Super Fast and Easy Facial Retouching
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In this tutorial, I will show you how to repair some image noise from a low-quality shot, and I will show you an extremely quick and easy way to smooth out a person’s face. The woman in this shot is not a model, and she has a lot of character so we don’t want to overdo it with the smoothing. We will make it look real and natural.
The Image
You can get the image we’re using in this tutorial from Free Range Stock here. The technique can be applied to a beauty shot as well, you would just have to adjust the settings on some of the steps to get a more extreme smoothing effect.
Step 1
If you look at the blue channel, you will notice that it doesn’t look so good. There are a lot of JPG artifacts that you don’t really see when looking at the RGB composite, but it’s good to fix it for a variety of reasons. Importantly, it will reduce the color noise in the image and give us more flexibility when making corrections later down the line.
Duplicate the Background layer. On the new layer go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Enter 10 for the radius. Hit OK. Set the layer’s blending mode to color. Double-click on the layer to the right of the name to open the blending options. Under Advanced Blending, uncheck the R and the G. This makes the layer only affect the blue channel no matter what we do to it. Now go back and check out the blue channel. Looks better.
Step 2
Now I will use Curves to balance the color in the image. I suggest using Curves over Levels for everything. Curves just gives you much more control.
Download my curve preset to your hard drive.
Create a new Curves Adjustment layer at the top of the layers palette, then click the little button to the right of the Preset control, and select Load Preset and load the file.
Step 3
The technique that we are going to use to smooth out the face doesn’t require very much cloning at all. I do want to use the Healing Brush Tool (J) on any major freckles or blemishes, in this case her four large freckles.
Create a new blank layer just above the background copy. Select the Healing Brush (J) and make sure that "Sample All Layers" is checked on the property bar. Paint over those spots to remove them.
A good rule of thumb is to never modify your source image in any way. That is why we used the healing brush on a new layer. You never know when you might need to go back to where you started.
Step 4
Select the three layers below the Curve layer. Drag them down to the New Layer button to duplicate them. Hit Command+E to merge the three duplicates.
Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool and click around her face until all the skin is selected. It doesnt need to be too neat. Now go back, and while holding Alt, click around and deselect anything that is not skin like the eyes, eyebrows, lips, and nostrils. Go back once more and deselect any areas of detail that need to remain, like the edge of the nose, her dimples, her collar bones, and the edge of her chin. This is what my selection looks like as a quick mask:
Hit Shift+Command+I to invert the selection and then Delete to delete those pixels. You won’t actually notice a change because the layers below are the same as the layer we are working on.
Step 5
Go Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Enter 20 for the Radius. Set the layer Opacity to 75%. Select and duplicate the same bottom three layers just like we did before. Hit Command+E to merge them. Put that layer just above the blurred layer. With the new layer selected, hit Command+Alt+G. This creates a clipping mask, which is indicated by the arrow pointing down on the layer. This means that the layer on top will use the bottom layer’s transparency as a mask.
Step 6
With your new layer still selected, go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Enter 4 for the Radius.
Now you can really see how that clipping mask is working, but not for long. Set the blending mode of the layer to Linear Light and set the Opacity to 40%. Done!
Rollover the image below to see the before / after…
This will pretty much work on any portrait, but the goal isn’t to make the person look like a model, it’s just meant to smooth things out a bit yet still look natural. That is why it works well on everyday average people.
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I must have missed a step. The image came out red and not smooted . Can anyone help me with the step I missed. I will be happy to email the image.
Try this it’s easier and basically the same thing:
Make a copy of your image.
Use the Gaussien blur on one image (not too blurry around 10 – 20 and make the blured image the background layer.
Next use a transparency brush to brush thu the blurred pic into the unblurred one. AND THATS IT.
Stay away from brushing sharp line areas that define important facial features.
I guesss another way of saying this is to just brush one plane of imagined dimension at a time.
Meaning when you are brushing the flat of the face then don’t then brush the point of the nose which is closer to you on the apparent tor virtual Z axis “in the same brush stroke”.
What is so nice about this technique is that the blurred layer has the same color pallete as the original and that is what makes this technique possible.
