Retouching a Portrait: My Process

I put a status update on my Facebook Page about blurring skin.  Basically, don't do it. 

My past with skin blur is full of confusion.  Namely, whenever you even attempt to Google skin retouching tutorials, it's always some shmuck telling you to blur, blur, blur.  It's very easy to think, "Oh, obviously that's the way to retouch skin."  No, no it isn't.  It really isn't.  What it is: the first step in a portrait looking fake, plasticky, and disastrous.  These are people, my dear readers, not dolls. 

So I've decided to post a tutorial on my process of retouching.  This is a simplified version of my work, obviously, because the amount really depends on the photo.  But the skin basics are here.

Click on the images for a larger version.

I began with this picture:

Basically, what you want is an image that isn't too blurry, it's flattering, the lighting is relatively decent, ect.  So this is the unretouched image, which I like to think isn't too bad.

First, I begin by retouching the hair.  So what I'm going to do is section this tutorial by my own steps.

FIRST STEP:  HAIR

What I did was circle the areas I plan to retouch.  It's easy to get a lot of flyaway hairs, no matter how good your hair stylist.  In an effective retouch, you should learn to identify the flyaways, and remove them in a way that still makes everything look natural.  What you don't want is to make the hair so perfect that it looks fake.  But you also don't want to have so many of these problem areas that they distract.

The tools I use the most for hair retouching are Spot Removal (Setting on CONTENT AWARE) and the Clone Tool.  If you use the Clone Tool, remember to use a soft brush at 0% hardness.

The best advice I can give for hair retouching is to take your time.  There are some pictures that will require more work than others, and it can be a long process.  The key is to make it look natural.  This will require some practice, especially in making your adjustments blend.  You don't want to end up with cloned areas that repeat the same pattern.

This is how the retouch turned out when I finished:

I tried to section the hair area off for you, so it's not immediately overwhelming.  After I did the top of the hair, I moved down to the midsection:

 Again, I've circled all of the problem areas.  The areas you have to specifically be careful with are the strands of hair that rest on skin.  Take your time when this happens, because you don't want to end up with any patchy looking skin.

And remember, we're just getting rid of anything that distracts.  You still want the hair to look natural, and part of what makes hair natural is the occasional stray hair.  Use your judgment.

The end result for this section:

Don't be discouraged if you have a bit of difficulty with this to begin with.  Hair retouching can be very time consuming, even for advanced retouchers.  It takes a lot of time, patience, and practice.

STEP 2: SKIN RETOUCHING

Remember: don't blur the skin texture.  You want to keep it intact, so it looks natural.  Skin blurring was created to be an easy method to cut time.  When it comes to your photos, you don't want to take any shortcuts.  This is your work!  Time pays off.

Here's the places that tend to have the most issues with skin:

Andrea has incredibly beautiful, clear skin, so most of the areas I'm fixing tend to be:  occasional open pores, the tiny bits of facial hair, and some residual makup (generally powder) that tends to show up on camera.

Go through these with a very light hand.  You want the skin texture to be there in the end, and you also want the skin to look natural and not patchy.  If you end up getting a little too heavy handed, you can always lessen the opacity of your skin layer to 50%, so the effect is reduced.

Tools to use for skin are a combination of:  Spot removal, clone tool, healing brush.

Spot Removal is good for: larger pimples, pores, spots.

Clone tool and healing brush are good for: smaller spots and skin patches.

When you edit the skin, ZOOM IN so you're able to get a better view of the skin.  But always remember to ZOOM OUT so you get an overall view of the effects.

If you have a model with lots of freckles on her fact, do not -- I repeat, do not -- remove all of the freckles on her face.  Freckles are beautiful, natural, and they should stay.

And don't resort to blur.  Don't do it!  Just take your time.

Here's the finished skin work:

There, we have a very light clean up, texture still intact.


STEP 3: DODGE AND BURN

When a lot of people think of dodge and burn, they mostly think of the photoshop tools.  There are, actually, several different methods of "dodging and burning."  I like to use 2 curves adjustments layers: one for light, one for dark.

Make adjustment layers by going to: Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves.

Why do I use Curves adjustments for dodge and burn?  Because you set how light and how dark it gets.  When you paint those adjustments in, you can only go as light or dark as you originally set.  This can save you from becoming more heavy handed in the effects.


On our LIGHT layer, these are the areas I highlight:

If you generally stick to the places the light is hitting best, those are the areas you want to paint in the LIGHT layer.

So now I'm going to set the adjustment layers -- I did this step by step, just so there's no confusion for the settings:

So here is the LIGHT layer settings being put in.  Pull up the curves to whatever suits you.  This will depend on the photo, the lighting, and your preferences.  After you set the LIGHT layer, go to IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > INVERT, so the effect is hidden.

Then the DARK layer:

Again, go to IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > INVERT so the effect is hidden.  I'm going to keep saying this, because I'm sure there's going to be someone who is confused.

 

And there, I stated a third time for y'all, just because this won't work without it.  If you notice, now our curves layers look black.  If they DO NOT look black, you did not invert.

Make sure you have the PAINTBRUSH TOOL selected.  Here are the brush/opacity settings for you:

Hardness is at 0%, Opacity is at 20%, flow is at 25%.  I tend to keep these three settings the same, just because it creates a nice, light effect.  Also, make sure WHITE is your foreground color.  If you need to erase an effect you have just made with your paintbrush, make BLACK the foreground setting, and it will erase the adjustment.

Now, select your LIGHT layer.  I'm going to be slightly heavy handed here, just so you see the effect a bit better.

So I've painted those areas I put in red before.  This is a bit too much, but don't worry if you do this.  I'll show you how to blend the effect better in a minute. 

These are the areas I tend to adjust on the dark layer:

These are totally based on your preferences.  The dark layer is good for darkening eyebrows, make up, cheekbones, and lipstick.

Now, Select your dark layer and begin painting.

Again, I got a bit heavy handed here, just so you see the results better:

If your image turns out a bit overdone like this, don't worry about it.  This next step is for blending.

Take note.  THIS is the only time I will encourage using the Gaussian Blur effect.  The ONLY time.

So click your Light Layer, go to Filter > Adjustments > Gaussian Blur:

Take note:  This step is blurring the curves effect.  It is NOT blurring the skin.  All of the skin texture remains intact.  What this step does is blend the adjustments layer better.  For the LIGHT layer, I tend to choose about 40% or so.

Now select the dark layer and do the same:

I usually choose about 30% or so for the dark layer.  This evens the two layers out better, makes the effect look more natural.

If it STILL comes off as looking a bit heavy handed, you can lessen the opacity on your two layers to bring down the effect.

My end result is this:

So all the skin texture is still there, and this looks a more cleaned up.  But we're still not done.

STEP 5:  REFINE

This is basically the last clean up I do to complete the image.  What you want to do is go over the image, look for any flyaways, or pieces of fuzz, or spots that you might have missed.

Here, I focus on the top of the blouse:

There are some spots and loose threads in there that can easily be cleaned with the spot removal tool.

Then, I do another quick curves adjustment to even out the whole image:

I might pull the curves darker or lighter depending on the image.

After that, I do a round of colour work.  I'm not adding that part to the tutorial, because really, thats my own personal flare to the image.

So here is the end result (with slight colour work):