No share no more
Nmcgrew Senior Member 874 posts Likes: 2 Joined Oct 2010 Location: Mill Creek, WA More info | May 31, 2012 14:38 | #1 No share no more
LOG IN TO REPLY |
May 31, 2012 18:07 | #2 Cool! I'm sure your models are much happier with the smooth skin... your edits take a few years off Sony a7rII / 24-240 / Zeiss 25, 55, 85
LOG IN TO REPLY |
May 31, 2012 21:00 | #3 Sure. I picked a terrible image to mess with to see what I can save, so here goes.
After RAW processing.
Here are the control points I used. I picked a slightly brighter than average spot on her forehead for the face. Brightened a tad and toned structure down. That helps smooth out the face quickly without losing much detail. Face started too bright to begin with, but I will fix that later. Next I ticked a spot on the side of her chest to tone down that shadow. Same for the spot on her arm. Then her shirt ended up way too bright, so I picked that next for a control spot. Then I went after the arm and hand that was too hot. Brought brightness down and warmed it up. Also warmed up the face. Then I adjusted the background to taste.
Here is the result.
Then I used some dodge and burn to fix a few shadows and hot spots. Note: I did not go after dust spots or blemishes or that mud on her feet (she was jumping in puddles earlier). A sharpen and noise reduction run and I was done. Somewhere in there I adjust the color balance a bit. Toned the brightness down and viola.
LOG IN TO REPLY |
May 31, 2012 21:06 | #4 Thanks! So the key to smoothing the skin with this plugin is scaling back the structure? Sony a7rII / 24-240 / Zeiss 25, 55, 85
LOG IN TO REPLY |
May 31, 2012 22:59 | #5 There's also another step I use for smoothing...it's part of my sharpening and noise reduction technique. Uses a channel mask to keep the details from being touched by the noise reduction. I can be VERY aggressive with the noise reduction and not lose detail.
LOG IN TO REPLY |
BigBadWolfie Senior Member 268 posts Joined Jul 2011 More info | Yep. I'm a big fan of the U-Point technology although for some things it's not as precise as using brushes. The thing to watch out for is that it's very easy to clip things when making your adjustments.
LOG IN TO REPLY |
Jun 01, 2012 01:23 | #7 Nmcgrew wrote in post #14514344  Uses a channel mask to keep the details from being touched by the noise reduction. I can be VERY aggressive with the noise reduction and not lose detail. Thanks again... this channel mask business is a bit beyond my current knowledge but I'll have to look into it. In the mean-time, I'm curious what you think of Nik Dfine for noise reduction and detail retention? It seems to work like magic to me, but perhaps I don't know what I'm missing with your technique? Sony a7rII / 24-240 / Zeiss 25, 55, 85
LOG IN TO REPLY |
BigBadWolfie Senior Member 268 posts Joined Jul 2011 More info | Jun 01, 2012 13:18 | #8 VirtualRain wrote in post #14514818 In the mean-time, I'm curious what you think of Nik Dfine for noise reduction and detail retention? It seems to work like magic to me, but perhaps I don't know what I'm missing with your technique?  You didn't ask me, but I use Dfine and I do think it works like magic for most photos except the really noisy ones. I find it slightly conservative in its noise reduction so for noisy pictures, you might want to pay attention to where the software is sampling from. In noisy photos, you can usually set up some U-points and take some more noise out of the background if there's a face in it.
LOG IN TO REPLY |
Jun 01, 2012 21:40 | #9 Here's a new one and I will include the sharpening/noise reduction workflow. Haven't tried dfine yet because this is working for me and I have an action setup to do it. Pardon the amount of steps and pictures, I'm a process planner by trade and this is a habit.
After Viveza 2. Edited like I did before. Warmed and lighten skin. Darken and add saturation and down the structure. I did cool off the water a bit too.
Then a little curves adjustment in CS5
Now I cleaned up the rain drops, the people on the other dock, the duck butt in the water behind her knees and the fly-aways as well as a bit of dust.
Now, on to the sharpening. First, you go to the channels box. I like to find the one that has the most edges around the eyes while still keeping the skin clear. For me, it was the red channel.
Next, you duplicate the channel.
Make sure only the duplicated channel is selected before moving forward.
Go to filter-stylize-find edges and select that. (DUPLICATE IMAGE)
LOG IN TO REPLY |
Jun 01, 2012 21:41 | #10 Move the sliders until the skin and sky is clear and the main details are still black.
Do a noise-despeckle and then a blur-gaussian blur.
For the blur, pick something between .5 and 2. The goal here is to make as many speckles left in the open space grey and soften the line for the selection.
After reselecting all of the color channels and making sure the duplicate channel is NOT selected, go to selection-load selection.
Make sure you invert when you pick the channel layer you just made. It will select the details and let you sharpen the details first.
It will look like this: (windows users can select ctrl H to hide the selection)
Do a unsharp mask...you can also use other sharpening tools, but this works for me.
LOG IN TO REPLY |
Jun 01, 2012 21:41 | #11 I usually pick something very gentle.
Now, select-inverse.
Now you can reduce noise.
On this image, it wasn't too bad so it's not too aggresive. On bad images I usually go as high as 9 and details down to 20.
And then a final brightness/contrast in CS5 and viola:
And now the ol' before and after side by side. May not be perfect, and it's adjusted to my taste, but I think it's not bad for a rainy dreary Washington day.
LOG IN TO REPLY |
 | x 1600 |
| y 1600 |
| Log in Not a member yet?
Register to forums
Registered members may log in to forums and access all the features: full search, image upload, follow forums, own gear list and ratings, likes, more forums, private messaging, thread follow, notifications, own gallery, all settings, view hosted photos, own reviews, see more and do more... and all is free. Don't be a stranger - register now and start posting!
|
| ||
| Latest registered member is EBiffany 1606 guests, 98 members online Simultaneous users record so far is 15,144, that happened on Nov 22, 2018 | |||
