Retouching a male portrait in Photoshop Russified version. Processing a male portrait: enhancing the brutal character
We continue our series of articles called. This time I'll show you one of my options processing male portrait . The motive for this article was simply a huge number of processing lessons that flooded our entire Internet :)
In this lesson, we will look at the main details that you should pay attention to when retouching male photo.
For this article, I have chosen photograph my friend, taken in February 2012. She was taken on Nikon D7000 with Nikon lens. original picture and PSD the file is located at the end of this article, on which you can practice and completely repeat this photo processing. As always, processing video you will also find at the bottom of this article.
Actually, the result before:
and the result after:
To perform such processing, we need a graphic editor Adobe Photoshop and plugins for it: Alien Skin Exposure 3, Color Effect Pro versions 3.0 And 4.0 ,Imagenomic Noiseware Professional. Download links for these plugins are at the end of the article.
Beginning of work
1. Open our photo in Photoshop and immediately go to the plugin Color Effect Pro 3.0, choose a filter Contrast Only and set these settings: Brightness +40%, Contrast +40%, Saturation +50%
Retouching photographs is of great importance, not because the original image is poorly executed, but in order to hide minor defects and correct color balance. Retouching a male photo differs from a female one in that one should not hide wrinkles and make the skin perfectly smooth, but at the same time it has its own characteristics.
Create a Black and White Adjustment Layer. We increase the brightness of some individual areas where the dominant color is red, yellow tones by moving the cursor in the direction of their thickening.
Change the Blending Mode of this layer to Soft Light.
Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and lower the saturation.
Create a Photo Filter adjustment layer and give the image some warmth, but not too much, so yellow will do. You can set the density of the filter.
In order to give the image brutality, you can create a "Color Search" adjustment layer and select the desired color solution.
If the skin has become too warm tones or has acquired red tones, then you can cool it with a Blue Photo Filter adjustment layer.
Curves adjustment layer can lighten and darken certain areas of the image.
Merge the adjustment layers into a group: select the necessary layers in the layers folder and press the key combination Ctrl + G. Reduce the opacity of the group to 72%.
Create a copy of the layer with the image and on it, using the Spot Healing Brush tool, smooth out the wrinkles on the forehead, cheeks and under the eyes. Nasolabial folds can not be touched. The tool is used as follows: hold down the Alt key and click on the area of the skin that is a template for the area that should be changed. We brush over the area that needs to be corrected.
How to process a street portrait using Adobe Photoshop - see the video tutorial by Alexei Kuzmichev. “Let's start processing a street portrait of an elderly person. From the lesson you will learn how to achieve beautiful cinematic shades in the picture, as well as how to emphasize the necessary details with the help of light and shadow” © Alexey Kuzmichev Video information Source: Photoshop video tutorials from Alexey […]
How to retouch a male portrait in Adobe Photoshop - see the video tutorial by Alexei Kuzmichev. “Today I will show you how to process a male portrait in Photoshop. You will learn what nuances there are when retouching male photos, the technique of enhancing the texture of the skin and ways to make the model more brutal in the frame.» © Alexey Kuzmichev Video information Source: Photoshop video tutorials […]
How to make a professional retouching of a female portrait using Adobe Photoshop - see the video tutorial by Alexei Kuzmichev. “Retouching is a very important stage in the processing of any photo. Before toning a photo, adding effects, etc., you first need to get rid of the main defects, otherwise they can ruin all our work in the future. Today I will show you the whole process […]
The article describes the whole process of photo processing including image analysis, working with Liquify, using layers, Dodge & Burn, color correction and final sharpening.
The material is designed for users who are familiar with the Photoshop program, namely: they know how to change the blending modes of layers; remember where the standard filters of the program are located and how these filters roughly work; guess where to find and how to apply adjustment layers. If possible, the Russified names of some tools and blending modes will be duplicated in English.
The article describes the retouching process using tools and methods that seem convenient and optimal to me on this moment, but this, of course, does not mean that the described method is the most correct one. And one more addition: this is more the logic of the process than a description of the exact values of the brush and the parameters of the tools, since it is difficult to use specific settings in the work: it is more important to simply understand what needs to be done in each individual case and at each stage of work. Let's take this portrait of a girl as an example of processing.
Principles of portrait retouching
It is advisable to try to take into work frames that are initially successful in their performance (composition, light, etc.). If you are a novice photographer and do not yet know how to take pictures at the level required for high-quality retouching or a novice retoucher who does not have access to quality materials, be sure to look for suitable sources on the Internet for training and train your hand and eye on good work.
The basic principle of processing that should be followed: retouching is needed in order to make it more expressive good shot, and not in order to redraw and redo an image from scratch, which initially is no good. From the first principle follows the second: do not overdo it. If we have already chosen to work quality frame, then it cannot be modified indefinitely. Sometimes it's better to do something a little less than to completely change the picture.
