Professional retouching lesson in Photoshop, retouching master class, portrait processing in Photoshop lesson. Processing a Portrait Photo in Photoshop

In this tutorial, we will look at several techniques for creating a dramatic portrait in Adobe Photoshop. Here the tool will be actively used mixerBrush(Mixing brush) and retouching technique Dodge and Burn(Lighten and darken), to emphasize the main details and get a dramatic effect.

To complete this tutorial, you will need the version AdobephotoshopCC, as it was in it that significant updates took place. We will use an adjustment layer colorlookup(Search for color), retouch the skin of the model, and also try out a new filter cameraRaw, which has become available since version CC. But one way or another, if you have a different version of the program installed, you will get a similar result.

The translation is based on the lesson posted on the YouTube video portal, so we will do our best to make it clear and easy for you to complete.

Step 1

First, you need to separate the model from the background. For this, the author used the tool pen(Feather) (P), for more precise selection. After the model is completely selected, press the right mouse button and select MakeSelection(Create selection). Radius (feather) put feathers - 1 px. Then apply a layer mask to the selected model. If there are still some errors, you can remove them with a black brush on the layer mask.

To make the edges of the model look more neat, you can use the function Refineedge(Refine Edge) with the settings as in the screenshot.

Also, the author advises to pay attention to the remaining contour around the model. It can be darkened with layerstyle(Layer style) InnerShadow(Inner shadow) with the settings shown in the screenshot.

Name the model layer « Model».

Step 2

Now let's open the background image (ctrl + O) , or just transfer the picture to the program. Blur the background with a filter GaussianBlur(Gaussian blur). Blur the background so that no details are visible. The author used a filter with a radius 106 .

Step 3

Let's start removing defects on the face. Let's create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N). name it fix. Let's use it as clippingMask(clipping mask) to the layer with the model « Model» . Also, check the box next to sampleallLayers(Sample from all layers).

Now, using the tool HealingBrushTool(Spot Healing Brush), remove some defects on the face.

Next, create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N ) and let's call it soft. Apply it as a clipping mask to the layer fix. With the help of a tool mixerBrush(Mixing brush) with the settings shown in the screenshot, smooth out the skin of the model. Also, don't forget to check the box next to sampleallLayers(Sample from all layers).

The result you should get:

Step 4

Let's create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N ). Let's call it R. Let's use the tool again pen(Feather)(P). In the settings, on the options panel at the top, instead of Path, put shape. Thus, the new contour will be automatically filled with a fill. Let's create a contour around the right (from us) lens on the glasses. For ease of selection, it is recommended to slightly reduce Fill(Fill), this layer, up to 64% .

Now let's move on to the selection of the second lens. Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N) and call it L. Also select the lens along the contour and slightly reduce Opacity(Opacity) of this layer, up to 64% .(Translator's note) For a closer acquaintance with the instrument pen(Feather) (P) you can study this article https://site/articles/tools_a/kak-rabotat-s-perom.html

Once everything is ready, go to the layer R and apply for it layerstyle(layer style) Gradientoverlay(Gradient overlay) (or by double-clicking on the layer with the left mouse button) with the settings as in the screenshot.

Use a gradient from #2 f2368 to # ffffff. The result you should get:

Now let's just move layerstyle(Layer style) (hold down the alt) from layer R per layer L.

This is how the glasses of the model should turn out:

Create a group and move both layers there. name the group « Glasses».

Now let's create an adjustment layer Hue/Saturation(Hue/Saturation) and apply it as clippingMask(Clipping Mask) to the lens group.

Move the slider Hue(Color tone) to value -37 .

Step 5

Now we need to create a small shadow from the glasses. To do this, create a new layer under the group « Glasses» . name it « GlassShadow» .

Next, with the key pressed ctrl, click on layer L. Thus, a circular selection will appear around the lens. Go to Select(Highlight) - Modify(Modification) - Expand(Expand). Set the expansion radius 5px. The selection will become wider. Next, go Select(Highlight) - inverse(Invert) (or right click on selection and Selectinverse) (Alt+Ctrl+I). Now, using the tool Brush(Brush) (B) With Feather(Opacity) and flow(Pressed) by 50% and low hardness , leave a slight shadow around the outline of the frame, leaving the shadow behind the glasses.

Then, do the same manipulation for the right frame.

If you have extra traces of the shadow, just remove them with the help of the tool Eraser(Eraser) (E).

