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2Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011

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First published 2011

Copyright 2011 Gry GarnessPublished by Eureka Imaging Publications

ISBN 978-0-9558303-6-5

DIGITAL RETOUCHING FOR FASHION, BEAUTY AND

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN PHOTOSHOP CS5

2011 by Gry Garness

NOTICE OF RIGHTS

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be re-

produced electronically or in print in any form without

the written permission of the publisher, except for brief

quotes in reviews. To obtain permissions please contact

[email protected]

DISCLAIMER

The author takes no responsibility for the use of anyof the products or implementation thereof described in

this book. The author shall not be held responsible for

any content presented on web sites or by companies

mentioned or linked to in this book.

Cover Photo Konrad Bak

Go to www.grygarness.com for more info on Gry and

details of Photoshop training and the Beauty Retouching

Techniques DVD.

For more details of Eurekas products and trading T&C

go to www.eureka-publishing.com

READING THE PDF

This is an interactive PDF document optimized for Adobe

Reader X. Please update or replace your Adobe Reader

in order to get the full experience of the tutorials and

their enhanced content. Get the latest Adobe Reader

(free) at http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

MACINTOSH

Mac PowerPC G5 or Intel processor

PPC: Mac OS X v 10.4.11 to 10.5.8

Intel: Mac OS X v 10.4.11 to 10.6.4

500 mb of RAM

2 GB of available hard-disk space

WINDOWS

Intel 1.3 GHz processor

Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4, Windows

Server 2003 and 2008; Windows XP Professional, Home

Edition, or Tablet PC Edition with Service Pack 2 or 3;

Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business,

Ultimate, or Enterprise with or without Service Pack 1 2003

Minimum 500 mb of RAM

2 GB of available hard-disk space

The performance of this document will depend greatly onthe performance of your computer, its graphics card, and

the version of Adobe Reader used to view it.

DOWNLOAD RESOURCES FOR THIS BOOK

You can use the practice images in the book, and install

a set ofActionsand Tool Presetsas well as a Gradient.

Please read the Actions ReadMe which is is supplied in

the Resources folder.

THE FULL PICTURE

& FINISHING TOUCHES

This is PART 5 of a 5 volume multimedia e-book. The other

chapters are :

PART 1

The Essentials for Effective Retouching

Color Enhancement

PART 2, Skin Retouching

PART 3, The Features

PART 4, Hair, Figure, Fashion
http://www.grygarness.com/downloads.htmhttp://www.adobe.com/products/reader/http://www.mediafire.com/?5st30k5p2719amwhttp://www.mediafire.com/?5st30k5p2719amwhttp://www.adobe.com/products/reader/http://www.grygarness.com/downloads.htm


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Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Full Picture & Finishing 4

Retouching Backgrounds and Locations 5

Stretch the Background With Content-Aware Scale 8-9

Limitations of Content-Aware Scaling 10

Straightening Background Verticals 11

Tips for Retouching Children 12-13

Tips for Retouching Men 14-15

Sourcing Images and Collaborating with Photographers 16-17Case Study: High Fidelity Retouching 18-19

Case Study: Retouching a Female Portrait 22-27

Case Study: Retouching Mature Portrait 28-31

Case Study: A Free Interpretation 32-35

Case Study: A Quick and Dirty Workow 36-39

Resizing Images 40-41

Using the Crop Tool To Resize a Group of Images 42

General Sharpening 43-44

Hands on Unsharp Mask 45

Double Pass Stealth Sharpening 46

Options for Limited Sharpening 47

Smart Sharpening the Midtones 48-49

Skin Sharpening in RGB 50

Make Some Noise 51

Minimum Dot for Printing 53-54

Printing with Inkjets in CS5 55-57

Delivering Files to Clients 58-59

Taking It Further 60


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Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011 PhotoGry Garness

This is the chapter where we move away fromthe detail and look at the image as a whole,from both a visual and technical point of view.Well look at what it takes to create a framework

around the main subject, and also what it takes tomake that person a part of a whole. Open up anymagazine and youll see images of people on all

sorts of backgrounds or should I say, in all sortsof settings. Most published images do indeedhave a setting that serves to tell a story or sell

a product. Were now going to give that wholesetting our full attention.

Along the way there are plenty of handy tips, on

different types of retouching, and a new pieceon sourcing images and starting your retouchingcareer.

There are 5 case studies that focus on the fullworkow. These workows can give you an ideaof how to tie things together. Ive deliberately

avoided extremely complex workows. Theywould only serve to confuse, and could never betypical of anything.

Finally we take the images to completion, withresizing, sharpening and output. The main focushere is preserving the best possible quality.

Working with backgrounds is one of the most interesting

things I do, and one of the hardest. A portrait with a

background has so much potential for storytelling,

and just as much potential for distraction. Sometimes

I have to take the image completely apart before

putting it back together again. The light might need

complete re-orchestrating and the verticals might need

straightening, while all elements that detract from the

image will be toned down or replaced. This is where

the artistry comes in.

I can honestly say that I would never be able to reply

to how did you get that effect? with a single answer,

because each image is the sum of so many elements.

If you want to reverse engineer other peoples images,

learn to analyze each aspect; the capture (guesswork,

but usually atter, less sharp), the contrast, the color,

before you think effect. Students sometimes show me

10 totally different images and ask me how to get that

look. The truth is that look is usually an emotional

response. The best effect is the emotional impact of a

high quality photographic image that has been given a

sensitive and appropriate treatment in Photoshop.

Working with children in post production is much easier

than doing it live! And theres a lot to learn from it .

Im showing a few examples here, and some thoughts

around it. Because we so often assume retouching issomething that applies to women, I also focus for a

little bit on men. Men are also extensively retouched in

the media, but often they are treated with more stealth

than women, so the retouching is nor so obvious.

Im including a new piece on sourcing images, and

although I dont offer career advice, I give some tips on

how to move on in your career, especially with regard

to collaborating with your peers. This is how youre

going to move on and start getting some reality into

retouching, and youre only going to do that when

you work with (and for) other people. This is the only

way to get into really interesting imaging. Relying on

the big www and freebie images is going to get you

everywhere and nowhere. You want to advance to the

stage where your work is actually needed and where

the challenges are for real.

In my 5 case studies I cannot claim that there is one

ideal workow. Youll see some clear similarities, but

what I aim to show is that retouching is a exible thing,

and quite a thought intensive process. You can mix and

match the things I do here, to your own images. This

book is not about painting by numbers. Its about seeing

the possibilities and not getting stuck in a dreaded rut.

Lets face it, if youre going to sit in the dark day in and

day out, you might as well have some fun!

At the end of the workow we tie it all up, and the

work becomes more technical, with more attention

to the output and the quality aspects, while resizing

and sharpening. Getting caught up in the process, its

sometimes easy to forget about the output, which has

its own requirements. Handing the work over to a client

has to be done with good communication and with the

relevant information. And thats where I leave you to it!

TAKE THE FULL PICTURE TO A PO LISHED FINISH


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Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011 Photo Gry Garness

RETOUCHING BACKGROUNDS

AND LOC ATIONS

EXTERIOR URBAN BACKGROUNDS

Outdoor backgrounds can seriously add interest to

an image, but they often require a lot of work from

the retoucher. Urban backgrounds are seldom tidy.

Photographers tend to go for a lot of dilapidated

backgrounds and its a case of nding the balance

between too much grunge, and just enough to create

an atmosphere. The image below is a typical example,

where the subject loses its pull due to distracting

elements.

An essential part of people-retouching is getting

the background right, bringing the main subject

into the limelight, while not stealing too much

attention, however spectacular the background is

in itself. The background can serve to tell a story,

act as a framework, or simply impose itself as

little as possible.

NATURE BACKGROUNDS

Nature locations often involve sky, which may or may

not have the right color and depth. Frequently we need

to use darkening gradientson skies. In the Parliament

Hill image for milliner Jo Gordon (below right) I had

to tease out all the detail possible in the Black & White

Type 55 negative, through scanning it twice. This gave

the sky enough detail to afford strengthening the glare

of the setting sun. I did that through simply dragging

a bright radial gradient. This again gave me cause to

brighten the dark road, and mask off where I expected

the shadow to be. Curiously there was hardly any

shadow in the original, because of the downward slant

of the hill and the sun actually being below the horizon.

