Studio portrait w/ before & after retouching

Had a chance to get a nice headshot of Noa while she was in my studio the other day for a commercial shoot. I thought I'd share the before and after shots that included closeups of my retouching work.

original image, SOOC:

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final shot looks great - I love the subtle texture you added around her... very nicely done!

Nice retouching work. I like the skin texture, quite nice.

Top notch work.

Very nice job. Doesn't look "overdone" or anything at all, it's just right. I think you should have retouched the skin just above both eyelids a bit more, there's still the bumpy texture.

I thought the first image was a final shot... until I scrolled down.
Looks like she has pretty good skin.

nice work on your part as well especially the choice of background.

any tutorials on how to process a background like that?

pstyle1 wrote in post #14751253
any tutorials on how to process a background like that?

You'll need photoshop. It's simply getting a picture with a texture on it and placing it on a separate layer as the portrait. Set the blend mode to whatever looks best (depends on the texture). It'll add the texture to the entire portrait. Now you add a mask and make it completely white. Use a soft edge brush, color black, and paint over the model to remove the texture from her. the OP kept some of the texture on the outer edges of the model, and it looks nice to me.

Beautiful work, and thanks for posting this. I would like to see more instructional posts about skin work.

Brilliant.

Andrushka wrote in post #14749709
final shot looks great - I love the subtle texture you added around her... very nicely done!

Thanks! I use textures from Lost and Taken (http://lostandtaken.co​m). If you download some don't forget to donate

Scatterbrained wrote in post #14749714
Nice retouching work. I like the skin texture, quite nice.

Thanks, getting skin to look like that takes a long time. I probably spent about 90 mins on skin alone. Often zoomed in at 400-600%.

Seamus69 wrote in post #14750484
Top notch work.

Thanks!

fashionrider wrote in post #14750592
Very nice job. Doesn't look "overdone" or anything at all, it's just right. I think you should have retouched the skin just above both eyelids a bit more, there's still the bumpy texture.

Some of that is some caked makeup, but yeah, I probably could have reduced some of that.

AAphotog wrote in post #14750944
I thought the first image was a final shot... until I scrolled down.
Looks like she has pretty good skin.

nice work on your part as well especially the choice of background.

She does have amazing skin, and she also had a really great makeup job.

pstyle1 wrote in post #14751253
any tutorials on how to process a background like that?

fashionrider wrote in post #14751326
You'll need photoshop. It's simply getting a picture with a texture on it and placing it on a separate layer as the portrait. Set the blend mode to whatever looks best (depends on the texture). It'll add the texture to the entire portrait. Now you add a mask and make it completely white. Use a soft edge brush, color black, and paint over the model to remove the texture from her. the OP kept some of the texture on the outer edges of the model, and it looks nice to me.

Pretty much covered it; just as a caveat though: simply erasing texture will also erase any color in that layer. This particular texture had a nice color that I wanted to keep, so I simply blurred out the area that was layered over the model. A gaussian blur set to 250px destroys the texture but leaves the color intact.

russ71satellite wrote in post #14751563
Beautiful work, and thanks for posting this. I would like to see more instructional posts about skin work.

Thanks; I use my own version of what most professionals call "frequency separation." There are a ton of great youtube tutorials out there on it. Be warned though, it's not really a magic bullet. It's just a tool that allows a greater degree of precision. Expect to invest anywhere from 45-90 minutes retouching skin to get these kinds of results on a close headshot like this.

soccer13 wrote in post #14751998
Brilliant.

Cheers!

charro callado wrote in post #14753415
Pretty much covered it; just as a caveat though: simply erasing texture will also erase any color in that layer. This particular texture had a nice color that I wanted to keep, so I simply blurred out the area that was layered over the model. A gaussian blur set to 250px destroys the texture but leaves the color intact.

You can also use the Spot Healing Tool, NOT the Healing Tool. Open a separate blank image and fill it with a color. I pick a color similar to the area to be worked on but it's not critical. Have both windows open next to each other. Pick your sample spot on the solid color image then work on your photo to get rid of the texture. The Spot Healing Tool gets rid of texture while leaving the color alone.

Mtn4Mike wrote in post #14753993
You can also use the Spot Healing Tool, NOT the Healing Tool. Open a separate blank image and fill it with a color. I pick a color similar to the area to be worked on but it's not critical. Have both windows open next to each other. Pick your sample spot on the solid color image then work on your photo to get rid of the texture. The Spot Healing Tool gets rid of texture while leaving the color alone.

True, yeah that will also work.

very nice work, I need more practice on shadows and highlights, love your PP

Wow, Joe. Just excellent. Love it!