If the shadow seems unrealistic to you, i.e. too dark, you can apply a filter GaussianBlur(Gaussian blur).

Translator's note: to select the shadow, you can use any selection tool. The author used RectangularMarqueeTool(rectangular selection) (M)).

Leave the blur radius at 3px. Drag the final option to the group « Glasses» .

So, the result of the performed actions:

Step 6

GradientFill(Gradient fill) on top of all layers. Make a gradient from white to transparent.

Note. author: The pink light falling on the model on the left is shown in such a way that it can be seen better. Also, the blend mode was used for this layer.Softlight(Soft light). LowerOpacity(Opacity) of this layer until you are satisfied with the result.

Turn down Opacity(Opacity) of this layer to 30% and change the blend mode to Softlight(Soft light).

Step 7

Create a New Adjustment Layer colorlookup(Color search). In subsection 3DLutFile select EdgyAmber 3 DL. Reduce Opacity(Opacity) of this layer up to 15%.

Step 8

Create a New Adjustment Layer Curves(Curves). Go to the blue channel in this layer and drag the bottom point to toned the image in shadows and highlights, thereby adding a split toning effect, as in the screenshot.

And the top point.

The result that should be

Step 9

Create an adjustment layer again GradientFill(Gradient fill) with color from f6dfb2 to transparent with the settings as in the screenshot.

Now move the gradient to the top left corner like in the screenshot:

Also, there is another alternative way.

Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N ) with blend mode Screen(Screen). With a tool Brush(Brush) (B) with a large radius (3500-4000 px) and color 90856 b, make one click in the upper left corner and use the tool FreeTransform(Free transform) (Ctrl + T) increase the resulting glow, as in the screenshot.

Name this layer « SoftGlow». The result can be seen in the screenshot:

Step 10

Create a New Adjustment Layer colorBalance(Color balance) with the settings as in the screenshot.

Step 11

Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N ) over all layers. Go to Edit(Editing) - Fill(Fill). Leave all settings as they are and change the blending mode of this layer to overlay(Overlap).

Use the tool DodgeTool(Clarifier)(O) with exposure(by exposure) 20% and slightly lighten the contours of the lapels of the jacket, the pleats on the sleeves, the light areas of the belt and trousers. It is also necessary to lighten the contour of the chin, the light areas on the glasses, the light areas of the lips, eyebrows, as well as the light areas of the face, neck and hair (do not forget about the parting). As in the screenshot

And here is the result:

If suddenly you crawled with a tool DodgeTool(Clarifier) (o) on the background, then use a gray brush ( #808080 ) and paint over the extra lightened area.

Step 12

Merge all layers into one (alt + Shift+ ctrl+ E) and place this layer on top of all layers. Using a filter cameraRaw. To do this, go to filter(Filter) -cameraRAW and apply the settings as in the screenshot. You can learn more about this filter in this article: http://photo-monster.ru/postobrabotka/rub/adobe-camera-raw/page/2

It turned out to be a pretty good result. I hope that you got a lot of knowledge during the lesson, and you liked the result.

Portrait retouching - open the first photo.

A good portrait, but often you need to remove all sorts of small details on the skin. It's not always even a defect. Often, with commercial retouching, the client requires the model's face to be smooth, like on magazine covers. Therefore, now we will consider several useful tools for this.

The first is Spot Healing Brush Tool (Spot Healing Brush Tool)

An excellent tool for quick correction of fine textures. In the settings, always set the hardness to 100%, the texture is corrected only with rough edges, otherwise the quality of the retouching will suffer. Select the size according to the irregularities that need to be removed. It is convenient in the process of working just to click on square brackets to change the diameter. The mode for such work is only Normal. And the Content-Aware type. And now I would recommend creating a new empty layer.

If you do retouching on an existing one, then you won’t be able to go back and correct something, if you copy an existing layer, this will significantly increase the size of the document, so it’s best to work on a new empty layer. And we check this box, so the tool will take into account the information on all visible layers, and all adjustments will be saved on our selected layer.

This tool is very easy to use, you just select the diameter corresponding to the bumps and just paint over them, and Photoshop itself will pick up a surface in the image with the same texture, but smooth, to replace it with the corrected one.

But there are cases when automatic algorithms are not suitable, or you just want to maintain control over retouching. To do this, we will use the tool HealingBrushTool (Tool "Healing brush").

