Human nature always seems to have this
predilection with beauty and what society believes
is beautiful. When we are fat, we want to be slim
or thin. When we have the so-called “love
handles”, we decide we do not love them anymore,
so we go to the gym and exercise until our tongues
fall out from fatigue. We are blessed with dark
colored skin, so we try all the new bleaching
products available in the market to lighten our
color. We have white skin so we go to tanning
salons to get olive skin, and the out-in-the-sun
color to your skin. We are naturally brunette but
we go to the nearest salon to get our hair done
and died to blonde because they said “blondes
always have such fun”.
And digital technology is also banking on the
partiality of people to not have fun with what the
Lord has blessed them with originally.
I have been in the digital business for quite
some time now, and what I regularly encounter are
numerous questions on how to remove blemishes from
photos so that their faces would look great and
give that “fashion-magazine look” that the
media is glamorizing so much nowadays. Here are a
few suggestions then from a photographer on beauty
retouching.
(Now, if I could just do it in real life, I
would be a millionaire by now.)
Beauty Retouching with Photoshop
1 – Try to improve the colors on the face in
your photo as far as you can go. To edit, it is
better to do it in RGB rather than CMYK. With RGB,
editing is more flexible and easy. And explore all
the selections in the various feathers. Do not be
afraid to experiment. After all, being creative is
all about using all the choices available.
2 – After editing your color, it’s now time
to create a new layer. This is also a tool for you
to be able to control your work. Begin your
retouch using a heeling brush and cloning stamp to
remove the things you want removed. Start with the
bigger imperfections and move your way to the
littlest blemish. You could also use the heeling
brush to remove the lines under the eyes to create
that young look to the face.
3 - To adjust the size of any part of the face
(e.g. big nose), adjust to your liking with the
Liquify filter. Click the Filters menu and choose
Liquify. This tool allows you to smudge, move,
squish, and even distort your image according to
your satisfaction. For best results and easy
navigation, turn the grid on. This will let you
view the changes you’ve made.
For increasing or reducing the size of the
area, you can also use the Warp, although the
Pucker and Bloat are most effective with this type
of retouch. Remember to be careful and again, do
not be afraid to experiment. Use the appropriate
brush size and go slowly, moving bits at a time.
4 –To smoothen the skin, use the cloning
stamp and carefully apply to the skin. The best
would be to use multiple clicks rather than
strokes to even out the skin tone. This is the
part where you need to be patient. Be careful with
your patterns and do not repeat. Also, try to be
creative. Don’t worry if you make mistakes along
the way. Just go back to the history palette
everytime you create something you don’t like
and start again.
5 – For overdoing the smoothing process, just
use the history palette to restore the specific
area. If this does not work, try to select and add
the noise filter to simulate the texture of the
skin.
Finally, after a little adjustments and a
little nip and tuck here and there, you are ready
to view your final image.
According to the photographer, beauty
retouching needs patience and a lot of
perseverance. Many methods are available, but
there are only a few tricks to help others retouch
their photos. Even for professionals, this job
takes time to finish. However, with time, one can
get faster.
About The Author
Granny's Mettle is a 30-something, professional
web content writer. She has created various web
content on a diverse range of topics, which
includes digital printing topics, medical news, as
well as legal issues. Her articles are composed of
reviews, suggestions, tips and more for the
printing and designing industry.
Her thoughts on writing: "Writing gives me
pleasure… pleasure and excitement that you have
created something to share with others. And with
the wide world of the Internet, it gives me great
satisfaction that my articles reach more people in
the quickest time you could imagine."
On her spare time, she loves to stay at home,
reading books on just about any topic she fancies,
cooking a great meal, and taking care of her
husband and kids.
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