So this is using a bit of artistic licence, but thats the


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joy of it. In fact I nd that this kind of work is the most

gratifying of all, because its about making images

stronger, not just prettier people!

A Curverevealed with a gradient is often enough to

hold in a sky, but sometimes you need to drop in a

new sky, and that involves masking. It also involves a

keen eye, as its easy to spot a background that doesnt

quite belong. Beware of fair weather light and heavy

weather skies. It always looks fake. The weather always

plays a role and we dont always get the weather that

was planned for, so sometimes we have to insert some

sunlight. I nd that a Curveblended it to Soft Light

can give the illusion of a sunnier day than it actually

was. Other times it calls for Hue Saturationblended

to Soft Light, with boosted Lightness and perhaps

reduced or boosted Saturation. You may have to apply

it selectively with low opacity, gradients and brushes.

Retouching-wise, Im afraid theres not very much wecan do about rain, other than to use it creatively! Too

much sun however, is actually the biggest problem of

them all. It causes excessive contrast, and unless the

photographer has managed to nd a way of getting

around it, it causes unfortunate brightness and shadow

in places where we dont want it. If we remove one

shadow, then the other shadows wont make sense, so

it is very limited what we can do in terms of relighting,

after-the-fact. A skilled photographer will normally use

supplementary lighting; diffusers and gobos to block

unwanted light. What we can do after the fact is torebalance the lighting for example if something is

too bright overall on one side of the image, we can

darken it through a gradient. On the right is an image

I shot in early morning sunlight. I decided to use the

light and leaves creatively, and had to tone down the

highlights and some of the shadow on her face. I also

removed a oaty part of her dress, which caused a bad

shape, replacing it with a bit of blurry background.

Its always better to start with slightly lower contrast

than you want to end up with, as its easier to add

contrast than to take it away. Its also possible to bring

attention to the main subject by using subtle vignettes,

darkening the corners and perhaps lightning the

subjects.

Highlights should not compete with the subject. Unless

they are part of the scene its a good idea to remove or

reduce glaring highlights that dont do anything for the

image. Everything in the image has to somehow make

sense and if there are unidentied objects that dont

seem to serve a purpose it can be a good idea to retouch

them out. Its always about balance, narrative, a sense

of spaceand a magnetic pull towards the subjects. In

Western culture we read from left to right and so one

should always be aware of the rightside of the image,

making sure that the eye of the viewer doesnt stray

off the page to the right, especially if western world

is your main audience. In the below image there were

not only a lot of highlights and distractions, but also a

particularly vile grafti on the right hand side. I know

this is obvious, but the cleaning up did more for the

image than any retouching done to the models.

Certain images demand complete symmetry and this is

my way to nd the absolute middle: Choose the Crop

tool and drag a crop over the whole image. Youll see

a tiny pivot point in the middle. Drag a guideto this

midpoint, from the side and the top.


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Photo: Dean Chalkley (left) and Ray Burmiston (right)

INTERIOR LOCATIONS

Here we often have more control over the environment

but thats not to say everything is easy. You may be

dealing with a more 3 dimensionalspace, often with

objects in front of a subject, such as a table. This can

make images interesting but also sometimes more tricky.

Many photographers and clients favor grungy locations,

and although we like the idea of grunge juxtaposed

with perfect models/subjects, there is usually a lot of

cleaning up in the post-production. With images like

these I often nd that I do more work on the actual

location than on the subject. Of course, you dont

want to clean up a grungy environment so much that

it loses its character, but you want to create a balance.

There are always certain elements that tend to stand

out and steal the viewers attention. My pet hates are

grungy oors and shiny paint that picks up every little

reection. And dont get me started on wallpaper! Then

there are blown out windows, where you may have to

drop in a slightly darker exposure of the same window,

or do aMinimum Dotto give it some ink.

PAPER BACKGROUNDS AND STUDIO COVES

While most professional studios have coves, painted

backgrounds, many photographers work with Colorama

paper rolls in their studios. These are usually 9 feet long

and are easy to roll out. The idea is to achieve a smooth

gradient background, with no buckles and a uniform

background color. In the real world its easy to buckle

them and they soon get dirty. Often the lighting is less

than ideal. Cleaning up buckled paper backgrounds

with a subtle gradient of lighting is one of the hardest

things to do to perfection. The gradients are so subtlewe cant even see them properly and very prone to

banding. If youre a photographer Id advise you to

shoot off the background at the beginning of the shoot,

without the model and using the same lighting. Shoot

sharp, but also evenly lit, out-of-focusvariations, just

in case the foreground or background falls out of focus.

This can be used to comp in, covering a dirty oor. In

fact, why dont you make this a habit, and build up a

library of backgrounds.

To avoid step stepping/banding make sure you dontpush the color to the limitsof printable color gamut.

Banding on-screen may look worse than it will be in

print, because your monitor is has its limitations and

is bound to display a different color gamutto prints,

but it could just as well be vice versa! In any case I

recommend that youprocess all colors so that they

dont cliptheHistogramand work in 16-bit mode.

Avoid saturating or changing strong colors after Raw

processing. Buckles can be grafted and if theyre

not too big you can use the Patch tool. If youre a

photographer, avoid those do-it-in-the-post scenarios

and try to shoot a nice even background, pulling out

new fresh background when the oor gets dirty. It

works out cheaper than retouching.

White cove backgrounds are used a lot for press shots

and editorial. Sometimes the job requires a small

amount of dot in the background, as here. Other times

we need to make a cutout, with the model is standing

more or less in space and with the shadow anchoring

him/her to the ground. For this we have to mask out the

background or rather the model, against white.


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The whole idea is that you have an image that you want to re-scale without

distorting the most important elements. Essentially its a clever transform

command. Its very useful if you want to expand or contract the background

(think gure and ground) but you dont really want to change the foreground

subject. It is also useful for some montage/comping scenarios and for tting

images into page layouts.

Take a typical shot of a model on a studio background. The background hereis a 9 ft. Colorama that as often happens becomes too narrow and needs

to be expanded on one side to ll the image. Pre-CS4 you could make the

Background into a Layer and then transform it wider, but youd get a very

plump model and you had to nd other, more devious ways to extend the

background. Content-aware scaling can stretch the background while keeping

the model intact up to a point. If you use it subtly on images with distinct

differences between gure and ground, it usually works really well. However,

used on very detailed images it creates artifacts in the form of strange patterns.

Ive also seen some very strangely shaped clouds when images with skies have

been transformed and accidentally compressed.

This new transform has a skin tone recognition button and a Mask and Protect

function, so you can totally protect objects that are crucial, to avoid re-scaling

in the masked areas. You can also specify where to center the scaling reference

point. Lets rst have a look at how we do it the easy way and later learn to

do some workarounds for more difcult images.

Mouse-over the image to see the original

Often a 9 ft paper background doesnt ll the frame and we have to

stretch it. In most cases Content-Aware scaling can help you do so

without affecting the subject. The process of doing so it simple, but itcan go wrong, so were going to look at a safe way to do it.

Photo: Annie by Dean Chalkley

STRETCH THE BACKGROUND

WITH CONTENT-AWARE SCALE

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1. MAKE A LAYER FOR THE TRANSFORM

Its not possible to use Content Aware Scaling on the

Background, and thats actually no bad thing. Because

the subjects were dealing with here are people, we will

always want to see how much a the subject is affected

by the scaling, I prefer to just hit Command+Jso we can

compare with the underlying layer. If there are several

layers and you want to join them all, Command+Ato

Select All, followed by, Shift+Command+Cfor CopyMerged and then Command+Vto paste.

2. DO THE TRANSFORM

In the menu go to Edit>Content-Aware Scale. If you

want to avoid distorting faces, click the protect skin

button in the shape of a human in Options. Go ahead

and make your transformation by pulling a side handle.

If it looks good, press OK. Note: You cant turn off the

layer eyeball while youre in the transform, so you have

to commit the transform in order to check it.

