Challenge: Retouch this skin perfectly to keep real skin, not plastic or china doll!

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

We seem to have some retouch artists, both beginners and very talented.

Here's a wonderful young model who is working with me. How would you present her appearance to look naturally wonderful, but real? Work so you can save your steps and if possible.

If you can only do "China Doll" or "Plastic" look or "Porcelain" that's your choice, but also try to do a simple but impressive normal fesh healthy appearance too.

The images are:
http://www.starexplorer.com/download/OPF/IMG_7101.CR2
http://www.starexplorer.com/download/OPF/IMG_8187.CR2
http://www.starexplorer.com/download/OPF/IMG_8275.CR2
http://www.starexplorer.com/download/OPF/IMG_8318.CR2

The rules of enagement:
1) no outside-OPF postings, blogging, etc.
2) challenge ends April 17th, and I reserve the right to terminate it
earlier for whatever reason.
3) The copyright shall read: "© Nikolai Sklobovsky 2008 www.PhotoSoCal.com"

Good luck!





Note, this may not download in Safari. If so, try Firefox or Internet Explorer Asher

 

[Joe Russo]

Nikolai -

I agree with you - she is a wonderful and attractive young model.

Let me be the first to toss my attempt into ring.

I decided to work on IMG_8187 and here it is:

Steps to retouch:
1) Conversion in ACR - Adjust temp/exposure/black to warm up the photo, overall brighten the image and add some contrast.

2) In CS3 - Use a combination of spot healing brush and the clone stamp to remove blemishes and flyaway/stray/messy hair

3) Apply the skin retouching method origianally found here. I've just checked and at least at the moment it is not there. In deference to the original author I'll not post the details here but will be happy to forward them on in a PM.

4) A little light burning to reduce the highlight on the left side of her nose.

5) Added a vignette to darken the edges and put more emphasis on her face.

Maybe someone can help me with a mystery. While working on this image her skin tones were much warmer than what I'm seeing after posting this image to PBase for display here. Even if I just 'Preview' the image in Windows side by side with this post her skin tones are warmer. Does anyone know why this is?

 

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Joe, thank you!

I like it! I would love to get the steps in PM/email if you don't mind

As to the sudden warmth change: are you on Mac? Do you work in any color space other than sRGB? Web is predominantly sRGB only...

 

[Joe Russo]

Nikolai et al -

I sent an email to Simon Stanmore (author of the method I used for skin retouching) asking if his article was still available on the web. He said that it was temporarily removed as he was in the process of rebuilding his website. He did however gratiously permit me to list the steps of his method here. Without further adieu I give you Skin retouching without the 'mush' by Simon Stanmore (www.simonstanmore.com)

1. Dup the Background layer and then create a transparent layer over the Dup. Use the Healing Brush and/or Patch Tool to quickly remove any major blemishes - Pimples, scars, etc.As a rule of thumb just deal with the ones painfully obvious on a 25% view.

2. If there are any patchy skin colour issues such as redishness from a rash-like condition create a transparent layer, set it to Color blending mode, and with a soft edged Brush or Clone Tool set to Color mode paint over the off-colour area sampling from the true skin colour.

3. When major blemishes and/or colour patches are removed, merge with the Background dup.

4. Now comes the magic! Dup your retouched layer twice. Rename the first one 'Smooth' and the second 'Detail'. Click off 'Detail's visibility and select 'Smooth'.

5. Using the Select > Color Range function make an accurate selection of the skin tones. Use the +/- eyedroppers and the fuzziness slider to make sure that the areas adjacent to the skin tone (hair, clothes, etc.) are not part of the selection. When done save the selection as a new channel. Call it 'Skin'. Now you can Deselect (Ctrl-D). Still on the 'Smooth' layer open the dialogue for Lens Blur.

6. At the top of the dialogue ensure your preview is on. Load the 'Skin' channel as your Depth Map Source. Blur Focal Distance should be 0. Select Octagon as your Iris shape. Blade Curvature 100, Rotation 0, Brightness 0, Threshold 0, Noise Amount 1. The judgement call part is the Radius. You need to set the Radius to a level that blurs out all of the undesirable skin detail - Unevenness, blotchiness, etc. - Without going too far an ruining the contours of the face. The amount will depend on the skin of your subject, the resolution of the image file, and the amount of the frame filled by the subject.

7. Now it's on to the top layer, Detail. Make it visible, select it, set the blending mode to Linear Light. Now preview a high Pass filter at 100% and adjust the radius. You will find a setting that reveals pores, fine lines, etc., but still hides blotchiness and other larger flaws. When you've found the radius you're happy with run the filter.

8. At this stage you may want to try adjusting opacity's of the 'Smooth' and 'Detail' layers on a 100% view to taste. When you're happy merge these two layer with the Dup background layer.

9. Now make a black (hide all) mask on this layer. Use a stylus to paint the skin areas back to visible. No need to be too slavish about this as the mask you made from the selection should have dealt with much of the undesirable overlap already.

10. When you're happy with your masks reveal of beautifully perfect skin, Flatten: It's a job well done!

Taking it Further...
For commercial work I'm after a tip-top retouch. I create 3 or 4 'Detail' layers running a large, medium and small radius High Pass filter on them and setting each one to a different opacity. The before & after 50% views below used a 35 radius High Pass at 8% opacity, a 14 radius at 18% and a 2 radius High Pass at 75%. Using multiple layers of High Pass you can produce a very realistic 'perfect' skin...

 

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Joe,
many thanks to you and Simon for sharing this. I'm gonna try it with my next model, since I love the results!

 

[Asher Kelman]

The 4 of you my thanks! Nicolai, the model, Simon and Joe! What a thrill this simple composition is. She is impressive in this pose and I love this.

That's the good! I do still have some limited criticism. How can we make the hair appear finer and better resolved? Is this limited by thje file or the prcessing. Next the color in the cheeks appears a lttle flat. It's as if a layer of skin hue has been blended back into the entire image. What do you think? Can it be taqken a step or two further?

And who is going to go next?

Asher

 

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

I love this method! the highpass + linear light is a killer!
Here's 10 minute's test, and it looks SOOOOO much better than my lousy original:

 

[Asher Kelman]

Absolutely aced it! This is so much better.

Just a little attention needed to below her nose there's an extra edge effect!

Also touch up the outer edge of left arm and top of shoulder. Very good. I'm so pleased with the process.

Still would like to see more definition in Joes rendition of the hair. Would you like to tackle it once more someone?

Asher

 

[Joe Russo]

Nikolai -

Excellent work on keeping her skin looking natural and not plastic!

It may have been your intent but I was thinking that the left side of her face was a little bright. Did you mean it to be that way?

Asher - The model's hair in the original RAW file was soft to begin with especially down near the ends so I'm not sure how to go about getting it finer. Also, some of the work I did in that area to clean up stray strands may have contributed to a softer appearence.

 

[Tim Armes]

Wow.

What more can I say?

 

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Joe, Asher,
yeah, the her left-hand side is a bit hot.
I was primarily focused on the skin treatment so I didn't pay attention to the rest of the image..
I also think that lens blur is an overkill in this case, old good gaussian or the new facny surface blur does the same trick - and they work over smart objects, which is my preferred way to go (lens blur does not:-()
Another thing to think about is to use new CS3 smart selection instead of a color range. Just an idea...
Yet again, great primary idea (blur + highpass in nontrivial blending mode with several detail layers), I love it a lot!