How to Retouch Photos in 7 Steps for Natural Looking Portraits

How to Retouch Photos in 7 Steps in Photoshop Retouching for Natural Looking Portraits

Retouch Photos! The adjustments and adjustments that we are going to make in this article are intentionally more forced with the idea that these are more evident in the different photographs that we will use to illustrate the process. However, the general idea, and that we have commented on as an introduction to this article, is that they should be softer and less obvious. Everything is for the didactic.

I am going to retouch a photograph of a model of great quality with whom I have worked several times and who, besides being a great professional, is a great person. The photo as such just needs to be retouched very subtly but, as I said before, I will exaggerate to a certain extent the retouching so that it can be seen how they affect the image and we can all get a clear idea of the results.

1. Re-lighting the look

Sometimes, and due to the facial constitution of our model, the inadequate use of lights or other reasons, the eyes and the general look of the person we are photographing have worse lighting than the rest of the face. Therefore it is necessary to re-illuminate the look, fundamentally the eyes of our model.

For this, we make a wide selection with the Lasso tool of the whole perimeter of the look. We create a new layer with that selection by pressing Control + J (on the Mac you have to replace the Control key with Command).

Once this new layer is made, we open the level adjustment with Control + L and move the two corresponding slides to White and Midtones to the left. We must move them little by little to avoid that the white of the eye is " impaled", that is, avoiding that it remains as a white spot without detail.

We can observe that the illumination of the whole selected area changes, but we only want to re-illuminate the eyes and focus on them. To do this we create a layer mask in the Layers menu - Layer mask - Hide all.

If we have done well the effect disappears completely and in the Layers window, right next to the thumbnail that collects the layer with the eyes, a black rectangle appears, which is the layer mask that we have created. In the tool menu, we choose a white brush, low hardness, and low opacity.

I always use a brush of 0 pixels hardness and 30% opacity to retouch portraits.

Now we paint over the eye area, clearing each pass until we obtain more adequate lighting and pre-whitening the eyes. Once the process is finished, we merge the two layers in the Layers - Flatten image menu.

2. Elimination of color in capillaries of the eyes

In this picture in question you can hardly tell because my friend Miriam is perfectly rested, she is young and there are no big blood capillaries in her eyes. However, in most cases and especially with the fatigue and the ups and downs of modern life the eyes usually redden.

In addition, if we frequently use the flash "against" our model, after a long session it can cause an obvious redness in the eyes. For all this, I think it is necessary to soften this problem, especially in those people who normally have a crystal clear look and because of the issues discussed have their eyes reddened.

We proceed, as in the previous step, to perform with the loop a wide selection of the look. We duplicate the layer with Control + J with that selection and now we adjust the tone and saturation, by pressing Control + U. In the dialog box, we select from the drop-down the adjustment that only affects the red tones.

In the color bars, we add magenta and yellow tones moving the sliders in the form of dashes. With this, we extend the range of colors to be corrected and we can use it to eliminate other types of eyespots.

Once the range of color from violet to lemon yellow has been expanded, saturation is almost completely reduced and the luminosity is gradually increased until the reddish capillaries of the model's eyes look white but in detail

 .We accept the changes and we do exactly as in the previous step: we create a layer mask that hides the whole effect and with a brush, soft and of low opacity, with the selected white color, we paint exclusively the area of the eyes that have capillaries or It has more red or orange areas. Finally, we connect. We can see how it has changed compared to the beginning.

3. Smoothing dark circles

The dark circles on many occasions are not typical of the subjects we have portrayed. Although many people have what is called "perpetual dark circles" to another great majority only appears in concrete conditions of fatigue, sadness, etc. Miriam does not have any dark circles. They are just marked, and very little, a few lines of expression in the lower eyelid. Let's imagine that they are dark circles and we proceed to soften them. In this specific case it would not be necessary, but, as I said before, everything is for the didactic.

The first thing to do is to copy the Background layer to make all the adjustments on a copy layer and in the end to qualify the effect as much as necessary. Once the layer is duplicated, we proceed to correct each eye separately. We take the tool patch from the toolbar and select the circles under a certain margin on all sides.

It is very important not to select any element with details of the eye, ie, eyelid, or eyelashes or anything.

Save we drag the selection to an area of the face where there are no specific details of any kind, just skin. By releasing the selection we will see how the patch makes its magic and combines textures and colors to eliminate the marks of dark circles.

After the correction in both eyes we see that the effect is very sharp, so we proceed to soften it by lowering the opacity of the upper layer in the layer window. I have chosen in this case approximately 50%. This is at your discretion and according to the size of the photo and the relative size of the features of our model.