3. ASSESS THE TRANSFORM

You can now assess whether the transform has distorted

the critical elements of the image in people-retouching

this is normally the human subject by clicking off

the eyeballof the transformed layer. This reveals the

underlying layer. If it has made an unwanted change

to important elements, undo the transformation and

prepare for a bit more work, as on the next page. To

judge it critically, test by blending the transformed

layer to Difference mode and moving the layer to

alignwith the original, using the eyes of the subjectas the aligning point. The subject should be all black

when its overlaid onto itself.

Here the transformation has done a good job, shifting the

gure slightly to the side but not distorting the model as

the background is lled out. When performing a transform

like this on a graded background you might consider doing

so in 16-bit, as there is a risk of banding/stepping.

Above Left: Going into the transformation

through the Edit menu.

Above Right: Tick the Human button to

protect the skin tones. In this case I also had to

make sure the whole gure was unaffected bythe transform.

Far Left: In Difference mode you can tell where

two layer differ from each other, by the amount

of colored pixels against the black.

Left: The image aligned perfectly, showing no

difference, apart from the left background.



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LIMITATIONS OF

CONTENT-AWARE SCALING

Sometimes CAS simply doesnt produce good results. You might nd strange patterns and stepping in

ne detail. Or you may nd that a subject just looks plain wrong and elements take on a shape that

looks unnatural. Heres a typical example anda simple workaround than makes it almost right,

but not quite!

WHEN THE IMAGE BREAKS UP

Working on a detailed and busy image I wanted to nd

out if I could stretch the background to cover the left

paper edge. This edge was intended but I thought this

might be a nice challenge.

1. TESTING IT STRAIGHTAs usual I hit Command+Jto make a Layer via Copy

before going to Edit>Content-Aware Scale. This allows

for comparing the Background to the transformation.

Pulling the left side handle immediately distorts the

image, so I press the Esckey to dismiss the transform.

2. MAKING A MASK TO PROTECT THE SUBJECT

I make a rough subject selection with the Lasso tool

and give it plenty of Feathering in this case about 30

pixels. I press the Save Selection as Channel buttonin

the CHANNELSpanel, which makes anAlpha channel.

3. USING THE ALPHA CHANNEL TO PROTECT

I return to Edit>Content-Aware Scaling, this time

scrolling down the masking drop-down on the options

bar (which says Protect: None) to choose theAlpha 1

mask. When dragging the left handle, the main subject

stays totally intact and the transformation is looking

much better, but there is still some stretching of the dots.

Above: Mouse-over to see the original image.

Top Right: Here Content-aware Scale cant compute all the detailand ends up totally distorting the image.

Right: The mask protects the all-important subject.



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Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011 Photo Gry Garness

STRAIGHTENING

BACKGROUND

VERTICALS

1. MASK OFF THE SUBJECT

Make and rene a selection of the subject and theninversethe selection. Here I did this by pressing Qto

enter the Quickmaskmode and masking the man with

a black brush, with a little bit of soft overspill. I exit the

Quickmask by pressing Qagain.

2. MAKE A LAYER VIA COPY

Make sure its the image background thats selected,

not the subject. Hit Command+Jto make a layer via

copy. You can convert to Smart Objectif you wish.

3. ESSENTIAL PREPARATIONSZoom the image out so its a bit smaller than the

screen and press the Fkey until you get the grey full

screenbackground. Make sure the Rulersare visible,

Command+R and drag a couple of vertical Guides

into the image from the left side ruler. Guides magically

appear if you drag with the cursor from the ruler area

and into the image.

4. DO THE TRANSFORMATION

Press Command+Tto enter Free Transform. To change

the perspective, press down Shift+Alt+Commandwhile you drag a corner handle outwardsat the top

or bottom in this case the top. Often the sides are not

equally wonky. To straighten them individually, press

the Commandkey as you drag a corner handle. You can

also drag a side or top/bottom handle without pressing

any modier keys. The secret to a good transformation

is to avoid over-compensating. After transforming you

may have to do some small xes on edges.Mouse-over the image to see the original


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TIPS FOR RETOUCHING CHILDRENWhen I rst started retouching children I was infor a massive surprise. I expected the obvious

the snotty, the tearful and the chocolate-covered

little angels. But what really got me was the

wrinkles, the deep shadows under the eyes and

the dry skin, as well as hairs in the face. In short,

under tight scrutiny, children appear to have a

lot of the attributes we associate with adults and

even ageing!

On the other hand, there is something very special

about childrens skin. Many have a porcelain skin

interrupted by a deep wrinkle, and the line may simply

be a fold in regular baby fat. Their delicate hands and

feet often have these folds and I believe they should

not be removed, as they are an essential attribute,

especially in babies.

Childrens heads are large in proportion to their bodies.

Adults who have this characteristic tend to look child-

like. If children are shot from above this is exaggerated

but I would not usually attempt to change it, as its an

inherent quality in children and quite a big part of the

cute factor.

Childrens eyes are often huge again adding a massive

cute factor. I am often asked to enlarge kids eyes and

I sometimes do it, with a transformation of about2-3% both ways. I never ever use Liquify for this,

because I dont want to distort them just enlarge them

proportionally.

Babies and toddlers hair will generally be quite thin.

If its patchy it can be improved with a graft or two.

Sometimes plaiting or hair styles make it worse, or just

generally messy hair may need a graft.

Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011 Photo Andrea Hamilton

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If you color-correct by the numbers and happen to check the whites in

the eyes, dont be surprised when you nd a high level of blue. This is as

it should be. I tend to up the contrast in the eyes of children but keep the

blue cast. The color schemes I tend to use for kids are generally more high

key than for adults.

Kids are ever-moving, and tend to be either excited or tired. This is just a

fact of life and photographers are best advised to use ash. A bit of stealth

sharpening can be used but I nd that any technique that sharpens also

tends to coarsen the image. The bottom line is to keep children looking

natural, unless youre in the business of beauty pageants, which gives you

a licence to paint, change and distort.

The images here are some examples of the work I have done for Andrea

Hamilton, who prefers to shoot in the studio and for me to montage the kids

into a background she has shot under more controlled circumstances. All these

images are montaged.

Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011 Photos Andrea Hamilton


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TIPS FOR RETOUCHING MEN

I nd that retouching men is a really good reality check. Thats not to say that they always end up

looking real. I hate to say this, but men always seem to get art directed and retouched with more

regard to their integrity than women and dont get treated so much like a blank canvas.

Having said this, I generally tend to avoid making menlook too soft, so I generally avoid doing any obvious

skin smoothing. Im prepared to work quite hard in

order to make a guy look unretouched when in fact

hes being given the full treatment. This means I have

to do a bit more work selectively rather than globally.

There are images with an iconic quality that demand an

absolute level of perfection, where I may employ the

diffusing digital powder, but I apply it quite selectively

and very subtly. You may take a completely different

view on this but personally, I prefer a manly man! I

favor a high delity approach, which is focus-sharp andchisels out the contours rather than attening the face.

Male skin tends to be coarser than that of women,

and when they have areas with pores they may not

have exfoliated quite as religiously as their female

counterparts would, I often lighten the pores. Although

I remove any obvious blemishes, the overall texture is

generally kept intact and sometimes even emphasized,

as in the next tutorial.

Mens stubble is often irregular, and this is one of therst things I address most often with the Clone Stamp

tool on a separate layer. Youll often nd random gaps in

the growth pattern, where you may have to ll in. There

may also be some clumps that need to be broken up

slightly. Whatever you do, dont overwork it or attempt

to make it 100% regular. A little bit of cloning using

Darken mode can go a long way in lling the gaps. If

you have a light beard, just use Normal.

Photos: Sam Sparro and McFly by Dean ChalkleyDigital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011


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If youre a novice or even if youre not the best

practice for reality retouching is to retouch your close

friends and family members, because you know their

faces very well and you instinctively know when youvechanged their features or over-retouched them. They

will probably also give you an earful if youve completely

demolished their appearance. This applies to both male

and female friends and relatives but there seems to

be a different kind of vanity when it comes to men.

Men are often more touchy about their appearance

and can be extremely aware of who they are and how

they want to be represented. They often resist change

and have certain absolutes that must respected. A total

makeover may not be quite their cup of tea! I have

three generations of male family members in this book,including my dashing young brother in monochrome,

below right and my great-grandfather top right.

