In this tutorial I will demonstrate how to smooth skin and avoid the fake look, more commonly referred to as "airbrushed".
I take no credit for originating these techniques, these are retouching techniques many pro retouchers use. This particular technique does take some time, and much of the retouching is done at high magnification.
Many of the current skin smoothing tutorials involve usage of blur, but the problem with this type of retouch is that it often leaves the skin with a fake porcelain look and removes much of the natural details and pores.
Here is the image I am starting with:
To begin we are going to use the healing brush. If you are not familiar with the healing brush, take some time and learn about it's capabilities and functions before proceeding further.
First create a new blank layer. Then with your healing brush correct all small skin blemishes and skin discolorations. This takes time to do correctly do not set a time limit. At a certain point you may want to stop and take a break and come back to the image, as this rest period will often refresh your creative and artistic talent.
For larger areas of the skin that need correcting, such as the cracked skin on the models finger, the clone stamp may offer better results.
Now we are going to retouch the really fine areas of the skin and soften wrinkles and lines. For this we are going to dodge and burn different areas of the skin to give a smooth natural appearance. However we will not be dodging and burning with the destructive dodge and burn tools in our toolbox. Instead we are going to paint the light pixels with black and the dark pixels with white.
Create a new layer. Give this layer a name like "dodge". Set the blending mode to soft light. Magnify your image. I vary my magnification between 600% and 1200%, during this procedure. Now with a very small brush (2-5px) at around 70-80 percent hardness, paint the dark pixels with white.
Go back to 100% magnication and reduce layer opacity until desired results are achieved.
Now create another layer. Give this layer a name like "burn". Again we change the the blending mode to soft light. Now we will paint the light pixels with black. Adjust opacity until desired results are achieved.
Again I am going to repeat that this technique is time consuming, but well worth it. No software plug-in quick fix will give you these results. Here is a look at the before and after images. The after image could be retouched further, but for the purposes of this tutorial it is sufficient. The after image does have selective high pass to sharpen, global corrections, and make up.
Before:
After:
Snake
Chopper Challenge
Curveball
Linear Mode
