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03/12/2009 02:53:00 AM · #1 |
Many were disappointed to note that the tutorial âTouching up your Portraitsâ went
missing from DPC. I am in the process of writing another version of the tutorial, using the Beauty Parlour Analogy! It goes as follows:
Touching up your Portraits: The Beauty-Parlour Analogy
Have you ever observed how a beautician carries out the make-up? The process involves â cleansing the skin, Hiding moles/spots, Concealing blemishes by applying foundation, brightening the eyes with eyebrow pencil, eyeliner and mascara (if Iâm not wrong), and finally applying lipstick and lipgloss! Thanks to Adobe Photoshop, we can recreate some of these effects from the comfort of out laptop!
Cleansing the skin:
No skin is perfect. Even the top models and superstars have skin imperfections such as moles, spots and patches. But, you can get rid of them in an instant.
⢠Open the image in Photoshop. Carry out basic corrections such as cropping, adjusting levels etc.
⢠Create a duplicate layer, and name it âSpotfreeâ. Use Healing Brush or Clone Stamp tool to get rid of any unwanted moles, spots and blemishes. Take reference area from the adjoining clean part of the skin while using clone stamp tool.
Applying the Foundation:â¢
Create a duplicate layer by dragging the second layer (Spotfree) onto the New Layer icon in the Layers palette. Name this layer as Blur. Now you have three layers (Background, Spotfree and Blur).
⢠Apply Blur to this layer (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur). Choose a radius of about 10 pixels for the Gaussian blur.
⢠The whole image has got softened. But donât get disheartened! (Like it happens sometimes in case of a bad beautician, the foundation has smudged eyes, lips and nostrils too!).
⢠Select the Eraser tool*. Erase the areas you want to be sharp (such as eyes, lips, nostrils, hair and dress). Reduce the opacity of the top layer, so that you can see both the layers.
⢠You may wonder why the beautician often applies half a Kg of foundation, and then wipes away a large part of it! We ae going to do exactly the same. Reduce the opacity of the blur layer to around 30%. Some of the blemishes will now be visible, but the result will look more natural.
⢠Merge the Blur layer down. The effect will be similar to that of applying the foundation.
Note*: If you are comfortable using layer mask, I would suggest you to use the same (instead of the Eraser tool) for better control. Select the Blur Layer by clicking it in the layers palette, and apply Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All. A Layer mask gets applied and the blur effect disappears. Choose Foreground Colour (in the toolbox) as white, and gradually paint over the open areas of the skin (such as cheeks, chin and forehead) to bring back the blur in these areas.
Brighter Eyes and Whiter Teeth
⢠Zoom into the area you want to brighten (like eyes and teeth) and select the dodge
tool. Set the range to Midtones and the pressure somewhere around 30-50%. Paint
around the white areas and you will gradually see them brighten.
Note: You can also use Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves to brighten up the
eyes. Simply select the area around eyes with lasso tool, feather to around 10 pixels,
and play with the Curves. This leads to more natural looking results.
Merging the Layers.
⢠Select the layer entitled Blur, and then select Layer > Merge down. Now select
your layer entitled Bleach and repeat. You should be left with 2 layers. You can
turn the top layer on/off to see the before and after versions of your work. Reduce
the opacity of top layer to around 80%. This will result in a more natural looking
result.
Glossy Lipsâ¢
To correct dull and rough lips, zoom into the area. Select the Sponge tool (Mode:
Saturate, Pressure: 12%) and paint over the areas you where you want to bring out
more colour. Now select the Blur tool (Mode: Normal, Opacity 20) and paint
over them to reduce some of the texture roughness. To give her lips a gloss finish,
select the Dodge tool, and lightly dodge a little on the top and bottom lips. This
will give you a fast easy highlight instantly making the lips appear glossier.
Finishing Touches
⢠You will need to adjust colour balance (Image > Adjust > Colour Balance) to add
a little warmth. Normally, all one needs is to boost up red and yellow a little.