A few words about conversion.
Before opening an image in Photoshop, it is often necessary to pre-process the raw file in one of the converters. The default is Adobe Camera Raw (ACR for short). There we can immediately correct the exposure, white balance, image contrast and other indicators. This is what my settings looked like in ACR.
The peculiarities of preparing an image for processing in Photoshop is a separate topic for conversation, so I will only note that my main goal when converting a photo was to bring out as many details on the skin as possible by moving the exposure and highlight sliders to the left, and the shadows to the right, in order to reduce the overall contrast Photo. In addition, in the same place, in Adobe Camera Raw, I moved the white balance to a less yellow color, and using the curves tab, I added a reddish tint to the shadows. The last manipulations are completely optional at the beginning of work, as some people prefer to do color correction after technical retouching, but it is more convenient for me to work with an image when the main color solution has already been determined.
Red channel curve settings in ACR:
Now pay attention to the line at the bottom of the Adobe Camera Raw dialog box with image options:
Convert photo in Adobe RGB color space, 8 bit. For high-quality retouching, it is usually advised to convert an image with an indicator of 16 bits, but 8 bits are usually enough for my work. Keep in mind that despite the fact that we have now selected the Adobe RGB option, after processing for use on the web, a photo must always be converted to the sRGB color space.
At the end of the work with the converter, click the "Open Image" button in the lower right corner of the dialog box, and the photo opens in Photoshop.
Photo analysis
In working with this photo, we set ourselves the goal of “combing” the picture and making it more expressive, while leaving the image as natural as possible.
As usual, we start any work with image analysis. For training, you can create a separate “photo analysis” layer (it doesn’t matter if it’s an empty layer or a copy of the background), on which we will literally mark everything that we want to correct with a brush.
In our example, these are the usual skin imperfections, uneven transitions of light and shadow on the forehead and chin of the model, blood vessels on the whites of the eyes. I also want to smooth out the hairs that are knocked out of the hairstyle. We will slightly correct the shape of the hairstyle, slightly open the eyelid of the left eye, lower the left shoulder, which is too raised. Additionally, clean up the background from dark spot in the corner on the right. When we have decided on the main tasks, the “photo analysis” layer can be turned off and returned to it during the work to see if we missed something.
Photo analysis layer:
Filter "Plastic" (Liquify)
We create a copy of our original image, and with the help of the “plastic” filter we correct the shape of the hairstyle, lower the left shoulder and slightly correct the shape of the left eye.
You can read more about the Liquify filter in the article Using the Liquify filter in Photoshop.
Auxiliary layers
At the beginning of work, create a group of auxiliary layers:
1) The first adjustment layer of curves: bend the line down until there are enough contrasting details in the lightest significant areas of the image (in our case, this is the skin on the forehead and on the nose). Let's give it the name "Blackout". For now, turn off (!) the visibility of this layer.
Darkening curves layer and its effect on the photo:
2) The second adjustment layer of curves. Let's call it "Lightening": we bend the line up until details are visible in the darkest significant areas (shadows in the hair). Also make this layer invisible.
Lightening curves layer and its effect on the photo:
3) Another auxiliary adjustment layer "Black and White". It is also disabled after creation.
Fold these three layers into a separate folder and place it above all other layers:
We will use the auxiliary layers in the process of processing in order to better see the flaws, additional details, as well as the transitions of light and shadow. Try turning them on and off one by one now to see how they change the image and what details appear when using each of them.
Working with the Healing Brush.
Let's move on to retouching.
Create three layers for retouching and combine them into the "Healing brush, skin" group:
1) A new clean layer with normal blending mode to remove visible small skin imperfections.
2) A new layer with a blending mode of "blackout" (English "darken") - In order to clean the skin from spots that are lighter than the general surrounding background.
3) A new layer with a blending mode of "light replacement" (English "lighten") - In order to remove spots from the image that are darker than the general surrounding background.
By the same principle, we create a group of “Healing brush, hair” from three layers.
This is what our adjustment layers look like at this stage of work:
Select the bottommost transparent layer “Normal” (Normal) in the folder “Healing brush, skin” and take the tool “Spot Healing Brush” (Spot Healig Brush Tool). The hardness of the brush is minimal (during the process, the hardness, as well as other parameters of the brush, can and should be changed).
We select the image scale large enough (up to 100-200%) to see all the nuances on the skin. The main rule is that the size of the brush is slightly larger than the spot that we are removing. We constantly change the size of the brush using square brackets on the keyboard, undo unsuccessful actions with the key combinations Ctrl + Z or Ctrl + Alt + Z.