You should always leave some lines of expression to give volume and shape to the look.

If for any reason we want to adjust the opacity of each eye separately, we would proceed as we have done previously to make a layer mask and adjust with the brush each one of the dark circles. Once we have achieved the desired result, we finish the process by coupling the layers.

4. Elimination of wild hair

I call wild hair those hairs that end where they should not: they are crossed by the eyes, by the mouth, and on the forehead, for example. If we had had patience, we would have removed these hairs before taking the photograph. Sometimes they do not bother and even look good, but a loose hair on the lips or through teeth or eyes, from my point of view, should be removed. It is better to do it before taking the photograph, but if it has not been possible I will show you how to remove them afterward.

The first step is to create a new empty layer. For this, we select in the Layers - New Layer menu ... All the adjustments will be made on this layer and will not affect the original photograph in principle until we dock it. So any error that we discussed can be solved by directly deleting the incorrectly corrected elements from the layer.

We use another of Photoshop's magic tools: the concealer brush. Be careful, do not get confused and select the corrective brush version. Once this tool has been selected in the top options bar we must mark the following options:

Mode: Normal

Origin: Sampled; mark the

Option: Aligned

Show everything

For this type of retouching I always increase the zoom of the image at least up to 200 %, so I have much more control over the retouching and the different passes. Once the zoom is adjusted, pressing the space bar on the keyboard temporarily activates the Hand tool that helps me move around the image.

With the selected concealer brush and the adjustments I explained earlier, we selected a brush size that has a diameter larger than the thickness of the hair. And now comes the important: the sampled. To do this we press the Alt key of the keyboard and we see how the mouse pointer changes indicating that it is ready to take a sample and apply it to the correction. To do this we click right next to the hair we want to eliminate, taking into account that it is a smooth skin area with no details.

Now we paint with the concealer brush on the hair to be removed. We move through the image with the help of the hand and resample if necessary because the area has changed skin type or we have reached an area with detail. If we do it well with each stroke we give, we will observe how the hair disappears and is covered by "new skin" of the same color and texture as the original skin. Simply magic.

If we have some type of mark or trace, we must make several passes. Once all the wild hair has been removed on the face of our model, we proceed to attach both layers and it will look as if they had never been.

5. Removal of pimples and spots on the skin

One of the most effective retouches that are made in portraits is those that allow us to eliminate stains, marks, pimples and other skin defects. Do not confuse it with moles or freckles, which are distinctive features of our models and which, under the premises indicated at the beginning, should not be modified or eliminated. We will touch up those elements that we know should not be there in normal conditions and do not define at all the person we are retouching. The limit is put by common sense, even the reasonable thing is to sin by default and not by the excess (unless we have a clear assignment and is required by the circumstances).

Technically the process is exactly the same as we used in the previous process, in such a way that we create a new empty layer where we will be retouching the different marks and signals on the skin with our adjusted correction brush as we have commented previously. It must be borne in mind that the areas to be sampled should be smooth and without obvious details and make corrections little by little and not from a large area at a time.

It is much better to make several passes with a small brush and go sampling in the areas closest to the different brands that we are going to correct.

To illustrate the process I will also eliminate some other brand that is not such, but small moles of our model. We can, by regulating the opacity of the layer, have a maximum level of smoothing the effect. The more patience you have, the better your results will be.

It is very effective to change areas of the face to constantly touch up, thus avoid generating areas too smooth and processed.

The idea is to blur the process all over the skin. As an aid, we will reduce the zoom level until we observe the face in a global way on the screen. By the way, as in the previous step, the zoom should be between 100% or 200% to observe well the different types of spots and/or granites.

6. General skin softening

The smoothing of the skin allows us to correct possible rest that has remained of the different previous adjustments, so much of the elimination of wild hair as of spots and granites. But this touch-up is very controversial because it turns the models into porcelain dolls if it is adjusted excessively. It is not the time to enter the controversy, but those faces with porcelain or plastic skin have done a lot of damage to the photography of portraits, beauty, and fashion, since by removing almost any texture on the skin it seems as if "dehumanized "our photographs, turning the models into mere mannequins. So is it wrong to soften the skin? If it is done in a moderate and contained way it is not since it allows you to correct small mistakes that you have made in the previous retouching.

