RetouchPRO LIVE 12/13/14 John Ross

[Doug Nelson]

Portrait Retouch Troubleshooting

We had such a good response to our RetouchPRO LIVE show with John Ross I invited him back as quickly as possible.

John will be helping audience members with their portrait retouching problems. You can upload your troublesome image files during the show.

Even if you don't upload, you can still ask questions. Or just watch and learn from the many examples.

The bigger the audience, the better the show, so invite your friends to this free, 1-hour live show.

Saturday December 13, 2014 4pm Central US time
(there's a timezone converter on the registration page)
Click here to register

[Doug Nelson]

Re: RetouchPRO LIVE 12/13/14 John Ross

Almost showtime! Remember to rename your files with your username.

[artofretouching]

Re: RetouchPRO LIVE 12/13/14 John Ross

Doug is having some technical issues. Please stick around. He will be back as soon as he can.

[Doug Nelson]

Re: RetouchPRO LIVE 12/13/14 John Ross

John rescued Saturday's show by firing up his screen recorder. The show is up on YouTube, iffy audio but great tips http://youtu.be/pAMkw9Qpqzo

[hendrix5757]

Re: RetouchPRO LIVE 12/13/14 John Ross

I'm new to the site and only have a few months of experience in Photoshop, and I'm a fan of the youtube channel. However, there was the segment in this video during the "Christina" photo that was inexcusable not to just blast by with minimal PS wizardry. Not only that, but using the over-compressed jpeg format as a cop out as to why John couldn't half way decently resolve such a simple issue was pathetic! "Stumped!?! You're giving up?!?". It's safe to imagine that anybody worth their salt using the program could come up with dozens of different approaches to knock out a menial task of this nature in no time. So, to put my money where my mouth is, I uploaded the original pic that I attained by pausing and snipping my own screenshot during the segment (which allowed me to snag an even more compressed jpeg version of the portrait to throw into PS), and I also uploaded my retouched picture for context. Now, I expressed in detail within the comments section in the YT video the many ways on how this type of retouch could be approached (as well as my overall disgust toward the guest's attitude, lack of artistic/technical know-how, and determination to commit to completing the task), and although my results aren't necessarily "perfect", or intended to be, they're miles ahead of all of Ross' attempts on an even MORE COMPRESSED copy of the same portrait! Simple patch tool and healing brush strokes (but with increased brush size and decreased hardness) quickly made roughly 75% progress! Although I'm relatively new to using PS, I'm no stranger to learning/operating/navigating different digital editing applications (formally trained audio engineer - DAW's, animation software). So learning PS inside and out has been amazingly rewarding! Still, someone with as much experience as me shouldn't be able to out perform a pro retoucher/author like John Ross!

[Doug Nelson]

Re: RetouchPRO LIVE 12/13/14 John Ross

No one can know everything. Especially after an hour of thinking on your feet in front of a live audience. I've yet to have a presenter that didn't pull a blank eventually. It's inevitable in a live show, and people underestimate how draining it can be.

Thanks for sharing your advice here, that is the kind of thing I like to encourage for every show. But don't be too hard on John.

[artofretouching]

Re: RetouchPRO LIVE 12/13/14 John Ross

Thanks Doug. At first, I bit my tongue (wondering how he would do in front 100+ people working images he's never seen), but now I just don't care enough to waste the energies.

[hendrix5757]

Re: RetouchPRO LIVE 12/13/14 John Ross

You guys are completely correct in that nobody is perfect and knows everything, and I do apologize if my comment was out of line and reeked of arrogance! In no way was I trying to criticize John of his quality of work, even though it may have come across that way. I acknowledge how nerve racking it can be to accomplish a task on the spot with the added pressure of being watched by a large amount of viewers. I still have plenty to learn about Photoshop and will forever be a student of art itself. I was just disappointed with the unwillingness to complete the task at hand, given the large amount of time available to him, for the uploader's sake. As we all know, there's no one right method to go about accomplishing anything in this field, but the lack of commitment to meet the challenge to a decent outcome was unfortunate. It wasn't so much a criticism of his work as much of it was about the attitude. Again, I understand how I could've came off like an inconsiderate A-hole with my comments, and I'm not trying to defend the immaturity displayed in them. I do apologize to John, Doug, and the entire community here because this is a great resource to watch and learn from some incredible artists in the biz, and I have already learned and adopted so many techniques/methods from the channel and website! I promise to be less condescending and immature, and more constructive with my feedback in the future.

[skoobey]

Re: RetouchPRO LIVE 12/13/14 John Ross

retouch-pro_nose-issue_befpre.jpg

retouch-pro_nose-issue.jpg

Putting all the squabbles aside, I don't see the actual tutorial being presented(EDIT:sorry hendrix5757, I missed your post) so here is one.

10 minutes and two layers. One Soft light, one Color.
1. We make a new layer, fill with 50% gray and set to Soft light. On this layer we paint with pure black(or white) using a completely soft round brush at low opacity, or low flow, or both. Point is we go over in tiny increments varying the size of the brush, blending the tones with each pass. The result might look a bit "gray", as the area wasn't the actual color of the skin surrounding it, but rather the color of the white-ish highlighter.
2.So now we make a new empty layer, blend it to Color and sample a saturated area like the cheeks using the eyedropper tool, set to 3x3 or larger sample size, and sampling from current and bellow, then paint in a bit of that color to the nose area where it's missing.
Obviously this is a solution to the problem of nose make up being distracting, not a complete retouch.

If anyone needs a PSD, like the person that has actually provided the image, here it is:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o8u4iu6lp4...issue.psd?dl=0