The principle of its operation is almost the same, with the difference that we ourselves choose the area from which to take the clean texture. With the Alt key held down, select where we will take the sample from, and then just paint over the objectionable area.

And Photoshop itself will already adjust this area in color and brightness to the environment. This is the tool I always use when retouching and I recommend it to everyone. Just remember that this is only for editing small defects. If the area is large, then completely different techniques for copying and adjusting the texture in color and light are already applied on it. Almost like a collage.

It often happens when the irregularities to be corrected are located too close to some contrast area. Then the SpotHealingBrush and Healing Brush tools, due to the peculiarities of their algorithms, will give a result that is unlikely to suit us. To prevent such unwanted color transitions from being created at the borders of the corrected areas, there is another tool CloneStampTool (Stamp Tool).

We leave all settings as default. And in order to work on a new empty layer, you just need to set in the Sample column that we will take the area from the current and underlying layer.

The principle of this tool is quite simple. We hold down Alt, take a sample that will serve as a material for adjustment and paint over the area we don’t like. Note that neither the brightness nor the color of this area changes, so you have to be careful not to do things like this with this tool.

Well, if you have a graphics tablet and you can set the dependence of the stroke opacity on the pressure of the pen. But if this is not possible, then to mitigate the effect of this tool, you can lower the Opacity parameter in its settings. But it’s also better not to get carried away with this, otherwise you can get a completely smooth texture, which will strongly stand out from the overall picture.

Chapter 2

Often the photographer needs to somehow correct the figure or face of the model. Especially if he works in the field of beauty photography. And for this, Photoshop has a great tool.

First, create a copy of the original layer, and then go to Filter – Liquify (Filter – Plastic).

A new window opens before us, in which we will work. On the left you see a panel with icons of different tools, on the right their parameters, which do not differ in any way. The very first Forward WarpTool is the most basic tool that you will use 90% of the time when working on a shape. Everything is simple in the parameters - we set the size of the brush according to the area we will edit, and it is better to set the pressure of the brush to 100%, and somewhere around 30-40. This will help you make more accurate adjustments.

Let's now try to tweak the figure a little. We just move the unwanted areas with a brush, giving them a shape that is pleasant for us. The tool works very simply - all pixels on the image are moved, and those that are on the borders of the area being adjusted are stretched.

It is better to work carefully and not to make strong adjustments, otherwise it will look unnatural, and the quality of work will also suffer. Along the way, you can change the size of the brush with square brackets. If suddenly you can’t do it, then simply switch the keyboard layout from Russian to English. For large areas, set the diameter to a larger one, for small ones, to a smaller one. So you can correct almost any figure. Naturally, we can not only reduce some strongly protruding parts, but also increase them.

Try to put the center of the brush, when making some kind of adjustment, not directly on the border of the editable area, but a little beyond it. So it will be easier to keep the correct form and it will not be necessary to make many small edits, therefore the quality of the image itself will be preserved as much as possible.

If you decide to correct the contours in smaller areas, then simply select the ZoomTool tool, it is the last one in the list and click on the desired area. The image will be enlarged. When holding down the Alt key, it will decrease.

If we want to undo the last action, then the same keyboard shortcuts work here - Ctrl + Z undoes one action, and Ctrl + Alt + Z undoes all the others.

The following tool restores the original position of the pixels in the image. Those. if we have already corrected enough and we don’t really like some area, then we can always return to its original appearance in order to correct it again. Just choose the size of the brush according to the area, and just put the force of pressure at your discretion. You can set a small one to more accurately control the recovery speed.

The next tool pulls all pixels towards the center of the brush. Visually, this looks like a reduction in some area, but not in the form of an object, but simply spherically. For the tool to work more correctly, it is better to choose a brush size larger than the area you are going to edit.

This tool works exactly the same as the previous one, with the only difference being that it does not shrink pixels, but pushes them apart, visually enlarging the edited object. It is also better to set the size of the brush a little larger than the editable area.

The last tool does some havoc. I never use it and I do not advise you, let me just show what it does.

When you're done editing, just click OK and Photoshop will draw all the changes on the selected layer.

Chapter 3

Often, when shooting a beauty portrait, it is not possible to comb and style your hair so that it looks perfectly smooth.

Yes, on some creative portraits this is not particularly required, but if it is a commercial order or shampoo advertising. Sometimes a client just wants to look like on the cover of a magazine and with tousled hair it will be very difficult to convince him that the result meets his expectations. Let's learn how to style our models in Photoshop.