Red ears and noses are often a problem. Men dont often

have makeup that smooths out the skin tone. Generally,

visible foundation is a big no-no for men and its best

to shoot men completely without makeup. Youll nd

plenty of tips on this in PART 2, Skin Retouching.

Black&White is often the solution for non-photogenic

men, especially combined with a bit of contrast. Often

its attering to reduce the color saturation down to

20-30%. It tends to stylize the image and give it an

edge that sets it apart from a trivial snapshot. Its also

amazing how a bit of extra contrast makes a man more

glamorous. It teases out the masculinity and brings a bit

of zing in. Low-key images tend to make men appear

more moody, as in the Westlife album cover image,this page, left and McFly on the previous page, right.

Although high-key photography is not often used for

men, it can really look really stunning if the image and

subject is right for it. See the image of Sam Sparro, left

on the previous page.

Eye bags dont have to be removed entirely. Its often a

case of taking the edge off them and making them less

deep and slightly lighter. Remember to make a separate

layer for eyes and use a duplicate of this to remove the

eyebag completely. See PART 3 The Features for morein this. The eye-bag layer can be totally hidden with a

black layer-mask and then partially revealed with a soft

30/30 Brush. Keep looking at the underlying layer and

make sure that you retain its shape overall.

To draw the gaze towards the eyes, I often lift the

brightness and contrast of the pupils, letting some of the

adjustment spill to the whites and the area surrounding

the eyes. If the eyes are blue or blue-green, a 1- or

2-point lowering of the Red channel in Curves will

help bring out the color. This is always done with anadjustment layer and its a good idea to leave it editable

and review it after a break, away from the computer.

Very often I nd that men are a bit sloppy about

dressing and hair styling, even when they are posing for

a portrait. Fixing yaway hair, forgotten mobile phones

that bulge in pockets, shirts half-tucked in and general

uff makes them appear more dignied.

Its important to balance the background tones, tocreate a really good framework around the subject. This

can be done with Curves and gradients. Finally, remove

any distractions that lead the eye away from the subject,

such as glaring highlights, strange unidentied objects

and anything that isnt part of the story.

Photos: Clockwise from top left Neil Kirk, Bjrn Hansen, Gry Garness.


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SOURCI NG IM AGES AND C OLLABORATING

WITH PHOTOGRAPHERS

Photographic Retouching is problem solving, its borne out of a need to x aws in an image. Common

logic would suggest that there has to be a problem before you can solve it. But for those who arent

photographers and havent got any links with the industry, getting practice images may present a realproblem. Here are some image sourcing suggestions that also double up as career advice if youre a

budding retoucher.

TAKE AN INTEREST IN PHOTOGRAPHY

First, Id suggest that an interest in retouching would

naturally be linked to an interest in photography. If

youre not interested in photography as a medium,

illustration might be a better path to take. Appreciation

of the photographic language is an absolute necessity,

even if you have a background in drawing andpainting. Understanding light, grain, movement, depth-

of-eld, and the ability to distinguish a fake blur from a

photographic one, is an absolute prerequisite for good

retouching. Unless youre shooting, this means you

have to go to lots of exhibitions, look at books and get

involved in photographic forums. When you get into

this, you might nd images coming to you, through

your connections and mutual interest.

COLLABORATE!

Once youve become more aware of photographyits time to nd working partnerships. Start looking

for a photographer on the same level as yourself. If

youre a newbie to retouching, dont even think about

approaching any professional photographers without

a strong portfolio of work! You need a team you can

grow with, and make mistakes with. This is how most

people get on in this business. Let me illustrate this: I

developed my team as a photographer by putting up a

request on a notice board at London College of Fashion,

looking for a make-up artist and stylist. It showed one

image I had shot. As it happened, someone liked it,

and got in touch. Soon I had a full team. With friends

as models we put together a modest portfolio. I legged

it around London and showed it to the model agencies,

and found Storm and Models 1 willing to let me testwith some of their New Faces. As these were successful,

my images got into model portfolios, and soon I was

contacted by a very talented makeup artist whose twin

sister was a stylist. This really improved my output. If

there was a retoucher on the team not likely in the

early 90s it would have improved it even more. As

a student myself, I started hanging out with fashion

students at Central Saint Martins, and started shooting

with the top talents in Stella McCartneys year. This

was an amazing boost for the portfolio, and we all

graduated that year, getting a lot of attention and a fewoffers. This gave us the condence to approach fashion

magazines. Because I had a good working relationship

with model bookers, promising designers and makeup

artists, I landed my rst regular commission, to shoot

the New Designers showcase in Scene Magazine every

month, with people such as Matthew Williamson,

Preen and many more names. If there was a retoucher

with me on that journey, he or she would no doubt

have been part of that team, and the editorial and

advertising jobs that grew out of that. The retoucher

would have had the time to develop condence, skills

and an individual style. What you can take from this

story is how it developed in increments and how one

thing leads to another.

GET ON THE TESTING CIRCUIT

A common way to get some fashion, glamor and beautymileage is through testing. It may mean literally what

it says, i.e. testing out an idea or style for a shoot.

It might mean putting together a shoot with a team

of people working at no charge, to produce images

for your respective portfolios. Sometimes tests are

driven by a model agent, who may or may not pay a

photographer to shoot for the models portfolio. Other

tests are speculative productions, aiming to get a story

into a magazine, or even personal work. Unless the

photographer is very established and sought-after, most

magazines dont pay, not even towards the costs, whichcan easily run into thousands. Editorial tearsheets are

very desirable in a portfolio, so they are often worth it,

whether youre a photographer or a retoucher. There are

websites that revolve around the model testing circuit,

Model Mayhem being the most well known. This is an

excellent resource, and a good forum for discussions on

all things photo retouching. It also acts as a showcase

for your work. However, its more of a sandbox than

an interface with the professional world. Its absolutely

great for practicing, but a lot of the images have one

thing in common: they dont sell anything. As youprogress, you need to look to the real world outside

the testing circuit, where the challenges and demands

are totally different, and much more client driven.

NON-FASHION PRACTICE

Not everyone wants to go the route described above,

and not everyone has access to it, as its a fairly urban

phenomenon. But lets say you want to get into portrait


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retouching or music photography retouching. Practically

every village has a photographer or a photography

student. Seek them out and offer to do some work

for free. You need at least couple of years worth of

retouching miles before you start charging a fee, but

try to barter with some favors. If theres a new band,

why dont you offer your services for their next shoot,

against unlimited guest passes. Get out there and talk

to budding actors, and any other talent who needsretouching. The great thing about this is that youll

make your mistakes in a low prole environment, and

youll learn a lot about what people want and expect

from retouching.

FORGET THE GET-RICH-QUICK SCHEME!

In mid 1990s a top photographic agent stated that in

order to become a professional working photographer

you would have to invest or spend at least 50,000

GBP (or $80,000 USD). First I said No way!! And

then I did the maths. He was absolutely right, and Ihad spent at least that sum on my education, all the

tests, the material, studio hires, equipment, the books

and magazines, the portfolios, transport etc. In todays

money you can pretty much double this amount. You

may not spend that much on becoming a retoucher

but youll get nowhere unless youre willing to invest.

I have talented and experienced colleagues who dont

get the work, despite a network of contacts. Judging

by the amount of emails I get from people offering to

retouch for me, there are a lot of retouchers out there,

desperate to get work. So if you are going for this as acareer, be prepared to invest time and money in it, and

dont expect it to be an easy home-working job.

PRACTICE ON STOCK IMAGES

If you are very new to this, or still too modest to offer

your services to anyone, try practicing on royalty free

stock. I nd this quite interesting, as you learn a lot

about other peoples retouching both good and bad!