This technique works with any paint program that has the Gaussien blur, transparecy brush and layer tools. I use MS digital image pro no longer supported and I bet G.I.M.P works as well.
Here’s an example of my work: http://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/19148650
I’ve got same problem with AScrubb, the selected skin turn red. Does anyone know why ?
Help Pls….
In Step 4…it said “Select the three layers below the Curve layer.” But there’s only two layers created as u said. Where’s the 3rd layer ? Hay..pls correct the steps…fast..pls
Thanks so much!! it’s a great tutorial that helps to save a lot of time!!!
great tip..
prety fast to.
thanks alot
Thanks for the tutorial …. It would be a great help
Interesting technique. Blending the smoothed and non-smoothed areas requires some finesse, but this does give pretty pleasing results without looking over-blurred.
Thank you!
Love it!
Wouldn’t quite call this retouching super fast and easy….but it’s a good technique and I’ve been using a similar one myself for awhile.
i was searching dis toutrial
thanxx a lot
u have no idea how to explain things. u expect me to guess out of blue sky how to use different options that u used. garbage!!!!!!
Wow…beautiful..
so nice and so fast.
Thanks Kyle !
Feel concerns though :
- I would like to suggest a more in-detail description because of the layers hierarchy is VERY confusing. One can get lost !
- the values YOU use are ok for THIS picture. I would not give the absolute values like you did.
Thank you very much for the keyboard shortcuts revival !
LAO
The ‘Curve Preset’ (color.acv) is still linked and found working. Just Install a downloader (in my case “Internet Download Manager”). Right click the link, select ‘Download with IDM’. You have your preset in hand.
The ‘Curve Preset’ is still attached with the link.
Install a downloader (“Internet Download Manager” in my case).
Right click the preset link in this page and select ‘Download with IDM’.
You have ‘color. acv’ in your pc now.
The down load links do not work. I have a mac pro. screen comes up after clicking and shows garbage at the top left and nothing else.
Only problem with super fast and easy is that it looks super fast and easy, gaussian blur isn’t a retouching technique outside of the low end ‘retouching’ studios and photoshop farms for 10 images at $5. If retouching were this simple, there’d be no professionals.
From step 4 it is confusing. Good result but badly written.
This is not explained well…i cannot understand clearly this tutorial, i have to figure it out myself what to do…
I created an action to do this, which tells you what to do at every stage. That way, you’ll get a good result in no time, regardless of the resolution. i.e. your “4 pixels” of radius will only work on photos with your example’s resolution/size/focus/lighting. If any of those are different, the result will fail.
http://socialblogsitewebdesign.com/photoshop-perfect-skin-secrets-keeping-pores/
I created one for de-freckling too.
Enjoy it.
hi,
good!!! but i can’t download the preset curves & hw can we brush with the Healing brush tool? I am totally confused please explain it more clearly.
sowjanya
This tutorial is impossible to do. When yo merge the layers the picture turns blue. It’s badly written and not ‘super easy’ as the author thinks it is.
the third is the background layer
1)healing brush layer
2)blue color layer
3)”background”
you didn’t merge the third layer.
Nice, but I could not understand what “Delete to delete those pixels” means (end of Step 4). would appreciate if someone could explain what should be done?
Just found out.
I Got a nice result, but used a lower gassian blur value.
a bit confused, but apparently not as much as other users. This tut ought to be stripped and re-written. Some pictures are useful, namely the mask that is applied when selecting the “skin”. He leaves in a lot of the hard lines!
Notes:
When he says merge the three layers he means 1)the layer the healing tool was used on, 2)the color corrected (blue) layer, 3) the background
The tutorial ought to tell you what you are trying to accomplish in each step and what “presets” the tool has.
1) Add a curves layer to the image to gain back some of the color. The image is too heavy on the white side of the histogram. Add this layer by selecting Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves. Play with it until it looks good to your eye!
2) Now we are going to remove the “blemishes”. To do this create a new blank layer: Layer > New > Layer… Make sure this layer is positioned directly above the “Background” layer in the Layers Palette, and name it “blemishes”. Now select the “Spot Healing Brush Tool” and make sure the following presets are checked: Mode-Normal, Type-Proximity match, Sample All Layers (checked). Vary the brush size using “[" and "]” and proceed to paint over the blemishes.