During retouching, it is very useful to turn on and off auxiliary layers, which we have in a separate folder above all other layers. The most important thing in such retouching is to fill your hand and eye with pinpoint hits of the brush on imperfections, since working inaccurately can only aggravate the situation.
When finished on the first layer, move on to the next "Lighten" to remove small dark spots on the surface of the skin. After it seems to us that everything is ready here, go to the "Burn" layer and darken all the small light spots that we see. As a result, each individual layer with retouching will look something like this:
We work with the “Healing brush, hair” layer group in the same sequence as with the previous layers, only there is one caveat - it is more convenient to work with hair on an enlarged image fragment with a very small “stamp” tool (optimally - a little thicker than a hair, which trying to delete). We remove stray and too contrasting hairs. Here it is also useful to practice and use all the possibilities of our auxiliary layers. After retouching, our image looks neater than it was before:
Further, if we notice some details that require mandatory adjustment, we create the “Additional retouching” group, where we add as many new layers as necessary. For example, with the tool “stamp” / Clone Stamp Tool (select the “sample layer” parameter with the value “active and below”, English “Sample” - “Current & Below”) I removed dark spot in the lower left corner of the photo and with the same stamp on a new layer, I cleaned the whites of the eyes from red vessels (we do this very carefully, with a brush transparency of about 20-40%).
Additionally, on a separate layer, with a brush with a minimum diameter and a suitable color, I drew a few new hairs on the eyebrows and along the contour of the hairstyle, so that everything looked more natural (although hair processing, again, is a separate topic, which we will not delve into now).
Group of layers with additional retouching:
Additional changes to the scale of the entire image may seem very small, but it is important for us to remember that it is the little things that give our work a finished look.
Dodge & Burn method
The Dodge & Burn retouching method in various variations is used everywhere, and now we will not be an exception either. Let's create two adjustment layers with curves. We do this in the same way as we created the auxiliary layers before:
- first we will call “Lightening” (Dodge), extrude the curve up so that the picture is lightened, invert the layer mask.
- Lower the curve of the second layer “Burn” so that the image becomes darker. Also add a black mask.
I do not have specific parameters according to which any curves need to be bent. We do everything by eye, so that both when darkening and when lightening, details remain in the photo. This is how all the layer groups that we currently have look like:
Now we begin a long and rather monotonous job of smoothing out various spots on the skin. Take the tool "Brush" / Brush Tool.
We set the value of the parameters "Opacity" / Opacity about 6-10% and "Press" / Flow about 20%. Constantly during retouching, we change the value of these parameters and the image scale. It will be equally bad if, instead of smoothing out the spots, you build them up even more, or if you perfectly even out the surface of the skin, leaving a flat pancake in place of the face.
Hence the conclusion that, in addition to mastering Photoshop tools, it is good to have at least a superficial understanding of the anatomy of the face and the human figure in general. We begin to carefully draw on the masks of the created layers where we want to lighten or darken areas of the image, respectively.
Once again I remind you that here again our auxiliary layers will help us a lot and, of course, some practice is needed in such a difficult matter as Dodge & Burn. This stage can take a very long time (from half an hour to a couple of days), so you will need perseverance, attentiveness and, which is very desirable, the presence of a graphics tablet.
At the end of the work, when you decide that everything is done neatly enough, try lowering the overall opacity of the "Dodge & Burn" layer group to about 80%. Perhaps this will make your photo look more natural and hide some of the flaws you may have made during the hard work of lightening / darkening. At least, this technique often helps me.
As a result, our adjustment layer masks might look something like this:
Let's compare our penultimate version of the image after additional retouching and the version after Dodge & burn.
Color spots. Desaturate or layer in "color" mode. Working with masks
We are done with the main retouching. Let's pay attention to the color. After intensive actions to smooth the skin, too saturated in color or, conversely, discolored spots could appear in the photo. Here is a suggested way out:
1) To desaturate too saturated spots, create a black and white adjustment layer with a black mask and a white brush with low opacity settings, paint very carefully on the mask over areas that we don’t like.
2) In order to give the desired color to the discolored areas or places that significantly changed the hue during our retouching, create a new transparent layer, change its blending mode to “Color” / Color. Then select the brush tool with a small transparency (10-15%). Now, when we, armed with a brush, hold down the alt key, our brush turns into an eyedropper, and we can take a sample of the desired color in order to gradually paint over spots that differ in color.
Again, caveats: firstly, it is better to take a color sample near the place where you are going to work, and secondly, you do not need to cover large areas of the skin with one color, as this looks very unnatural. It’s better to call the pipette more often and take new shades, again, next to the area where you are working.
There were no obvious color distortions in our photo, and I limited myself to light correction with the layer set to the "Color" blending mode.