First, let's remove the fine hairs from the face. To do this, we use the already known HealingBrushTool and, where the tool fails, there is CloneStamp.

Often I just take a blank texture that I already have and copy it onto the hairy area. I select the desired area with the lasso tool, press Ctrl + C, and then immediately Ctrl + V and this area appears on a new layer created on top of the image. I then drag it to where I want it with the MoveTool and make the edges of this area soft so that it blends in with what's around it.

You can do this either with the EraserTool, selecting a brush with soft edges, or with a mask. I would not advise erasing with an eraser, since this is still a destructive operation, but with a mask it is just right to do such manipulations. Create a mask for this layer, take the BrushTool, select a brush with soft edges, or set Hardness 0% in the settings yourself and carefully paint over the borders with black on the mask.

If this area needs to be corrected in tone, then you can use the Levels tool with a clipping mask. Create an adjustment layer with levels and, holding Alt, click between these layers. Now let's make our adjustments.

Now it's the turn of small individual hairs along the edges of the hairstyle. They are very easy to remove, usually all retouchers use CloneStamp for this. Try to set the brush size smaller and just carefully, taking a sample from the area that is nearby, paint over these hairs. We don't use a HealingBrush for this, as retouching so close to the edge of the hair is bound to create unwanted gradients.

Now it's the turn of the bulk of the hair. Small hairs are usually removed with the CloneStamp tool. But if doing this is not very convenient, then we will do it differently. Just select those parts of the hair that are well combed, copy them to a new layer and use the transformation to fit the area to be copied. Press the key combination Ctrl + T and rotate the layer.

And now let's explore a new transformation option - Warp mode. Click on this icon and a grid appears on the layer. On this grid, we can easily bend the area so that it fully corresponds to the retouched area.

When finished, click OK. Now we create a mask for this layer and use the BrushTool tool with black color, after putting soft edges on the brush, paint over the borders.

When we see discrepancies in tone, we simply use the Levels tool to adjust the gamma.

Chapter 4

Your models do not always have perfectly white teeth, and often in amateur photography, natural lighting only emphasizes this. Let's learn how to fix it with Photoshop.

The picture clearly does not show perfectly white teeth.

In general, nothing is ever perfect in life, but let's do everything with you to the maximum, and then we can always weaken the effect. To make your teeth look white, you just need to discolor them and, in most cases, also lighten them. Therefore, we select the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe teeth in any way convenient for us. I'll go maybe the most non-obvious way, but for the teeth it turns out to be the fastest and most accurate. You just have to draw them by hand. I'll just create a new layer and use a soft brush to paint over this area with black.

We will not save this layer, it is needed only in order to create a selection. With the Ctrl key pressed, click on the layer and create a selection. Now we create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and, as you can see, our selection automatically created a mask for it. Now delete the black paint layer by selecting it and pressing Backspace. In Hue/Saturation simply lower the Saturation parameter.

But not until the teeth turn gray, otherwise it will look completely unnatural. Now take the Levels tool and either hold down the Alt key and copy the mask from the desaturation layer onto it, or with the Alt key pressed, simply click between the layers. The effect of these actions will be the same, do as you wish. Here we adjust the gamma towards lightening.

Already the result is quite decent. Now let's create a ColorBalance adjustment layer and add the finishing touch. In medium and light colors, add some cold colors.

If the teeth seem too shiny, then simply merge all these layers into a group, for this we hold down Shift and click on the topmost, then on the bottommost layer that needs to be merged and press Ctrl + G. Now we simply lower the Opacity parameter for this group.

Now let's tweak the eyes a bit. First of all, they, like the skin, have a lot of unwanted details that it is desirable to clean. Small vessels are easily removed using the same HealingBrush or CloneStamp.

When the texture has been cleaned, you can slightly correct the tone of the protein. Usually, if the protein is light, then the eyes attract much more attention. But the main thing here is not to overdo it. Select the area with anything, and create a Levels layer.

If the selection was created with hard edges, it is better to increase the Feather parameter in the mask parameters that are shown when you click on it to blur the edges. Now just move the gamma towards lightening.

If you want to return shadow areas (this often happens, otherwise the eye will look unnatural), then simply draw a soft black brush over the mask where the shadow should be.

Now it's time for the rainbow. Firstly, it is desirable to increase the highlights, since this is the most contrasting area, it will attract the most attention. Select the iris and copy it to a new layer by pressing Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.

