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Very general PS question(s)


S

SixHouse

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Hey everyone. If this is the wrong forum let me know if there's a better one.

I have questions about editing/enhancing photos of models. For example re-touching skin. If you have ever done a Google search for this topic then you know there are millions of tutorials that all use different techniques.

As an example look at this image from photographer Hugo V. I absolutely love it. His skin technique is flawless and the treatment he gave to the rest of the image is awesome. It almost takes on a HDR quality, but I know that's not the case. Looking at this image, give me your expert opinions:

* What is he doing to get that look/feel for the model's skin?
* What has he done to the rest of the image to make it look so cool?
* How many layers is he creating and what is he doing with those layers etc.?

I know, very general questions and I doubt anyone can look at the image and be sure of anything, so I'm just looking for best guesses from people with far more PS experience than I have.

I admire this guy's style and would love to be this good.

Thanks in advance!
 

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Without the original photo, it's impossible to say what was done with any assurance. I see Gaussian blur.etc etc etc
 
My guess is, assuming all after-effects were done in Ps, he duplicated the original layer twice (for a total of three layers), did a full "HDR photo" replication on the top layer, masked out the model, then used the bottom two models to do a gaussian blur (upper layer) and smooth out the skin, then mask out the places where he needed detail showing through (face and clothing, e.g.).

just a guess.


Agent
 
agentmoeller said:
My guess is, assuming all after-effects were done in Ps, he duplicated the original layer twice (for a total of three layers), did a full "HDR photo" replication on the top layer, masked out the model, then used the bottom two models to do a gaussian blur (upper layer) and smooth out the skin, then mask out the places where he needed detail showing through (face and clothing, e.g.).

just a guess.


Agent
Click to expand...


Thanks! That's just the kind of guessing I was hoping for. How do you do a HDR photo replication in PS?
 
Actually, what I'm most interested in is the skin work. Can anyone recommend a really good technique/tutorial? I'd rather go on the advice of someone here than randomly follow tutorials I find by doing a Google search.
 
This dude is French, but covers the main tasks in creating soft looking skin.
[video=youtube_share;P6czL9yySaA]http://youtu.be/P6czL9yySaA[/video]
Each effect will have several layers, the numbers of layers is irrelevant, it basically takes as many layers as it needs.
I am not a fan of the random noise that has been added at the top of the image, also, the angle of the face mixed with that facial expression is less than flattering. The same can be said for the angle of the shot, as it skews all her proportions.
 
The best descriptions of high end skin retouching I have ever seen are by Patrick Lavoie, a fellow who earns his living doing high end retouching, and who works out of Montreal.

The 5 second summary of his recommendations (which I completely endorse) is to work extremely slowly (ie, hair-by-hair, pore-by-pore). If you are serious about obtaining a truly pro look, don't even think about using any of the global smoothing methods that are repeated over and over on the net (eg, Gaussian blur on a separate layer at partial opacity, or similar).

Here are two excellent articles by him:

http://photo.net/learn/digital-phot...photoshop-tutorials/intro-to-skin-retouching/
- - - nice summary of skin retouching

http://photo.net/learn/digital-photography-workflow/overview/fashion-photography/
- - - typical workflow for fashion photography (ie, not just skin retouching)


HTH,

Tom M
 
Spruce, the tutorial you cited is a bit odd. He calls the effect he generates "the porcelain skin look", but, in fact, it is nothing like what is usually given this name. His approach seems to be little more than the hackneyed approach of using a masked Gaussian blur on a separate layer.

What is generally called a "porcelein skin" look is quite different and usually obtained this way: Select the skin; put a white adjustment layer on top of it; set the blending mode to soft light, and adjust the blendIF sliders to exclude dark tones; repeat as many times as necessary to obtain the desired degree of whitening.

That being said, the strong consensus is that the complete whitening and smoothing effect of the "porcelein skin" technique, as well as the simple Gaussian blur approach are the complete opposites of high end portrait and fashion skin retouching (a la Lavoie). The latter is designed to retain a realistic, but flawless skin texture, as well as retaining realistic colors, contrast, brightness, etc.

HTH,

Tom
 
The op wasn't asking for porcelain skin, and as I stated in the text above the video, it shows hows to get soft looking skin. I did also warn that the dude is French, so there is bound to be some errors. I chose that tut because it is short and shows how to smooth the skin.

Anyways to show you what layers do what, I have done this touch up of a picture of Miss Johansson quickly.
View attachment 33137
View attachment 33136
Again, this was done quickly, just to demonstrate how many layers are involved with something like this and what they do.
 
"The op wasn't asking for porcelain skin..." -

I know. That's precisely why I thought it odd that the tutorial started out by saying that it was going to describe how to achieve a porcelain skin look, even though he then went on to describe the standard method for getting smooth-looking skin, not the standard method for porcelain skin, and certainly not a high-end retouching look.

Also, I feel that there is a huge difference between "soft-looking" and smooth skin. To me, the results of the Gaussian blur method often looks like someone over-inflated a smooth artificial membrane, not soft at all. :eek:

Just my $0.02,

T
 
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