A separate lesson dedicated to the Dodge / Burn technique "Retouching a female portrait - working with shadows and highlights".
Refinement of the portrait on additional separate layers.
To smooth the structure of the skin on the neck, create a new empty layer and draw a stamp with a transparency of about 10% over the desired areas several times. From repeated movement in the same place, the texture of the cloned area is blurred, and we get the effect of softness, but we have the opportunity to preserve the naturalness of the image, since we act on a separate layer (if necessary, the transparency of the layer is reduced).
On a new layer, with the help of a stamp, we will work on the eyes again. Additionally, add an adjustment curve to this layer to delicately brighten the eye area.
Color correction
Next, I created two layers of adjustment layers: a black and white layer with 10% opacity to slightly reduce the overall saturation of the image, and a curves layer where I slightly increased the contrast of the image and slightly changed the tone of the image by arbitrarily moving the points on the curves in different channels. As a result, the transparency of the layer with curves was lowered to 40%, since the adjustments seemed redundant.
Group of layers "color":
Adding volume.
After all the above steps, I had a desire to emphasize the volume of the image a little, especially to increase the depth of the eyes of the model. To do this, create a lightening curve already familiar to us, curved upwards, add a black mask and draw rough strokes of a white brush with an opacity of 10-15% over the eyes, lips and highlights on the hair.
Let's apply another way to make facial features more expressive. Select our topmost layer and merge all layers into one new one using the key combinations Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E. Convert it to black and white using the keys Ctrl + Shift + U and go sequentially to the menu “Filter” - “Others” - “Color Contrast” (Filtr-Other-High Pass). Select a radius so that the volumes of the black and white image are visible, agree with the filter value and set this layer to blend mode Soft Light / Soft light. On the black layer mask, draw the eyes, hair and lips.
Applying the "Color Contrast"/High Pass filter to get local volume:
Adding sharpness
After technical retouching, when the main flaws in the photo are removed, it is possible to add sharpness using the High Pass filter.
We repeat the same steps that were listed in the previous step when adding a local volume: merge everything into a new layer on top, convert the image to bw, go to the High pass filter, only now we take a small radius so that only the outlines of the image remain.
Select the Blending Mode soft light” and see how the sharpness increases. You can leave the sharpness on the whole image, but I've painted the eyes and lips separately on the mask to keep the skin softer.
As a result, we can compare the image that we got with what we had originally:
Also, for clarity, let's consider an enlarged section of the photo to make sure that the skin structure was preserved during processing without adding additional textures and noise:
General characteristics of the described processing method
Let's briefly summarize our work:
1) The described method is far from the fastest, but very accurate and allows you to achieve naturalness in processing.
2) With this method of retouching, it is possible to make corrections at almost any stage of processing, since only corrective and transparent layers are used. The exception is the “Plastic” layer, so you should think about when it is more expedient for you to do it: at the beginning of work or at the end.
List of all layers used in the retouching process:
3) The Dodge & Burn technique requires some experience. It is advisable to work with a graphics tablet.
4) As in any other processing method, the main thing is not to overdo it so as not to change the geometry of the face and body, adjusting the cut-off contour.
We take the source and start processing.
1. Create 5 layers (Ctrl+J).
2. Translate the layer Copy 4 in b/w: Image> Correction> Desaturate (Image> Adjustments> Desaturate) Multiply and set the layer opacity to 48%.
3. Translate the layer Copy 3 in b/w: Image> Correction> Desaturate (Image> Adjustments> Desaturate). Change the layer blend mode to Lightening (Screen) and set the layer opacity to 40%.
4. Change the layer blend mode Copy 2 on mode Overlay.
5. Change the layer blend mode Copy on mode Linear Light and set the transparency to 55%.
6. We get a rich contrast picture with dark dips and a traced skin texture. Adding Layer mask(icon in the form of a gray square with a white circle inside at the bottom of the Layers palette) to all layers and rub the eyes (tool Brush (B), color black) in layer masks Copy 4 And Copy making the eyes brighter.
7. Create Above Layer Copy, Adjustment layer Hue / Saturation (Hue / Saturation)(at the bottom of the Layers palette, click on the icon in the form of a black and white circle and select the appropriate command) and muffle the red color.
8. Print the visible layers onto a new layer (create New Layer (Shift + Ctrl + N) above all layers and click Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E).
9. Create a layer Copy 10 (Shift+Ctrl+N) and sharpen Filter > Other > Color Contrast (Filter > Other > High Pass) the resulting transfer to overlay mode Overlay.
10. Create an Adjustment Layer Color balance 1(at the bottom of the Layers palette, click on the icon in the form of a black and white circle and select the appropriate command) and adjust the color of the image so as to get the desired shade (nail red, slightly saturate with yellow and uncheck "Keep glow").