Then we take the DodgeTool tool. It is located on the toolbar on the left, the first in this list. We'll look at the tools on this list in more detail later, but for now, all you need to know is that this tool allows you to lighten pixels in an image based on their tone. Since we will first highlight the iris, select Midtones in the Range field, and set the Exposure parameter to no more than 50%. It is better to always check the ProtectTones checkbox, it allows you to perform all the manipulations without fear of oversaturating the shades. Now just make a couple of brush strokes on the iris. Excellent. Now we set the Hightlights parameter here and increase the glare in the same way.

If you overdo it too much, then just turn down the Opacity parameter of the layer.

Chapter 5

There are many ways to create the “creamy skin” effect that is so popular with commercial retouchers. We will get acquainted with the easiest and relatively fast. But their principle is always to ensure that the skin everywhere is more or less the same light coffee shade. To do this, you need to somehow paint the entire surface in this shade and thereby equalize and bring together the existing colors.

Let's start by making the skin mask first. Create a new Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and adjust the red area.

Let's expand this range to yellow by simply pinching and dragging between the two bottom sliders. Now we shift the Hue parameter completely to the right or to the left, it does not matter. The main thing is that all red and yellow shades have changed a lot.

This is necessary to make it easier to separate them by color, and therefore it is easier to build a selection on this. Now we set the already known blending mode Difference. Now we see practically see what our skin mask will be like. We climb into the Channels tab and click with the Ctrl key pressed on the RGB channel, thereby creating a selection. If a warning pops up, just click OK.

It informs that there are few light areas to select, but we do not need this. After we create another Hue / Saturation layer, and hide the previous one by clicking on the eye icon, or you can delete it altogether, we don’t need it anymore. For the new layer, we need to adjust the mask, to do this, with the Alt key pressed, click on it and use Levels. We move the white point as far as possible so as not to create cutoffs in the highlights, adjust the gamma to highlight the midtones and move the black point to remove unwanted selection and concentrate it more on the skin.

Now that the mask is ready, we can begin to manipulate the skin color. First, let's lower the overall saturation by moving the Saturation slider to the left.

Then duplicate this adjustment layer and reset its settings by clicking on this icon. Now we go to the red range and slightly reset the saturation here, and shift the Hue parameter just a little to the right side so that the red shades change to orange.

If you wish, you can not make the lips so pale, for this, simply go over the masks of these adjustment layers with a soft black brush over the lips and remove the correction from them. Now let's tone it with a PhotoFilter adjustment layer. It's in the Adjustment Layers panel.

In the Filter field, you can select various color filters, we are interested in warm ones. Copy on this layer the skin mask from the previous one. And now we adjust the Density parameter, which is responsible for the strength of the filter.

If you disable this checkbox, then the color will be superimposed using a different algorithm, in which the brightness will decrease, we do not need this in this case. Now let's merge all the layers into a group. Click on the top one and with the Shift key pressed, click on the last one. Press the key combination Ctrl+G. And now we will slightly lower the Opacity parameter of the group so that our shading looks more natural.

Let's now locally sharpen the eyes and lips of our portrait. Using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E, copy our image to a new layer and apply the UnsharpMask filter already known to us. We set the parameters according to our picture.

Create a mask for this layer while holding down the Alt key, so the mask will be black. Now with a white brush with soft edges, just go over the places where you need to sharpen.

This tutorial will describe how to professionally digitally edit images in a glamorous style. Not everyone has a perfect appearance. Also, lighting adds its flaws when shooting, which is not always ideal. Imperfections in the skin and lighting of images are easily corrected using the tools of Photoshop. So, let's begin.

It is with this action that photo processing usually begins.

Correction of light and colors is easier to perform on smooth skin. To work, we need two tools - this is the Patch tool (patch) and Clone stamp (cloning stamp). Before using the tools, be sure to make a duplicate of the layer (Ctrl + J). Perform processing on a copy. When working with Clone stamp, to get a good result, you need to adjust the opacity (opacity) and flow (pressure). With the Patch tool, everything is much easier. It is necessary to outline the defective area and drag the stroke onto clean skin. It is not recommended to ideally clean the skin. Wrinkles caused by facial expressions and moles are best left. If the treatment is done in the style of glamor, then the skin needs to be cleaned more efficiently.

