fraiseap quick and dirty method

I tried this with a 28 meg file, (shot is a female model, camera cropped just below the breasts, with pro make up and exposed shoulders wearing a necklace, shot with a medium grey no seam background. her hair is up so I'm seeing lots of skin):
copy background layer
Clone/heal major blemishes.
Copy merged layer twice.
Blur bottom copy surface blur (i used 21/21) until skin pores/blemishes are no longer visible.
Apply Image to top layer - choose the bottom blurred layer, Blending @ Subtract, scale 2 offset 128, leaving preserve transparency mask and invert unchecked (just as in the 8 bit frequency method).
Apply mask to expose skin only and copy mask to blurred layer.
Adjust opacity of both layers to taste.

I found that the HP filter layer was flattening out the skin causing a loss in depth. I was also getting some ghosting on some edges that looked as if it could be a registration issue. Apply Image retained the depth in the skin and left just a hint of ghosting that could be easily cloned out.
I also tried byRo's "quick de-grunge method" as a comparison and found the same issue with the HP filter on the skin.

I can't post my result as it is a job that I'm working on now but I was impressed with the difference. I have to find an image I can post but I'm under the gun for a bit.

I tried cloning/healing further on the top Apply Image layer and it worked fine. I know a bit about the frequency method but still need to experiment with it more to see if it can save me time.
D&B yields the best results but the hours are a killer. I also worry about billing clients for it.

I'm very much interested in this thread to find out more about the latest cheap and nasty skin tricks.

Was this done in 16 bit or 8 bit mode???? The apply image settings you use is for 8 bit images only....

[nadaman]

Re: changes to fraiseap quick and dirty method

The apply image settings you use is for 8 bit images only....

yup, 8 bit. sorry and you are correct.

[Rust]

Re: Best "quick and dirty" technique for skin?

My workflow after basic clean up with healing brush and clone tool is: Merge layers together take a copy. On the copy run a gaussian blur, so that things a way blurry. Don`t click Ok ,but remember the amount and be sure it could be divided by three. Then click cancel and go and run a highpass on this layer with the GB amount. Click *OK. Then run a GB on the same layer that are 1/3 of the HP value. Click ok, and invert the layer, set layer mode to linear light. Click on the fx button and go into blending options. Go on white "this layer slider" hold alt(pc) so it splits and drag it almost all the way to the left. Go then on the underlying layer to the same with the black split it drag it almost on the right side. Click ok . Add a layer mask and paint on the effect