There are many methods of smoothing the skin, there are even specialized programs and plugins in this. We are going to use a simple method that uses the blur and combination of several layers of our portrait. However, even if it is a simple method it is long to perform and especially long to explain, so I decided to create an action that performs the whole process of skin smoothing so that only at the end we must interact to indicate the areas where we want to apply to smooth.

Download the action for Photoshop "Smoothing the skin"

To perform the smoothing of the skin, you only have to download the action and load it in the Actions window, by clicking on the drop-down menu that appears in the upper left corner. If everything went well, a new action should appear that is called "Foto24 - Smoothing skin".

Before proceeding, we make sure that we have all the layers attached by clicking on Layers - Attach image. Now we click on the action and it starts working, creating layers, changing their fusion modes and combining them according to the programmed. When the action is finished, a photograph with no apparent effect appears, and in the layer window, the background layer and layer 2 with its layer mask painted black that hides the entire effect. If we click on the layer mask while pressing on our keyboard the Shift key will deactivate this mask and we will see the effect applied to the whole image.

We see that the effect is exaggerated and also affects the whole picture, even the eyes, mouth, etc. Now it is a question of using a soft brush, of low opacity and of white color and to go giving small passages to the areas of skin that need to soften. With each pass that is given, the layer mask will be painted white and the smoothing effect will be stronger.

The areas to soften are cheekbones, forehead, chin, bridge of the nose and eye contour. It is important that the successive passes are applied little by little.

Once we have finished giving the different passes, you can still further tint the effect by forcing it or decreasing the opacity of Layer 2. Normally I reduce the opacity even more until the smoothing is left in its proper measure.

For this particular photo and after trying the opacity several times I decided to leave it at 33%. The result of smoothing is very slight since we do not want to turn Miriam into a mannequin.

7. Selective focus of the look, nose, and mouth

We are in the last step of the retouching, which consists of focusing those parts of the portrait that print character. I call this area "Zone T" and it is formed by the eyes, nose, and mouth. These are the three areas that we must focus on, but with great care and each one in its exact point.

In the following scheme, we see the elements to focus. We have marked with a red line those that admit a greater focus and orange color that we should focus more subtly.

In the eyes, we highlight the iris and the pupils and to a lesser extent lashes and eyebrows. In the nose attention is paid to the nostrils and curves of the fins, avoiding touching the bridge. Finally, in the mouth, we focus on the teeth and less on the lips.

Be careful with the eyelashes, we can fall into the failure to turn beautiful eyelashes into an "eyeliner" of the bad guys. In the nose do not have to focus too much on the nostrils, and on the lips should be careful not to contrast too much and oversaturate them.

For the approach, any of the known techniques can be used. I am going to explain to you one of the techniques that I use the most because of its simplicity and effectiveness, known as the high pass layer approach technique.

To do this, we doubled the background layer, as always by pressing Control + J. Once the layer is duplicated, we will apply a High Pass filter from the Filters - Others - High Pass menu. We see a dialog box whose only configurable element is the Radio. Initially, we mark Radio: 0,0 pixels, we will observe that our whole image becomes neutral gray. That means no pixel will be affected. We are going up little by little with the help of the slider the radio of the high step, and we see how the areas in more detail are "revealed".

You have to adjust the radius until the details of the eyes are completely relieved and a couple of more pixels. And do not worry if other elements are highlighted, since then with a layer mask we will apply the effect right where we want.

Once the desired radius has been applied, confirm the filter by clicking OK. Then we change the blending mode of the upper layer, which is the one that we have applied the high pass filter, to Superpose mode. We now see how the elements of the portrait are focused in more detail.

But as a side effect, we see that other areas have also been affected. This is solved by creating a layer mask from the Layers menu - Layer Mask - Hide All. Finally, we proceed with our brush of low opacity and hardness to paint the areas we want to focus on white. I give several passes in the eyes, in the teeth and some less in the eyebrows, lips, and hair. Although all this will depend on the photo.

We see in the following picture the effect deactivated so you can check the focus

Finally, I attach both layers. Remember to make the top layer visible again.

Once this step is completed we will have finished the 7 basic steps to retouch portraits with Photoshop. I remind you that the final effect has been reinforced deliberately so that the retouching is evident.

Try these 7 steps applying them to different portrait photographs and look for the "exact cooking point" since the personal taste of each one will mark the final result. To know go to Photo Solutions India

Now you know the 7 basic steps to retouch portraits with Photoshop, you just have to try them. And remember: the personal image of each one must be unalterable since it is the main feature that, together with the character, define our personality. Do not forget to share your tweaks and your tricks, techniques or concerns, we wait for you in the comments!
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