How can I add age to a portrait subject's face?

Here's one that I'll bet has never been asked. After putting tons of work into a portrait of a 50ish woman, I've decided that I overdid the skin smoothing. Going back to that stage in the retouching is out of the question. Does anyone know of a way to add a little texture back into the face?

Tools I have available are Portrait Pro, the NIK collection, Topaz DeNoise, Paint Shop Pro X7, PS CS2, Lightroom, and PS Elements 9. I'm pretty inexperienced with all of them except PSE.

Thanks

That's why it's good to work in layers, so you can retrace.

I guess the fastest option is to take the original and mask and then paint in back on at the degree you need. Use different brushes, and layer modes.

Wait.

Sorry, I couldn't resist it.

ncjohn wrote in post #17977976
...Going back to that stage in the retouching is out of the question.
...
Thanks

Sounds like you may want to revisit your workflow if you do not have the unretouched version to fall back on, or a set of retouching layers that you can turn the opacity down to blend into the unretouched image.

Kirk

fotopaul wrote in post #17978124
That's why it's good to work in layers, so you can retrace.

I guess the fastest option is to take the original and mask and then paint in back on at the degree you need. Use different brushes, and layer modes.

If you shot it in jpg & saved over that jpg, then you're pretty much screwed IMO. If you have the original jpg/tif/raw file, then there are possibilities to drag that file over the 'finished' file & use a layer mask in PS to add some texture.
As a last resort, you might find a way to use this in PS: Post #3: Adding A More Realistic Film Grain Effect
In LR: Mastering Lightroom: How to Add Film Grain

Did you take a similar shot that you could use to PS in the texture?
You might be better off starting over, & this time, save your work as a tif/psd file.

Another option is to scope out some royalty free image sites, find an image with similar texture in the face.
Copy, paste, clone, layer, blend, mask, whatever is easier for you to add some texture back in.

Similar to what everyone said already, if you haven't saved your(work in progress) image yet, use the 'save as' feature to save your edited image, with a new name of coarse.
Then open both the original and the edited image in CS2 and blend the two together preferably with a layer mask.

tzalman wrote in post #17978148
Wait.

Sorry, I couldn't resist it.

Now, did you really try?

I can see from the replies that I included far too little info.
My workflow is experimental at this point because most of my apps have been acquired recently, but this is more-or-less what it looked like for this photo: Open the RAW in Lightroom for basic exposure/hightlights/s​hadows, immediately go to Topaz Denoise, then to Portrait Pro (which is where the over-smoothing took place), then to Viveza for exposure touch-ups, and finally to Elements to remove specular highlights on her glasses which caused white blobs on her eyes, and to remove a dark cast on her skin behind the lenses. This retouching in Elements is the part that I'm not willing to lose by starting over; it looks good and I'm not an ace so it wasn't easy.

I was able to open the pre-Portrait Pro image in PSE, copy it to the working image, and use high-pass filtering on that layer to put some of the texture back in. The only problem with that is, to the extent that it adds texture, it also decreases some of my retouching on the eyes. I was hoping for a solution that wouldn't do that.

I do use layers in Elements but since the over-smoothing was in the image when it was first opened in Elements it seems like a moot point.

Any thoughts, now that you have a more accurate picture?
Thanks

If you have the original the fastest way is to paint some texture back in from the original image.

But smartest would be to do it from scratch, as you used mostly automated processes it's not that big of chore.

ncjohn wrote in post #17978563
I can see from the replies that I included far too little info.
My workflow is experimental at this point because most of my apps have been acquired recently, but this is more-or-less what it looked like for this photo: Open the RAW in Lightroom for basic exposure/hightlights/s​hadows, immediately go to Topaz Denoise, then to Portrait Pro (which is where the over-smoothing took place), then to Viveza for exposure touch-ups, and finally to Elements to remove specular highlights on her glasses which caused white blobs on her eyes, and to remove a dark cast on her skin behind the lenses. This retouching in Elements is the part that I'm not willing to lose by starting over; it looks good and I'm not an ace so it wasn't easy.

I was able to open the pre-Portrait Pro image in PSE, copy it to the working image, and use high-pass filtering on that layer to put some of the texture back in. The only problem with that is, to the extent that it adds texture, it also decreases some of my retouching on the eyes. I was hoping for a solution that wouldn't do that.

