Mcretoucher wrote:
the best retoucher i have seen
patrick naik
michael woloszynowicz
natalia taffarell
When it comes to retouching skin, I don’t know of anyone who’s better at it than Pratik Naik and Natalia Taffarel. I’m pretty sure that neither of them has an account on MM now. Natalia used to have one.
I bought her DVD on Beauty and Hair Retouching: High-End Techniques when I was about two years into Photoshop, and it went right over my head. I learned a few things, but most of it was way more advanced that I was at the time.
As far as I know, that’s Natalia’s only full course on retouching is the DVD. It’s available from digitalphotoshopretouching.com. Well, it’s a specialized course, not a Photoshop A to Z course.
Pratik has several courses available on creativelive.com (on Photoshop, Lightroom and CaptureOne, his current RAW processor of choice) and three on RGGEDU.com. He has a methodical approach to teaching and is very easy to follow and understand.
In addition to numerous fashion and commercial clients, Pratik does a lot of work for Vogue and Elle magazines.
Also, in December, Pratik introduced a new software application (actually a Photoshop extension), Infinite Color Panel, for color grading. There was a lot of hype. There were about 200 photographers who gave it rave reviews and showed photos they had color graded with his software on Instagram.
I bought it on Christmas day and found it was even better than advertised.
Pratik says the most difficult thing about color grading is deciding what direction to take, and I agree with him. His extension is kinda like a roulette wheel with five columns.
Load the photo, open ICP, push the Create button, select Light, Medium or Intense, and it produces an endless number of combinations of five adjustment layers (curves, color balance, selective color, gradient map, and color lookup), each with its own unique look.
I think Intense tends to work best in the highlights, and Light is more suited to shadows.
If you like a combination, you can give it a name (replacing Infinite Color Panel) and keep it with the file or add it to your PS Library. Once you change the name, when you push Create, it will give you new variations without overwriting the first one.
You can also generate LUTs (and Profiles for LR and ACR) from the looks you like and save them.
If there’s something that doesn’t quite fit, check each of the five layers and find out which layer that’s coming from. If it’s the gradient map, for example, uncheck it, push Shuffle, and it gives only new variations of the gradient map, keeping the other four layers, until you find your look.
If you don’t like a look at all, just keep pushing Create until something grabs your fancy.
There is a bonus, Harmonize, which can be used to simplify the color pallet you’re starting with. If a photo has three main colors, for example, but too many variations of hue, it will reduce the variations and produce something more harmonious.
The retail price of ICP is US$129, but I think the $30 introductory discount is still available. If so, you can still get $35 off from piximperfect.com, which is Unmesh Dinda who, I’ve been told, is a good friend of Pratik.
Michael Woloszynowicz, a Canadian fashion photographer, is good, but I’d say that Pratik and Natalia are in a class by themselves as far as skin retouchers that I know of. Imo, Mike isn’t as easy to follow as Pratik. Michael also has two courses (one on fashion photography and one on retouching) on RGGEDU.com.
Both Unmesh Dinda and Aaron Nace (phlearn.com) are extremely knowledgeable about Photoshop, and Unmesh always seems to be finding workarounds for glitches and shortcomings in Photoshop. However, neither is a skin specialist (or is it Photoshop dermatologist)?