3) The next step is to smooth the skin. We would like to do this non-destructively so we are going to duplicate these layers then merge them. To do this select both the “Blemishes” layer and the “Background” layer (using either shift or ctrl in CS2 and above) then drag them over to the “new layer” icon. Now we can right click on them (with both layers selected) and select “merge layers”.
4) Because we only want to smooth the skin on this layer we need to use a selection tool to separate the skin we want to smooth from the features we want to stay sharp. The most efficient way to do this is to grab the polygonal lasso tool and draw around the face. Once the selection is complete you can press alt (cmd) to use the negative selection of the lasso tool and remove interrior features such as the eyes, jaw line, and cheek lines.
5) Once the face is fully selected go ahead and invert the selection: Select > Inverse. Then delete. Important! You must then de-select (ctrl+d, cmd+d). Now we have just the skin selected and we are prepared to blur the skin.
6) Select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and choose a pixel radius that looks a hair over what you actually want. For this example using the full resolution image (not copying the one at the top of the tutorial) 6.5 looked nice to my eye.
7) Because this blur still looks quite unnatural we are going to drop the opacity down between 40 and 50% See what looks nice to your eyes and go with it.
Notes: If you would like to do a better job at this consider blurring the radius of your selection area, or painting in the blur by 1)Duplicating the image 2)Blurring it 3)Adding a layer mask set to black 4)Painting the blur on with a brush who’s opacity is set to 10%
I hope psd tuts considers substituting the words in this tutorial with mine. Best of luck.
I understood your tutorial. It turned out great. Thanks for sharing!
@ adam – i got it till step 5, but at step 6 i clicked gaussian blur but nothing happened to the selected area..
what i culdnt get is the curves layer which is on the top..what should i do with this?
I didn’t understand the step 5…
YES, I UNDERSTOOD: “Go Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Enter 20 for the Radius. Set the layer Opacity to 75%.”
NO, I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND: “Select and duplicate the same bottom three layers (WHAT??) just like we did before. Hit Command+E to merge them (WHAT LAYERS I HAVE TO MERGE?). Put that (WHAT’S “THAT” LAYER?) layer just above the blurred layer. With the new layer selected, hit Command+Alt+G. This creates a clipping mask, which is indicated by the arrow pointing down on the layer. This means that the layer on top will use the bottom layer’s transparency as a mask. (YEAH… BUT I TRYED IT WITH ANY POSSIBILITTY AND IT DOENS’T DO ANY DIFFERENCE…)”
The three layers would be:
1) background (original pic )
2) background copy ( which was blurred )
3) layer 1 ( the one you used healing brush on )
You should select these layers then drag them to the “new layer” icon. After that, you press “Command+E” which will merge the three layers.
Drag the ‘merged layer’ above ‘the layer that looks like a cut face’. then press “Command+Alt+G” which creates a clipping mask as said in the tutorial.
NOTHING NOTHING… JUST TRYING I DID IT
Confused as hell – curves preset doesnt work.
Why cant you just tell us what curves settings you used?
annoying sorry but wasted time
from where i get healing brush (J)? pls help me
This tutorials can use for Final Magazine Print?
Great tutorial!
It is fun to do it yourself, but if you are in a rush you may try to use Facialretouch.com, it helps you to enhance your memorable photos to ensure you look gorgeous in your special moment!
awsome u make that i learn & i try to make that one ,
I think I’m missing something. After I uncheked the R and G at the blending option from the background copy, it turned blue and remained blue the whole time. Didn’t went orange or anything like that. So at the end of the whole process, I have a blue tint. Did I or did I not do something?
how to do step 2 in my curve there is no color preset
What version of Photoshop is this using? I am trying it in elements and cant quite get it to work. :/
Wow! Thank you SO very much! This is an amazing tutorial! I’m having so much fun with my retouching now! Wonderful! Thanks again!
Good result, bad written tutorial. I guess you should have followed first your own tutorial to see if everything was ok before posting it.
Terrible tutorial. Very confusing, your missing steps. It would help if the author tries it following what he wrote here.
Very nice tutorial. Great work!
very nice tutorial