Next, we will deal with the eyes and eyebrows of the model. Let's make the eyes more expressive, and the eyebrows - even. Let's start with the eyes. One of the best and easiest ways to lighten eyes and teeth is to use the Dodge tool. Before starting processing, you need to create a new merging layer (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E). Set up the Dodge tool: set Range - Midtones (range - midtones), and Exposure (exposure) - 20%. Using these settings, draw the tool several times over the eye. If the result is too light, you can reduce the effect of the last action by pressing Ctrl+Shift+F. The size of the brush should be such that it does not touch the eyelids, as makeup will be disturbed. Also, with this tool, you can get rid of bruises under the eyes with minimal Exposure values. Here's what we get.

The result is good, except for the redness of the whites. How do we remove it? With the help of the Patch tool, you can get rid of large veins. Also use Hue / Saturation (Hue / Saturation).
Using the Lasso tool, select the proteins and click on Hue / Saturation in the layer control panel. Next, reduce the colors in Saturation by -49%. If you process a photo in mask mode, you can control the processing process by clicking on “”.

With a brush, remove everything superfluous from the mask and press “” again. Having achieved the desired result with the eyes, we move on to the eyebrows. With the help of the Clone stamp tool, it is easy to achieve the desired result.

You can whiten your teeth in a variety of ways. We will use the Dodge tool, using the same settings as for the eyes. Create a new unifying layer and make a few strokes with the tool on the teeth. Outlining them with the lasso tool, apply the Hue/Saturation filter. Correcting the borders in the mask. The teeth whitened evenly, and this is not natural. Select with the help of a lasso a section of the mouth and apply Curves (Levels). After darkening the teeth, switch to the mask view mode and remove the influence of the effect from the areas that should be light. This result is more natural.

Our example does not show the effects of increased saturation and whitening of the photo. We just improve the frame that we got when photographing. Next, we'll work on improving skin tone.

In our case, the skin color is a bit reddish and oversaturated. To fix this, open Levels and start adjusting first in RGB and then in Blue. We remove the yellowness of the skin and make it a little lighter.

Next we need to even out the skin tone. The cheeks of the model are more pink than the forehead and chin. Create a new transparent layer and use the pipette to select the color in which the entire face should be covered. We use pink. Change the layer overlay to Color and paint over it with a brush with soft edges. In the brush settings, set the Opacity and Flow to 20%. The brush should have soft edges. If the skin has become too pink, reduce the opacity of the layer.

We will correct the texture of the skin using the Portraiture plugin. Before applying it, we make a unifying layer. In the plugin interface, select the average skin color with an eyedropper. Set the saturation to Normal and click OK.

The plugin made the skin too porcelain. To fix this, you need to slightly reduce the opacity of the layer. In each case, this will be an individual value. The example uses a value of 43%.

After getting rid of wrinkles and spots, we proceed to correct the color of the lips. For this we use Selective color. Select the lips with the lasso tool, go to the layers panel and in this tool select the red channel. We edit the indicators until we get the desired result.

Finishing touch
Let's make the photo clearer. Create a new merging layer and press Ctrl+Shift+U. Select High pass (Color contrast) and set the radius to 1.0. Change the layer's blend mode to Overlay (overlap). Create a mask for this layer and fill it with black. Next, with a white brush, open the areas that should be clear. In our case, these are eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes, teeth. This completes the artwork. Here is the result we got.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to fix image imperfections in a low quality photo, and also share a very quick and easy way to even out the skin of the face. The woman in this photo is not a model, but we see her bright character; there is no point in over-retouching the picture. Let's make it look natural.

A photo

The photo we'll be practicing with in this tutorial can be downloaded from the Free Range Stock at this link. The method I'm going to show can also be used to edit beauty photos, it just needs to change some of the settings that we'll be using to even out the skin.

Step 1

Looking at the channel Blue, you will see that it is not very successful. Many of the features inherent in a JPG photo are not particularly visible when viewing RGB, but for several different reasons it still makes sense to make a correction. This will reduce color defects in the image in the first place and provide more flexibility for subsequent adjustments.

Create a copy of the layer background layer. In this new layer open filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the radius value to 10. Click OK. Select a color as the blending mode. To open the blending options, double-click on this layer to the right of its name. On the menu advanced blending uncheck before R and G. Thus, any correction will be made exclusively with the channel Blue. Rate the channel again Blue: got better.

Step 2

Now with the help of curves we will align the color of the image. It is recommended to use curves rather than levels, so you will have much more control over the situation (curves preset).