I do use layers in Elements but since the over-smoothing was in the image when it was first opened in Elements it seems like a moot point.

Any thoughts, now that you have a more accurate picture?
Thanks

Well in that case add a layer mask to the High Pass filter layer to remove the unwanted part of the effect. I can't see that you would be wanting the eyes to be affected by this anyway.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #17978820
Well in that case add a layer mask to the High Pass filter layer to remove the unwanted part of the effect. I can't see that you would be wanting the eyes to be affected by this anyway.

Alan

That's great! Worked like a charm. (Masks are perhaps my weakest area but I figured it out.)
Thanks a lot.

This sort of issue is one reason to not flatten images, and to ensure that all of the work you do is on it's own layer. If a workflow calls for the layers to be flattened I usually do I think it's called a Stamp Visible, or something similar. The shortcut key combo is Ctrl(Cmd)+Shift+Alt+E. This creates a new layer that contains the image as it was previously visible, which has the same effect as flattening the layers. Although it is not a perfect work round for a major cockup it is very helpful. I use it a lot when I want to add a High pass sharpen to an image, as you simply hit the key combo, run the highpass filter on the newly created layer and set the blend mode to Overlay, or if you want differing levels of effect, Soft/Hard light. The amount of sharpening can be adjusted with the layers opacity slider, and a layer mask, with a copy of the image that has had Find edges run on it to limit the sharpening to just those edges. If you then need to go back and make an adjustment further down the layer stack you can, very often you won't even need to change the High Pass layer, and if you do, it can be real easy to copy the layer mask to the new High Pass layer. I hope you don't need to ask how I know this .

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #17979401
This sort of issue is one reason to not flatten images, and to ensure that all of the work you do is on it's own layer. If a workflow calls for the layers to be flattened I usually do I think it's called a Stamp Visible, or something similar. The shortcut key combo is Ctrl(Cmd)+Shift+Alt+E. This creates a new layer that contains the image as it was previously visible, which has the same effect as flattening the layers. Although it is not a perfect work round for a major cockup it is very helpful. I use it a lot when I want to add a High pass sharpen to an image, as you simply hit the key combo, run the highpass filter on the newly created layer and set the blend mode to Overlay, or if you want differing levels of effect, Soft/Hard light. The amount of sharpening can be adjusted with the layers opacity slider, and a layer mask, with a copy of the image that has had Find edges run on it to limit the sharpening to just those edges. If you then need to go back and make an adjustment further down the layer stack you can, very often you won't even need to change the High Pass layer, and if you do, it can be real easy to copy the layer mask to the new High Pass layer. I hope you don't need to ask how I know this .

Alan

This is a great trick! Also seems like it could be very helpful for the special effects filters, including NIK, since they all seem to affect only the active layer.
Thanks

ncjohn wrote in post #17979681
This is a great trick! Also seems like it could be very helpful for the special effects filters, including NIK, since they all seem to affect only the active layer.
Thanks

Yes I use it whenever I see Flatten the image as a step in a post processing guide, when you need to be working on a single layer with all of the visible previous edits. Sometimes I might end up doing two different versions of certain processes, then Stamp Visible is really useful, as you can turn various layers on and off without losing anything. Doing layer groups can be really useful with this as well. There are several things in PS that seem to be overlooked by a lot of people that are really useful. I guess my list of important basics to investigate the use of would be:

• Layers and their management.
  
  
• When to use an Adjustment Layer or use the same tool directly on a layer.
  
  
• Layer Masks.
  
  
• Blend Modes.
  
  
• Stamp Visible, rather than Flatten Image.
  

BigAl007 wrote in post #17979718
Yes I use it whenever I see Flatten the image as a step in a post processing guide, when you need to be working on a single layer with all of the visible previous edits. Sometimes I might end up doing two different versions of certain processes, then Stamp Visible is really useful, as you can turn various layers on and off without losing anything. Doing layer groups can be really useful with this as well. There are several things in PS that seem to be overlooked by a lot of people that are really useful. I guess my list of important basics to investigate the use of would be:

• Layers and their management.
  
  
• When to use an Adjustment Layer or use the same tool directly on a layer.
  
  
• Layer Masks.
  
  
• Blend Modes.
  
  
• Stamp Visible, rather than Flatten Image.
  

Alan

Well this is all good stuff, Alan. (That's a great list.)
Thanks again.