What's new
By:
Photoshop Gurus Forum

Welcome to Photoshop Gurus forum. Register a free account today to become a member! It's completely free. Once signed in, you'll enjoy an ad-free experience and be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Acne: Before & After


E

ElizabethM

Well-Known Member
Messages
118
Likes
38
So a member of this forum suggested that I look up google acne photos to practise my retouching on. He was kind enough to show me a few examples works he did while suggesting I try to edit from the same images. I did and here's one result I got! I'm quite pleased with it. I've never really fully focused on retouching a while face/image so.... Yeah I'm quite pleased. *hides in embarrassment*

Retouch1.jpg

I used the spot healing brush, healing brush, the brush tool, a little bit of the blur tool and the dodge tool. If you guys have any tips of how I can improve please feel free to share, I'm always happy to learn! :D
 
I think it came out very well. I like the area around the nose, which had a dark shadow in the original.
 
I totally agree with everyone else: You did a great job! I especially like the way that you didn't touch some blemishes that are likely to be permanent, but minimized (other) blemishes that are likely to be transient on the face of the young lady.

Just one question, though -- why in the world did the original have so many JPG compression artifacts (ie, that you so nicely dealt with)? I circled two of the more prominent areas.

Retouch1-tjm01-acr0-ps04a_overlaid-4x_2x_enlarged-crop_698px-8bpc-for_GIF.gif

Is that what you were forced to deal with, or did you actually have a better copy of the image, and the JPG artifacts that we see in the "before" image were caused by some weird after-the-fact glitch (eg, our forum uploading software)?

Tom M
 
Tom, I was the one who originally found this photo (which I posted below as a PNG file) and suggested it to Elizabeth for practice (but I gave her a JPG, which is what I normally post to the PSG forum). I downloaded the original a couple of years ago and can't find the website that I got it from. My original version here doesn't seem to have the JPG artifacts to the extent that you show above, so they may have arisen from multiple rounds of converting from JPG to PSD and back again. Also, the total pixel size of the original is larger than what Elizabeth posted above, so that may have to do with it.

Retouch1.png
 
Wow gee, thanks for all the positive feedback you guys! I really appreciate it. You're making me blush! Haha
Tom Mann I think Rich54 answered your JPEG compression question but that actually gives me a question: How did you manage to spot that? Because I'd love to learn how to identify pictures. I still just stare at them with the difference of "Good quality, better quality and pixelated"
 
ElizabethM said:
...How did you manage to spot that?...
Click to expand...
A nice big monitor and strong glasses when I'm really pixel peeping, LOL. Also, when using Firefox on Windows systems, pressing control-+ magnifies what you are viewing, just like in PS.

Cheers,

Tom M
 
Tom Mann said:
A nice big monitor and strong glasses when I'm really pixel peeping, LOL. Also, when using Firefox on Windows systems, pressing control-+ magnifies what you are viewing, just like in PS.

Cheers,

Tom M
Click to expand...

Hahaha you make it sound so easy, but what I meant was more of how do you actually spot that it's a bad (?) compression? I need to learn how to look out for those kind of qualities.
 
Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as flippant. Basically, with enough experience you get to recognize the various forms of JPG artifacts. It's sort of like never noticing a small error with the way a bit of wallpaper was hung, but then once you see it, you can never ignore it, LOL.

Attached is an animated GIF of an image that I shot at an airport disaster simulation. Right click on the in-forum preview to open it in a new window or tab, and then wait for the full image to load and start flipping between the original (just down rez'ed to 1200 px wide) and a version that I re-saved as a JPG with a very low quality setting.

The type of artifacts that you see include:
Ringing (sets of extraneous light and dark lines parallel to sharp edges)
Posterizing (aka, "banding")
Staircasing along sharp, angled edges
Blockiness in both smooth and "busy" areas. This is sometimes called "checkerboarding", "quilting", or, more technically, "block boundary artifacts".

These are discussed on the following web pages and the links therein:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_artifact
http://photo.stackexchange.com/ques...peg-artifacts-and-what-can-be-done-about-them

To me, when I first look at an image the blockiness (in smoothly varying areas like skin), and the horrible edge artifacts are almost always the first that jump out at me. Those are the things that I noticed in your image.

HTH,

Tom M
 

Attachments

  • Ambulances-52-D7C_1711-LR_to_full_rez_sRGB-compare_low_to_hi_JPG_quality-ps02_2x_for_GIF.gif
    Ambulances-52-D7C_1711-LR_to_full_rez_sRGB-compare_low_to_hi_JPG_quality-ps02_2x_for_GIF.gif
    869.2 KB · Views: 10
Paul - My daughter is usually the head EMT and driver on that unit, and I think she once told me that unfortunately, that horn is now purely ornamental (but it polishes up nicely). OTOH, I can attest to the fact that the real horns create enough of a rucus to raise the dead. :-)

T
 
Tom Mann said:
The type of artifacts that you see include:
Ringing (sets of extraneous light and dark lines parallel to sharp edges)
Posterizing (aka, "banding")
Staircasing along sharp, angled edges
Blockiness in both smooth and "busy" areas. This is sometimes called "checkerboarding", "quilting", or, more technically, "block boundary artifacts".
Click to expand...

Wow. That was a very helpful post. Don't worry about coming off as flippant. I didn't even go that far, I just am so new to the very technical aspect of Photoshop that sometimes I get seriously lost. Like when my tutorials start talking about the certain degree of an image and blah blah blah. Do I actually have to really remember or all or do people just find their own editing style?

I mean I know they find their own editing style. Stupid question. What I meant is... Is that really necessary for me to learn to help me improve or is it just as I said, a personal editing style perference?

I'll try to read more into the articles you gave me to understand JPEG Artifects. Thanks for taking your time to help me! Haha I've been trying to grasp the concept about TIFF, PNG, JPEG and all those lossy choices for a while now. Ahh!
 
Good job here, I often see acne removal done so over-the-top but I agree with everyone else, subtle is always 100% the way to go.
 
Dom said:
Good job here, I often see acne removal done so over-the-top but I agree with everyone else, subtle is always 100% the way to go.
Click to expand...

Wow gee, thank you! I like the subtle way. Things are so overdone nowadays, it's nice to keep things simple.

I can't help but notice your site and wow, I just have to say that what your photo restoration is AMAZING. In awe by how smooth everything looks!!
 
ElizabethM said:
Wow gee, thank you! I like the subtle way. Things are so overdone nowadays, it's nice to keep things simple.

I can't help but notice your site and wow, I just have to say that what your photo restoration is AMAZING. In awe by how smooth everything looks!!
Click to expand...

Thanks very much!
 
Back
Top