Create a New Layer for Curve Manipulation (Curves Adjustment), then click on the little button to the right of presetCcontrol and choose Load Preset to download my file.

Step 3

The way in which we will even out the skin of the face practically does not require resorting to cloning. For any large defects on the skin - in this case, these are four large age spots - we use Healing Brush Tool (J).

Create a new blank layer just above the copy of the background (BbackgroundCopy). Select Healing Brush (J), not forgetting to make sure that in the column with its characteristics is selected Sample All Layers. By brushing over these cannabis, you will remove them.

Do not forget that no changes can be saved in the original file, because you may want to cancel all changes at any time. That's why we painted with the brush on a new layer.

Step 4

Select the three layers below the layer where the curves were edited. Drag them down to the button new layer to make copies of them. To merge these three duplicates, click command +E.

Choose a tool Polygonal Lasso and circle the face. There is no need for excessive precision. Now go back and holding alt, deselect areas such as eyes, eyebrows, nostrils. Go back again and select everything else that should be left as is - the outline of the nose, dimples, collarbones, chin line. This is what my area selection looks like:

Click Shift+command+I to invert the selected area, then click Delete. You will not notice any changes at this stage, because everything on the bottom layer is the same that we just cut out.

Step 5

open filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the radius value to 20, then set the opacity value (Opacity) equal to 75%. Select and copy the same bottom three layers as recently. To merge these three duplicates, click command+E. Move the resulting layer on top of the layer in which the skin was leveled. With the new layer selected, click command + alt + G, and you will get a mask (ClippingMask); it will be marked with an arrow pointing down. This means that the bottom transparent layer will be the mask for the top layer.

Step 6

Select the same bottom layer, open filter > Other > high pass. Set the radius value to 4.

Now you can notice the presence of the mask (ClippingMask), but not for long. Select a blend mode for this layer Linear Light, opacity value (Opacity) equal to 40%. Ready!

Look at the photo below and compare the before and after shots.

This method is effective in retouching any portrait, but the purpose of processing is not to make any person look like a model, but to only slightly smooth out skin imperfections while maintaining its naturalness. Therefore, such processing is suitable for working with a portrait of an ordinary person.

The first thing you need to start processing a portrait is to analyze the photo and develop a work plan. As a rule, opening the image, the processor immediately looks at the face, eyes, skin defects, and thus pays little attention to the overall picture.

Start your analysis by looking at the photo as a whole. To accustom yourself to this, reduce the photo by zoom so that the details are not readable and do not distract you.

What you need to pay attention to when studying the photo (the order does not matter):

• Is the image balanced in tone and color?
• How do the contours of the figure and clothes look?
• Are the proportions of the body preserved and is there any deformation?
• Is the lighting and exposure correct?
• Is the image properly focused?
• Are there any defects in the background?

After that, you can conduct a detailed examination of the photo and identify the following questions for yourself:

• Do I need to remove dust from the photo?
• What skin and body defects need to be removed?
• Is makeup treatment necessary?
• Whether it is necessary to adjust the shape of the body.
• Do I need to correct the lips and other facial features?

In principle, everyone should develop their own algorithm of work, at the moment I adhere to the one described above.

Advice: Flip through magazines, study the classics, and not only photos, but also fine arts in general. This will contribute to your overall development as a photographer and retoucher.

Treatment

Let's analyze it and decide how we want to process it.

For details:

• The face is clean, there are almost no defects. It is necessary to remove moles and slightly smooth the skin while maintaining texture. Remove wrinkles above the left eye.
• The eyes are very red. Remove redness and remove wreaths.
• Facial features do not need to be corrected.
• Slightly change the shape of the hairstyle above the head.
• Make lipstick color more intense

Step-by-step processing of a portrait photo

Any processing begins with the fact that I duplicate the main layer and hide it. This gives me the ability to undo any change, even if it is no longer available in the History panel, this time. I can always hide the changes, look at the original and see if I did worse than it was, these are two.

note it is very important to make a new layer after each processing step. And leave the previous one as insurance. For example, if you blurred the skin and started working on, then with any mistake you will not be able to return to the original, because the original contains an image with raw skin.

Thus, you always have 2 layers of the original photo and the last processing option to which you can roll back. If this seems superfluous to you, then you can delete the original and it is enough just to have the last version that you are sure of.

First step We remove all skin defects, moles and wrinkles. This is done with the Healing Brush tool, and Clone Stamp (but there should be a brush with an opacity of 20-30%) and go ahead.