Now the editing is complete.
You and hopefully your model will like the results!
A Final Note:
As you may have seen that I have drawn heavily from the previous tutorial and some other sources, I do not claim any originailty. I am in the lookout for a suitable image (alongwith a model release, of course!) and then I'll post it as a tutorial on DPC.
Suggestions solicited.
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03/12/2009 04:32:31 AM · #2 |
| Thanks this is very helpful! |
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03/12/2009 06:22:09 AM · #3 |
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03/12/2009 07:47:03 AM · #4 |
Thanks for going through this long post.
I would appreciate some value added comments. |
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03/13/2009 07:54:40 AM · #5 |
| It appears no gentleman is interested in the 'Beauty Parlour'! LOL. |
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03/13/2009 10:27:36 AM · #6 |
Funny. I'm quite interested in this. More because of photoshop though... But of course there's nothing wrong with making people look beautiful.
A few things to note:
Step 1:
Don't forget that CS3 and 4 have a special healing brush that doesn't require sampling. it sometimes requires a few shots for the computer to get it right, but it does a great job. Sometimes a touch of the blur tool is required to help when there are a bunch of spot fixed close together. Especially where there is high contrast in the face.
Don't forget to stop every once in a while to zoom in and out to view your results from different levels of zoom. What looks good at 200% might look weird at 50% or 25%. Always try to check it at 1/4 of full screen and 50% zoom as those are critical for most applications of your picture (1/4 for web use and 50% for prints). Do it frequently because you only get 20 steps of undo in your history and it can be irritating to have to undo beyond that.
Step 2:
The use of a layer mask is important enough (and simple enough at this point) that I think it would be preferable to just tell people to make a layer mask, then how to paint with black and white.
Useful Hotkeys:
B for brush tool
[ and ] for increase and decrease the size of the brush
shift [ and shift ] for changing the edge hardness of the brush
D for set colors to default
X for switch foreground and background colors
control A then control backspace to fill the whole layer mask with background color
Tweaking a layer can be done simply and with great effect by combining the effects of layer masks and layer opacity.
Teeth and Eyes:
This might also be best as a layer mask technique.
Set up the adjustment layer and set curves to where you think the eyes OR teeth look good. Then create a layer mask and use control backspace to fill completely with black. Then use the white brush to paint in the eyes. Do the same for the teeth.
After you have both of these balanced, don't forget to check at 1/4 full screen and 50% zoom so you don't end up with a radioactive subject.
A really quick way to see your progress from the original if your history is way overflowing is to hit F12 which is REVERT image back to saved copy. Then hit control Z a few times to compare. Simply undo it and carry on.
Merging the layers:
You say to merge the layer called Bleach down, but you didn't name any layer Bleach in the tutorial.
Lips: Don't forget to make a layer for this.
Try to find the area on the lips where light is already reflected and amplify this a bit to keep a natural look. If no such area is apparent, try to pay attention to where the light is coming from.
ETA oh yeah, of course feel free to use as much or as little of this as you like in the tut! :)
Message edited by author 2009-03-13 10:28:20. |
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03/16/2009 01:01:09 AM · #7 |
Thanks for the long reply to this rather long post.
Your seggestions are useful, especially those of "hotkeys", although I don't use many of them quite often.
Thanks again, and sorry for the delayed response, as I was away on the weekend.
Edit:
And yes. Regarding Bleach Layer, I had initially used 'Bleach' Layer as given in the 'original' tutorial; but later removed the same, as I feel, if used callously, it leads to unnatural results. Sorry for the oversight.
Message edited by author 2009-03-16 01:04:25. |
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05/24/2009 08:36:24 PM · #8 |
This is my first real attempt at this....
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05/26/2009 02:16:48 PM · #9 |
Thanks a lot,
I was retouching a portrait when I decided to take a break and I just saw your post. Very helpful. Some time you know that there's something missing but not quite sure what, thanks for the checklist |
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