Youll also learn from retouching mistakes, and there is

usually a good challenge in correcting these. Theres

usually more retouching work that can be done on

them. This alone will give you quite a few retouching

miles. Stock comes in various qualities, and quite a few

are unacceptable for reproduction. But you learn from

that too! Here are some tips for buying and using stock:

Try to get a large image preview. Familiarize yourselfwith the pixel dimensions of the most popular cameras,

and dont download image sizes that exceed this. Often,

extra large is just a le thats been interpolated from a

large le and theres no point in paying extra. Once

you get the le, pay attention to the Prole Mismatch

Warning. A le may not have an assigned prole

and in this case I suggest assigning sRGB, as its the

RGB space most likely to be color faithful. If the le

is already in sRGB and youre working in e.g. Adobe

RGB, just stick with sRGB because the le has probably

had enough conversion stress already. Look out forimages that have jpeg artifacts and compare with the

best quality you can nd.

In this book Ive made an effort to use a quite a few

stock images of varying quality. Click on the thumbnails

to go straight to the links. Treat these as practice

images only, and never put them in a portfolio, because

others will have used the same images too! The same

goes for images supplied with books and DVDs, as

they are strictly for painting-by numbers, and will be

recognized as such. They are only for practice and youstill have to source images from the real world. It is

almost impossible to nd professional photographers

and models who will let their aws be shared publicly

with an army of budding retouchers, and youll have

much better chances of sourcing high quality images

in a more discreet and direct way. Dont forget,

photographers own the copyright, and any licence to

use is limited!
http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-1607019-men-in-suit.phphttp://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=955066http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-9031389-loneliness.phphttp://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=260433http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=839276http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=716405http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-13863159-beautiful-woman.phphttp://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-11404247-perfect-beauty.phphttp://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=1276170http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=3209062http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=185852http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=185851http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=480780http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=3480393http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-1346220-young-woman-crying-with-mascara-running.phphttp://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=529493http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-1862327-daylight-beauty.phphttp://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-1822682-portrait-of-pretty-young-woman.phphttp://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-10259244-retro-girl.php


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When dealing with a naturally good-looking

subject, it may be pertinent to take a hi-fdelity

approach, heightening their presence through

retouching. The high defnition result belies the

amount of work involved. By teasing out the

detail we also tease out some irregularity, which

has to be retouched individually.

C A S E S T U DY :

H I G H F I D E L I T Y

R E T O U C H I N G

CONTENTS>>

Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011 Photo iStockphoto.com 18

Although this lo-key image is technically correct in

its histogram exposure, its too bland for the type of

subject. In my interpretation here youll see the full

workow. Ill give it a false prole to tease out detail

and take down some red. After some cleaning and

dodge & burn, the image was given a new kind of

contrast that rendered him more edgy and masculine.

I also used Curves selectively to tease out more detail

and add depth to the image. This also has the benet

of making him more there more real.

Because this was a stock Jpeg I also had a bit of Jpeg

artifacting to contend with, especially in the smooth

gradients of the background. To reduce the impact of

this and also because it suited the image Ive made

the background darker and introduced some noise.

Mouse-over to reveal the original image


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Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011 Photo iStockphoto.com

This is a quite well-exposed image with a color cast. Its

ideal for what I want to show you. Im going to keep it

looking pretty faithful to the original but give it a more

interesting coloring and a better balance overall. At the

moment its a nice warm portrait but I want to give it

more of an edge and bring out some real attitude!

1. THE BIG COLOR DECISION

I start with a color assessment, and its immediatelyobvious that the image is too red; this is particularly

perceptible in the midtones. It makes the face too bland

for my taste and the detail on the bright side of the face

is somewhat washed out. Im faced with a conundrum

because I want to give it a contrasty feel but the subject

contrastis already slightly high. This is a Jpegand if

I had the Raw le I would have re-processed it. My

solution is to assign a false prole. A ColorMatch

prole will reduce the contrast and temper the redness.

Edit>Assign Prolegives me lots of options on a drop-

down. I choose ColorMatch, because I know it willdo the job of bringing out more detail and decrease

the redness without actually changing any RGB

numbers.

2. BASIC CLEANING

As usual I make a Retouching layer, hitting Command+J

and naming it Retouch. I tidy up some stray hairsin

the face and one crossing the eye. I identify thepattern

of the stubbleand zap any erratic short hairs that dont

t into the pattern. If there is an obvious gap in the

stubble pattern I can ll it in, using the Clone Stamptool. Its essential to follow the main growth pattern

and not try to make it up. I also use a Brush toolat

30/30 opacity/owand set it to Hue, in order to tone

down the red skin around the nose. For this I sample

a more yellow skin tone. For minor irregularities in

pigmentation Im going to hold off for the dodging/

burning, which happens in the next step. This whole

cleaning stage takes me only a few minutes.

Above: The original source image, which is in Jpeg format inother words there has already been a data compression, whichis never ideal. I have to consider how to minimize the furtherdamage when making major color adjustments. If I apply contrastto the image as it is, the highlights will blow and what little detailthere is in the jacket will be lost.

Mouse-over any of these two images to see the difference causedby the false ColorMatch prole.

In the nished version of the PDF there is breakup in all smoothareas of the image, caused by the repeated jpeg compression (allles here are compressed jpegs but those that started out as highquality RAW les tend to reproduce much better).

Notice what a visual difference it makes when assigning theColorMatch prole. You need to consider the following before

you do such a move:

Is it part of a series of images that all need to have the sameprole? If its a standalone image, as here, go ahead.

Does it benet from reduction of contrast? Here I just need toreduce the subject contrast before I apply a different kind ofcontrast but in a more controlled way.

What sins will be revealed when you open up the shadows? Inthis case, some dust and threads on the jacket. In other cases youmight just get too much noise and no detail at all.

Is it really worth doing it? The point of this move is to make a non-destructive correction. But if the image is going to be convertedback to the original color space, also consider other methods,

such as a Curve adjustment.


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3. DODGE/BURN ON A NEUTRAL LAYER

For some dodging and burning I make a neutral Soft

Light layer and pick a Brushtoolat20/20 opacity/

ow. Starting with the dodging, I use white on the

most obvious things that stand out. I lighten blemishes

with a small brush and try to reducethem rather than

eliminate them completely. With a bigger brush I do

some slight shading with a warm almost-black color

R:5 G:2 B:0. A trick I often use when retouching is toput a temporary adjustment layeron top of the layer-

stack. Its job is to make it easier tosee the impactof the

retouching as I progress. I use a contrasty adjustment

to reveal retouching in too-at skin, or a lightening

adjustment where shadows are deep. In this case I

know that the image will go darker, so I use a Curve

with Multiply blending mode 70% to temporarily

darken everything.

4. A LAYER TO BRING OUT TEXTURE

Now that the skin looks good overall, Id like to see ifI can tease out some more detail and texture in the

bright side of his face, as it seems a bit empty. Theres

a nice synergy going on in my workow, because the

temporary Multiply Curves layer I used for the last

step is exactly what I need for this. I therefore just ll

the mask with black and apply it where I need it

with a white brush at 30/30 opacity/ow.

5. NEUTRALIZE THE COLOR

To get rid of the cast without changing the contrast I

make a Curves adjustment layer. Before making anyadjustment here I choose the Eyedropper tooland set

it to 11x11px average, to give me a big and reliable

sample area for the thing I plan to do next. In the

Curves dialog/panel, I choose the middle eyedropper

(set gray point) and simply click on the brightest

shoulder. The colors are now driven towards neutral.

At the moment its still slightly warm but I have some

more work to do.

Below: This is a very small adjustment but thats all it takes inorder to make it acceptable. If I need to go back and re-edit anyof the channels, I can do so at any point. In this case there wasno need to.

Mouse-over to see the state before dodging/burning.Click-hold to see the D&B on a grey layer.

The temporary Curves has been turned into a selectiveCurve, which gives good detail in the lighter side. Mouse-over to see the before-state.

The color is now fairly neutral in the midtones after a simpleCurves adjustment using the Gray Eyedropper. Mouse-overto see the state before this subtle adjustment.


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6. INCREASE THE CONTRAST

I want to bring in some more contrast, but there are a

few things to bear in mind. Id like to accentuate the

texturein the skin even more if possible and the

last thing I want is to increase saturation in this image. I

make a Black&White adjustmentlayer and blend it to

Soft Light. Darkening the Redsand the Yellowsusually

does the trick and here I can see more texture coming

through. The blended monochrome adjustment has theeffect of desaturating the skin, which is also part of

my plan. I Edit>Fill the mask with black and use a

Radial Gradientto reveal it, using the tip of the nose as

the midpoint, as I drag the gradient outwards 3 times.