Advice: When reading lessons, watching videos or sitting at a master class, do not be driven by the numbers that are used in the settings. Try to understand what values ​​are needed for what and experiment on your images.

It remains to process the eyes. To do this, take the Clone Stamp with an opaque brush, increase the image to 300% and carefully remove the wreaths. The eyes remain a bit dark, but we will fix this in the next steps.

Next, I want to straighten the hair, reshape and remove the strand that stands out. This is best done with the Liquify tool, it's in my Filter. In order not to upload the entire photo to Liquify, we need to select the area that we need to process.

Leather processing.

Now we are ready to make the model's skin more glamorous and even. To do this, do the following:

• A copy of the layer, this will be our main layer, which we do not touch.
• Apply a Gaussian Blur to a new layer, with a radius that blurs the borders of dark and light areas. In my case, this is about 20 pixels.
  

  

• Copy the blur layer, we get two blur layers on top of the normal one.
• Set the first layer to Darken blending mode, opacity 50%, the second Lighten and opacity about 60. The higher the opacity of the Lighten layer, the more the skin will glow as a result.
• Copy the normal layer and merge both blur layers with this copy. As a result, one normal layer and one blurry layer remain.
  

  

• Now we need to add noise, which will be an analogue of the skin texture. Create a new layer, through the menu Layer -> New -> Layer .. select the blending mode Overlay and check the box below to fill the layer with 50% gray. We get a new layer that does not affect the picture.
• Menu Filter -> Noise -> Add noise, the value is such that the skin becomes a little rough, in my case it is 1.2% and a checkmark so that the noise is monochrome. Merge this layer with the blurry one. And to beat the noise a little bit, we do Gaussian Blur again with a very small value, I have it 0.3
  

  

• The most interesting hold down alt and click on the button to add a mask to the blurry layer. We get a black mask. On which we already draw with a translucent brush all those places where the skin is contained, so that only the skin is projected from the blurry layer. This must be done very carefully.
  

  

• After working on the mask, it remains only to deal with the pinkish tint. I create a Selective Color adjustment layer, choose yellow, remove cyan and add yellow. Don't be afraid to add too much, you can always fix it with a layer mask and transparency. Then we invert the mask and draw it.
  

  

• As a result, we get such a set of the main layer, blurry and Selective Color.

  

• It turns out such a final picture
  

  

But you can make it even more interesting. For example, add volume using Photoshop. As you understand, volume is just a light-shadow. To give the photo additional volume, you can create a new layer and work on it with the Dodge and Burn tools, we wrote about them in the article Effective photo processing in Photoshop

We draw volume and work with light and shadow.

Working with Dodge and Burn is not convenient because you draw both highlights and shadows on the same layer. To separate the light and shadow into layers, do the following.

Duplicate the main layer twice. Assign a black mask to each layer. One layer set to Multiply blending mode, the second layer set to Screen blending mode.

Without going into too much detail, Multiply darkens the entire image, while Screen brightens it. By painting with a semi-transparent brush over the Screen layer, we lighten the necessary areas, and darken them using Multiply. You can do this not only to create volume, but also for any correction of lights and shadows.

To enhance the volume, we will lighten the light areas and darken the dark ones. In our case, we will lighten the protruding areas of the face of the forehead and cheekbones, and darken the lips and cheeks. I painted a little more on the hair to lighten the roots and darken the light areas.

It is difficult to notice changes in such a photo, but believe me, they are very significant.

It remains only to add sharpness and contrast. There are a lot of ways, in this case I use the High Pass filter

And the final touch is to duplicate the layer, blend mode Overlay, black mask and paint over the hair with a brush to give it a little goldenness.

Let's see what happened in the end layer by layer.

Visual comparison, you can click for a larger resolution.

And the result

Video "Processing a portrait photo in Photoshop"

If you want to consolidate the material, I highly recommend watching the following video tutorials made specifically for this article. They explain everything in the most detailed way. You can choose a high resolution and enlarge the video to full screen to see all the details of the work.

Outcome

This portrait photography processing in Photoshop takes about 20-30 minutes. Depending on the requirements of the customer, automation using actions and other nuances.

Naturally, all of the above can be done in a variety of ways, and I do not claim that the option I have proposed is the best.

With the help of Photoshop, you can easily hide the facts of losing weight. The main thing is to do more and skill will come to you over time! Don't be afraid to experiment with different photos.