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More Natural Retouching
So I have beauty retouching down pretty good, I'm a serious perfectionist so making everything flawless is pretty cut and dry to me. However I'm struggling with doing more natural retouching on portrait and fashion work and I was wondering if there's any tricks in knowing when to stop retouching but still have it look good. For me when I get going if I hold back it always looks unfinished especially when I'm already used to that flawless look. I even tried just turning down the opacity on my DB layer but the I get certain parts that come through that don't look flattering. Any suggestions or is it just something you have or don't have? Aug 10 15 06:39 am Link Interesting question. I recently watched the tutorial by Dani Diamond and was surprised by how simple he keeps his retouches. There are "15 min Retouches" in his tutorial where he goes through everything from raw to the final image and the results were good. As for skin its just the patch and heal tools for blemishes and some fs. As for d&b its pretty much just some global shaping. And thats it. I really like your "Maris Breaton"-retouch. Maybe you could orientate in that direction? Aug 10 15 07:52 am Link ST Orphitecktion wrote: Dani's tutorial is for Photographers. Aug 10 15 09:10 am Link Of course he doesnt put that 15 min edits in his portfolio^^ its just that his fast retouches look really good with just small effort and you get a natural result. All I meant to say was to bring down the high end part and keep it simple with just global d&b and some skin work. Great link btw. MDF really has beautiful images. Aug 10 15 02:54 pm Link Realistic skin retouching takes time, so you need great patience and just start experimenting. Usually I work 40 - 80 minutes on this kind of retouch. Sometimes even more if there are problems with the model makeup. D&B is the right way to go. See if you can get any tricks from this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mGUK4QDeNE Aug 10 15 04:22 pm Link Just curious the Dani tutorial being mentioned here the one from RGG EDU. Aug 10 15 07:10 pm Link Looking at op's port I'm pretty sure he knows everything about d&b  but he actually wants not to do flawless skin and stuff but more of a natural retouch. So to me "realistic skin" doesnt take time cause it is actually realistic when its unretouched. Of course I would also remove blemishes but I'm with Christian on this one, no more micro d&b.Aug 11 15 12:37 am Link It's a problem I'm getting over actually. What I've learned is to not just look at an image like you're trying to perfect it. You're actually trying to sort of improve it by bringing out the beauty in the smaller details. I don't think there's anything wrong with micro d&b but just in general if you're good with light and shadow application art wise and are good with anatomy, you'll be fine. Sometimes I even leave a blemish or two if it's not distracting. I think that it's also a good idea to take a break from the image and come back to it and zoom in/zoom out regularly / see the original to stay in touch with the original image. In reality if you look at a before/after of a 'unretouched retouch', it should look like only 2 or 3 things were done when in reality the after image looks loads better on a deeper level because of hundreds of tiny different things. It's a science I think - which means that it can be learned. I don't think it's a talent. You just have to not see people like mannequins to be and stay as in touch with the original as possible. Aug 12 15 09:18 pm Link First make notes/sketch of what you want see as distracting and want to fix, when those are fixed stop. Well thats what i need to work on.. Aug 12 15 10:51 pm Link Use a talented MUA - light it in a way that flatters the skin and/or hides imperfections. Aug 14 15 09:08 pm Link Laura Bello wrote: Look good to whom, though? You do truly amazing things with that D90/1.8D (which, judging from your recognitions, is a widely held belief), and if the highly-polished look is how you roll then just keep rolling ^_^ Aug 15 15 08:13 pm Link It's best to take a break from the image and look at it again with fresh eyes. More and more clients are requesting less retouching lately, knowing when to stop is a good skill to have. Also, it's always better to under retouch rather than over-retouch. Aug 27 15 06:11 pm Link I think achieving a natural look is relative to the intention of the picture itself. The quality of how it was made is the key and the interpretation of the retoucher regarding to their skills and visual culture. I see retouching as a process of synthesis, you enhance some things and reduce distractions in a direction you want which is usually present on the raw, it's important to read the photographer's intention, is like a dialog with the picture. As you get better at retouching you get access to better pictures, you stop struggling with errors such as misuse of light, bad makeup and overall mistakes to concentrate on enhancing well produced ideas. Regarding to retouching workflow I believe is all about a trained eye with a developed visual culture. If you see high end retouchers working you'll notice they don't use complicated workflows, there are technics and information we can adquiere from everywhere on internet, good retouching it's about training your eyes to spot the potentiality on a picture. I personally keep an eye on the original light and the bone structure, take care of textures with d&b as it needs, micro or general, and concentrate in color from the raw developer to the last colorization: subtle shifts would make huge differences on the overall perception of the picture. Hope it helped Aug 28 15 07:31 pm Link |