Using the gradient to apply the contrast only where its

most needed, also enables me to keep some detail in

the jacket. However, we need a bit more contrast on the

jacket and in the background, so I use the MASKS panel

to reduce the effect of the layer-mask to 80%. This

lowers the impact of the masking and reveals some of

the contrast layer even where its fully masked off.Look in the MASKS panel and youll see its a dark gray

instead of black.

7. FINAL FINESSING

I now do some nal checking. I have all the layers

intact, so any xing and additional retouching can be

performed on the existing layers, and any layer can be

edited.

For output sharpening I want to bring out a bit more

ruggedness in the skin, so I actually sharpen a selection

based on the Red Channel (the opposite to whatId do for smooth skin). This is done by Command-

clicking on the Red channel and going straight to

Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask. To hide the marching

ants I press Command+H. I apply a sharpening with

high Amount and low Radiusto avoid any haloes. The

selection provides a threshold. Im not worried about

increased shadow noise, as this actually sharpens the

highlights more than shadows.

Left: I simply used the most simplesharpening combined with a Redchannel selection.

When I have a slightly at, high qualityle, I often do a HiRaLoAm sharpeningon a layer that I mask selectively, for areal Hi-Fidelity feel.

Left from top to bottom:

The MASKS panel, which usually tendsto sit behind the ADJUSTMENTS. Thedensity is set to 80% and you can

see the mask is grey where it wouldnormally be black.

The ADJUSTMENTS panel, showing theBlack & White adjustment, which is thelayer that was masked.

The LAYERS panel with the full layerstack for the image. Note that theBlack & White adjustment has beenblended to Soft Light.

Mouse-overto see the state before this impact adjustment.


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Digital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011

C ASE STUDY:

RETOUCHING A FEMALE

PORTRAIT

The irony of natural retouching is that its much more labor-intensive than

more obviously manipulated styles of retouching. We need to preserve just

enough detail to allude that the person just woke up this beautiful! Its all

about nding the balance between awless and not too plastic. Here we

avoid big moves that change the character of the face but that doesnt mean

we dont try to bring out the beauty of the subject.

A certain amount of attery is certainly allowed, as we bring out the eyes and clean

up the skin, giving it a dewy glow. But remember, this is a portrait as opposed to abeauty/fashion image, and we need to represent this person faithfully. This is the level

of retouching youll often see in high quality magazines, where we are led to believe

there is hardly any retouching.

I have to start off with a disclaimer; This may not be the best tutorial to start with if

you havent grasped the principles of color or masks. If youre nding this one a bit

too steep, its a sign that you need to look closer at PART 1, Essentials for Effective

Retouching & Color Enhancement.

Despite the apparent restraint of reality theres a lot I can do with this image. What

strikes me rst is the big difference is between the facial color and the hand. This maybe caused by makeup or fake tan, which Im going to reduce, to create a slightly less

hectic skin tone while maintaining a certain natural saturation. Id also like to bring

some light into the face, but Im not going to force this issue, as there is bound to be

some natural lightening through dodging and that might well take care of it. One of

the ingredients to success for a whole retouching workow is the ability to anticipate

moves that will have impact on the image further down the line.

Mouse-overthe image to see the version I started with in Photoshop, in step 2.

Photo Cecilie Harris

CONTENTS>>

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1. THE RAW PROCESSING

The workow starts in Adobe Camera Raw, where I

set the endpoints and improve the color. First I check

in Preferences Command+K that no sharpening is

applied, by selecting Preview Images Only. I rst adjust

the Exposureup and Blacks down. The image is too

dark so I apply some Fill Light. There are several places

where I can sample with the White Balancetool. The

candidates are her eyes, jewelry and clothing. I choosethe whites of eyes and adjust the Blue temperature

slightly lower. I apply a very slack Curve, lifting slightly

upwards from the middle. I then go to the HSL tab

(ignoring Hue) reducing the Saturation of the orange

tonesbut I also drive the saturation up slightly in the

Reds. In LuminanceI lighten theOrangetones slightly.

For the hand which is much lighter than the face I

can choose the selectiveAdjustment Brushin the tools

and apply a couple of strokes, taking the brightness

down to a level where the skin-tone almost matches

her face.

2. LOCAL ADJUSTMENT: BRIGHTEN EYES

I open the image in Photoshop 16-bit. The overall

color is looking good but I need to make a few local

tweaks. To bring out the eyesI put two color samplers

in the eye (at 100% zoom) using the Color Sampler

tool I click rst in the cleanest part of the whites

and then in the black pupil. I then drag a Marquee

toolto include both eyes. A Curvesadjustment layer is

then applied, aiming to neutral-balance the whites and

pupils of the eyes, brighten them and raise the contrastslightly. The Samplers help me monitor the values in

the INFOpanel, with sampler #1 representing the

whites and #2 representing the blacks. For

now we have a patch over the eyes, where the eyes

are now brighter and with more contrast. Now I

obviously dont want a square sitting in the middle

of the face so if youve done your homework youll

know that I have to Edit>Fillthe mask with black, in

Above: The image with the original Camera Raw Default setting.

Top Right: As it was processed. Here seen with the AdjustmentBrush dialog.

Right: The Basic, Curves and HSL tabs, as processed.

Below Left: The test patch for the eyes and the Curve used for it.

Below Right: The eyes after masking the Curve. Mouse-overto seethe eyes area before adjustment.



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order to reveal the adjustments only in the eye area.

With a soft Brush tool slightly larger than the iris

of the eye, using white foreground color and 100%

opacity & ow, I draw a couple of strokes over the

eyes to reveal the adjustment. I then pressXto switch

the color and reduce the brush opacity to 50%so that

I can brush over the edges with black, to reduce the

effect of adjustment along the edges of the eye. If the

contrast is too strong, just reduce the layer opacity.

3. LIGHTENING DARKER PATCHES

Just below the eyes we have a shadow. For this I

roughly draw aMarqueetest patch over the area and

then apply a new Curveadjustmentthat lightens the

midtones and lifts ever so slightly in the shadows. This

is a rather at Curve with no contrast. With the FX

button at the bottom of the LAYERS panel I can access

the Blending Options in order to reduce the effects

the adjustment has on the very lightest tones skin, by

splitting (Alt-dragging) the highlight sliders trianglefor the Underlying Layer and pulling it to the left. As in

the previous step weEdit>Fillthe mask with blackand

this time we reveal the adjustment with a big soft brush

at30/30 opacity and ow, using white.

4. REDUCING A RED PATCH

I select the red patch on the side of her nose. It needs

to be made brighter and less hectic. Again I make a test

patch with aMarqueeand this time make a Selective

Color adjustment, reducing the Magenta content of

the Reds. This also has the effect of brightening theReds. Then I Edit>Fillthe mask with blackand reveal

the adjustment with a soft Brush tool, using white.

5. DOING SOME DODGING

To rst do some smaller and more targeted dodging, I

create a Screen Dodgelayerby creating a blank layer

and blending its mode to Screen. I re-name it Screen

Dodgeand then take a small soft Brush tool, set to

The image on the left shows the eyes subtly lightened.

A uid workow for making local adjustments is so

important, because in beauty retouching its the many

small tweaks that make the whole.

Left: We can use this Split-Blended

Curves adjustment anywhere in the

face, where there are darker patchesor rough skin so this is not just

limited to the area where he made

the test patch. This is essentially a

form of very subtle dodging, which

has the advantage of smoothing the

skin at the same time. If you need to,

you can reduce the opacity or ow of the brush. I suggest

a 30/30 opacity/ow.

There is no need to apply any of this to her hand and I avoid

the neck too. Dont expect the skin to become magically100% even after this theres still some work to do!

Left: The test patch for Selective Color. You can use this

kind of adjustment anywhere you see a hot pink spot but

only use it where the skin is too pink or red otherwise the

skin will tend to go yellow or even green. The great thing

about making a test patch like this is that it ags up this

problem and shows you that you need to target just the

pink area. Can you see that the test patch makes the tip of

the nose too green? Thats a sure s ign that you dont want

to use it there!



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15 opacity and 15 ow, sampling the color by Alt-

clickinga typical skin tone. Its possible to work small

and detailed, or with big soft strokes or alternate

between the two. The most important thing is to avoid

introducing any unevenness into the skin.

6. DO SOME BURNING (AND MORE DODGE)

Im usually pretty reluctant when it comes to burning in

but Im going to do a little bit of it here. In the Menu, Igo to Layer>New Layer, naming it Dodge & Burnand

setting the mode to Soft Light. Before OKing it, I tick

the Fill with soft light neutral color 50% grey box. I

press Dand then to get a good burn color open the

Color Pickerand make this RGB color: Red:10, Green:

0, Blue: 0. I use this color for burning in at a very low

opacity and ow, wherever needed. We could go on

dodging and burning till the cows come home but its

useful to have a time budget and try to stick to it. This

can be anything from ve minutes to several hours on

a high end job. If you spread your efforts evenly youshould theoretically be able to stop at any time.

7. CHECK THE PROGRESS

At this point I turn off the last two layers(screen and

D&B) and then turn them back on one at a time, to

judge my total dodging and burning. If the result is not

100% successful there are three things we can do.

1. Delete the layer(s) and start all over again!

2. Reduce the opacity if weve generally overdone it.

3. Add a layer-mask and mask away the offending

mistakes, if there are only a few niggles.

Its useful to check with the client at this stage. Up to now

we havent shifted a single pixel to another place. Weve

only affected the colors of existing ones. Its also an option

to do all the D&B in s tage 2, as I often do.

Left: Its difcult to illustrate exactly how much dodging andburning Ive done. This indicates where Ive dodged on theScreen layer (in pink so you can really see the difference) and

where Ive gone lighter and darker.


SKIN CLEANING TIPS

Zo om to a le ve l th at yo u re pe rs on al ly

comfortable with, so you dont strain your

eyes. Try not to over-perfect individual areas

ke ep mo vi ng ar ou nd , le tt in g yo ur ey es

refresh. Dont get too fixated on one region.

I f you work with two screens you can go to

Window>Arrange>New Window... settingthis to a 50% zoom level. I tend to zoom in

an d ou t qu it e a lo t an d I fr eq ue nt ly gi ve th e

image a l i t t le shake by holding down the space

bar and moving my stylus at a high zoom

view. I a lso t i l t my head f rom s ide to s ide

quite of ten. I t may look s l ight ly r id iculous

but these actions make the problem areas

jump out and reveal themselves .

WHY NOT MULTIPLY?

You may be questioning why I dont c hoose a

blank layer b lended to Mult ip ly for Burning.There are two reasons: Firstly, although

Multiply works in theory, the effects can

be too muddy. Secondly, I often find that

I ve over looked something here and there

an d ma y ne ed to do so me mo re do dg in g. By

working with a layer that lets me do both,

I can s imply switch the swatches to white

whenever I need to do some dodging and

work real ly f lu id ly. A l though this i s the

sa me ki nd of me th od as I wo ul d us e fo r

sh ap e sh ad in g, I wo ul d ne ve r co mb in e th e

two on one layer and its important to notlose s ight of what were doing here, which

is to improve the tone and regular i ty of the

sk in wi th ou t ch an gi ng th e sh ap e of th e fa ce .

Below right shows the image before these

two layers and below left shows the image

af te r bo th do dg in g an d bu rn in g.


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CONTENTS>>

Stamptool is the best tool for working within the hair,

to remove crosshairs. Using a small tool sizeI clone in

alignment not always an easy thing to do, and it can

be quite a tedious task. Cleaning up within this kind of

hairstyle is not a gratifying job that gives any positive

impact, but if you didnt it would look too messy, even

for this tousled style. The art is not to go overboard but

simply to pick out the hairs that dont belong. It helps

to squint sometimes, in order to pick out those hairsthat stand out. In this image theres a big chunk of hair

that is messier than the rest. Later I will tackle this with

grafting.

11. RETOUCH THE EYE AREA

For the eyes I make a generous Marquee and press

Command+Jto make a Layer via Copy. I retouch the

irregularities in the whites while taking care to maintain

the ne gradient of light within the eyeas I remove

patches and veins. I keep the shadows of the eyelashes

but remove some of the clumping of the lashes cominginto her right eye. There are a few long eyelashes that

butt up against the eyebrow, so I reduce them slightly

in length. I also check the texture between the eyelid

and the eyebrow an area that its very easy to forget.

12. DODGE LINES

The lines below the eyes can be lightened slightlywith

a new Screen Dodge layer, just like the one we made

earlier. I dont remove the line, but simply lighten it

ever so s lightly.

13. AN EXTRA CLEANING LAYER

Its normal to notice a few subtle things weve missed

here and there. To avoid any layer conicts I tend to

just make a blank new layerand set the Cloning or

Healing tools to Current and Below in the OPTIONS

bar then I dont have to worry about which layer Im

working on. This needs to sit abovethe Eyes layer.

8. A FINAL GLOBAL COLOR ADJUSTMENT

When Im satised that all the dodging and burning

is looking perfect, I may also do a nal global color

adjustment to give an overall effect. In this case I used

a Hue Saturation adjustment layer, blended to Soft

Light, where I boost the Lightnessslider to +31and

take the Saturationslider down to80. This adjustment

gives contrast while keeping the image fairly bright but

its a bit too much, so I reduced the layer to 50%.

9. WRAP UP PHASE 1 AND START PHASE 2

Up to this point all the work Ive done on this image is

about color and so far Ive been working in 16-bit. Now

is the time to enter a new phase, and it makes sense

to convert to 8-bit. Before I do this I save the image

in its present state and then Layer>Flatten Image,

followed by Image>Mode> 8 bits per-channel. Then

I press Command+Jto make a duplicate layer and lock

its position. I save the image with a different progress

number (prog 2) and place the History icon in thebox next to the current history state, so that if any

mistakes are made in the cloning/cleaning I can revert

back locally with the History Brush.

10. CLEAN UP THE IMAGE

I now clean the image and do thepixel retouching in

other words movethe pixels around, as opposed to

just modifying the color of them. I start by retouching

the yaway hairs in the forehead and across the

chest, as well as some of the most prominent to cross-

hairs within the hair. For this I use both the HealingBrush and the Clone Stamp. Of course, theres also a

chance to do a little bit of retouching on the skin, and

this is easier to do now that she has a more regular

skin texture. At this point I would avoid doing any

cloning in the eye area. The trickiest part is actually in

between the necklaces, where there are plenty of long

hairs crisscrossing. The Healing Brushis useful for this

because it doesnt disturb the ne gradients. The Clone

Above: All the layers of the rst phase. These are attened for thesecond phase and we start phase 2 with this very nice Histogramand in the knowledge that weve preserved maximum quality,even though weve had to make quite severe changes to thecaptured color. This actually helps make the image more real.



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CONTENTS>>

14. GRAFTING MESSY HAIR

To graft over the messy patch of hair, I select the

Retouch layerand make a selection from a somewhat

better part of the hair. Pressing Command+Jgives a

Layer via Copy. With the MovetoolI place the new

layer roughly in the position that covers that messy

hair. I tend to do a rotate transform Command+Tin

order to give this graft slightly different angle from

the borrowed area. It all adds to the illusion. I make alayer-mask which hides alland pick a white brushto

reveal only the parts of the layer needed to cover over

the messy bit.

15. SMOOTH THE PORES

I highlight the top layer in the stack and make a

rough selection of skin with the Pen tool, including

her hand in the selection and also the neck. You dont

have to be a master of the Pen tool to do this. You can

use the Lasso tool instead. To rene the selection, I

press Q to go to Quickmask, where I use a brush torene it, covering lips and eyes with black. I also blur

the selection edges with Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur.

I press the letter Qto exit Quickmaskand we see the

marching ants again.

This time I go to Edit>Copy Merged followed by

Edit>Paste,as Im generating from all visible layers. Using

Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blurat a high radius completely

smooths out the skin. I then apply Filter>Noise>Add

Noiseat 0.75Gaussian, non-monochromatic. Double-

clicking the layer brings up Blending Options, where

I can I split-blend the Underlying Layer to let the

highlightsthrough. I also split-blend the Shadowslider.

On This LayerI split-blend the highlight slider to the

middle. Finally, I attach a layer-mask that hides the

whole layerand use a white30/30 Brush to reveal

only in the areas where the skin appears too coarse

or porous.This is a subtle but pretty effective way of

smoothing locally. Do NOT use it all over!

Left: Grafting makes repair of hair much more manageable thancloning. The important thing when grafting hair is to avoid visiblerepetition.Mouse-over to see the rough positioning.

Below Left: Gaussian Blur is powerfully applied to the skin layer, sothat it smooths out the skin completely, before its split-blended

and masked. Mouse-over to see the Quickmask skin selection.


Below Left: The split-blend.

Below Right: The layer stack for thenished image.

PROS AND CONS OF WORKING IN 2 STAGES

Pros:

Less layer conf l icts

More manageable f i les

Smal ler f i le s ize for the s tage 2 f i le

8-bit supports th ings that 16-bit doesn t

Cons :

Less editabi l i ty

Two files instead of one

Cons ider at what point you spl i t your work-flow in half. If youre not strong on D&B,

leave i t for the 2nd hal f . I f you re a b i t color

chal lenged jus t work in 8-bit a l l the way, for

a si ng le wo rk fl ow . It s sa fe r!


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CONTENTS>>

C ASE STUDY: RETOUCHING

A MATURE PORTRAIT

If were lucky and we live long enough, gravity eventually gets the better

of all of us. A downward pull turns lines into folds and cheeks to jowls.

Both in retouching and in life, we have two decide whether to ght the

damage or just let it be. Its funny how we always obsess about wrinkles,

when ageing is actually about a whole host of other facial changes. Lets

look at the typical signs of ageing.

The hair starts greying, becomes more like salt and pepper and eventually white.

Head hair starts thinning and this affects eyebrows and eyelashes too. Not to mentionhair that starts sprouting in all sorts of places where it really shouldnt.

As the skin loses texture pores become evident.

If the subject smokes, ne and vertical lines are sure to appear around the mouth.

The line from nose to mouth becomes stronger, and as gravity takes its toll it eventuallybecomes a fold.

When the large area of skin that is the cheeks loses its rmness, the cheeks go south andgive us jowls and often a downward crease by the corners of the mouth.

The skin under eyes starts thinning and this can cause bags, but also a deep shadow.

The whites of the eyes - in fact the whole surface of the eye becomes yellower.

Skin becomes more yellow in general but also more uneven in color.

The skin of the neck loses its tightness and folds will appear.

Sun damage appears in the form of brown age spots and uneven pigmentation.

Thread veins come to the surface.

Oh and did I mention wrinkles?

Photo Doralba PicernoDigital Retouching for Fashion, Beauty & Portrait Photography CS5 Gry Garness 2011


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CONTENTS>>

In this lovely portrait of a photographers mother

Im doing my best to respect the facial shape and Im

not going to try to make her look 20 years younger.

However, Im going to try to improve on this warm

portrait by improving the colors and texture of the skin

and reduce but do not remove some of the more

obvious signs of ageing. I will try to unite skin tones,

tone down age spots and smooth out the neck and

some of the deeper lines. I will also reduce the pores ofthe skin and make it more luminous.

1. OVERALL COLOR

As usual, I start with the global color, this time with a

Levelsadjustment, where I press down theAlt-key as I

drag the highlight slider inwards. The clipping display

shows me that I can safely shave off 25 pointsand this

makes the whole image brighter. I like the color of the

image in general, so theres no need for Curves at this

point. However, my plan is to unify the color of the

skin, reducing the yellow contents in certain places andthe red contents in other regions. To that end I create

three adjustment layers.

2. REDUCE YELLOWNESS

I choose the elliptical Marquee tooland draw a circle

in a typical yellowish patch of the skin. Holding down

the Shift-key I then make several other patches in

different places where there is pronounced yellowness,

in order to sample various areas. I make Hue Saturation

adjustment layer and take Hueto2, the Lightnessto

+7. Although I might often adjust the saturation here,

in this case I leave it at default. To use it from scratch I

Edit>Fillthe mask and pick a soft Brush toolto reveal

the adjustment with white, in the places where the

yellow is most pronounced, using a small soft brush

between 50-80 opacity and ow and really try to

target only the most prominent of these areas. I then

take a bigger brush at 30/30 opacity/ow to reduce

the more general yellowing of the skin.

3. REDUCE PINKNESS

For the redness/pinkness I follow more or less the same

procedure, using a Selective Coloradjustment. On the

RedsI reduceMagentaand Black, so the skin becomes

paler and less pink, making sure it doesnt become

yellow or green. I follow the same procedure as in the

previous step to reveal the adjustment.

4. UNIFYING COLOR LAYERTo create the new unifying color for the face I draw

a big Marqueeover the skin and make a Solid Color

adjustment layer, using whatever color comes up

and immediately blend it to Hue. At this point it will

probably look awful but I double-click the colored

thumbnail in the LAYERSpanel and it brings up the

Color Picker, where I choose a hue on the narrow hue

slider (the one with a rainbow of colors) or control

the hue by dialing in a number in the Held. Finding

the right hue isnt always easy, so it pays to be patient.

For this unifying color I use a big soft brush at 50/50opacity and owto reveal the adjustment. Be sure to

click on the mask thumbnail before lling the mask

with black, because Solid Color keeps the actual layer

active, not the mask.

5. ADDING CONTRAST BUT CLEVERLY

I know full well that adding contrast will make the face

more marked but I feel the image needs a bit more snap,

so Im going to take my chances and do so in a way that

may even smooth out some blemishes in the process.

I make a Channel Mixeradjustment, and before I do

anything in the dialog, I blend it to Soft Light. In the

Channel Mixer dialog I tick the Monochromebutton

and set the channels to Red:100, Green: 0, Blue: 0.

This will make our lady very paleskinned and quite

dark-haired but you can see that it doesnt make the

lines much deeper, as a normal contrast layer would.

This is because were using the smooth Red channel

for the contrast. I use the adjustment at30% opacity.

Photo Doralba Picerno


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CONTENTS>>

6. COVER A GREY PATCH

Theres a patch of grey hair at the back of the head.

I Marquee around it and make a new Solid Color

adjustment layer. This time I blend it to Soft Light. By

double-clicking the colored thumbnail in the LAYERS

panel I can choose a nearby darker color in the hair.

When the color looks about right, proceed as in step 3.

I nd this adjustment useful for other parts of the hair

as well especially near the roots but it is importantthat the hair doesnt become too saturated.

7. REVIEW AND SAVE THE COLOR LAYERS

I now walk away from the workstation for a moment

and then come back to review all the color layers.

I save this version of the image after making any

necessary modications. I atten the image and make

sure it is in 8-bitbefore I move on to make a duplicate

(retouch) layerand re-savethe image (asprog 2).

8. PIXEL RETOUCHINGI tick the History icon in the current stateand choose

the Dodgetool set to Shadowsat20% exposure. We

can also setProtect Tonesin Options. I zoom in to 200%

and dodge the dark pores on the nose with a small

brush. Moving around the face, I target any particularly

dark spots that stand out, taking care not to become

too carried away and avoiding using this dodging tool

on lines. The trick is to work precise yet fast and move

around from region to region in order to keep the eyes

refreshing. Next I do some very careful healing only

zapping the most obvious imperfections, including stray

hairs that cross the face and any obvious unevenness

in the skin. I steer well away from wrinkles in this

process. It is also possible to use the Clone Stamptool,

especially for xing the eyebrows a little. The eyes are

very carefully cleaned, and in this case I use the Healing

Brushbecause theres yellowness and blueness that has

to be married together. The Healing Brush is very good

for doing this.

Above: All the color layersLeft: Choosing a color to cover the gray.

Below Left: After some subtle dodging. Mouse-over to see before.Below Right: After subtle cleaning/healing. Mouse-over to compare.

Photo Doralba Picerno

9 RETOUCH THE NECK 11 ONE OR TWO MORE THINGS


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31Digital Retouch

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