Portrait Retouching

Portrait Retouching / Editing with Kendra

Portrait Retouching

This is a quick tutorial of portrait retouching is how I’ve retouched my portraits for the past year. for this one I’m using pictures from Kendra a Chloe’s session from earlier this year.

Wana shoot with me? it starts right HERE!
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I figured the best way for me to show my process is by making this video. ft Kendra

Links to what I use,
What’s in the Bag – The camera bag.
Portraiture – http://www.imagenomic.com/pt.aspx
RA Beauty Retouch Panel – http://retouchingacademy.com/product/ra-beauty-retouch-panel-for-photoshop-cs6-cc/
Smooth White Panel Board – http://www.lowes.com/pd_16605-46498-300_1z0ufgy__?productId=3015239&pl=1
V-flats – http://www.lowes.com/pd_41505-46086-531773_1z11pq2__?productId=3362408&pl=1

Before

After

Alright Here. We. Go. First thing is run the Portraiture action. Basically thats just like opening Portraiture and using it in its default setting. however, the action is faster than opening plug-in and it makes a layer mask so I can brush away all the parts I do not want softened, hair, eyes ect.. then I drop the opacity down to 40-50%. flatten or layer stamp and on to the next.
Side Note; this action works great if youre doing a large number of photos. You can make a Droplet in photoshop and use Lightroom that will Export the file(S), run Portraiture, Save and close all then open the next and do it all over again. its cool to sit back and watch it work! Jerad Platt showed how to do it on creative live ones.

Next up the healing brush to get anything blemishes that you wouldn’t want showing up on your face.

I use the RA Panel quite a bit because its super easy and it has everything all in one place.
To make the skin an even color I use frequency separation and just start painting all the red and bright highlights out.

Eyes

This is the part where I can sometimes go way too crazy, But now I think I got it down and learned when to stop and leave it alone.
I always darken the eye liner and the dark parts of the eyeball. Again using the RA Panel because their setting makes it so it just removes redness of the inside of the eyes so you just brush it away using a brush at a very low flow and opacity.

Before

After

Lastly I use the dodge and burn for lips, eyebrows and darkening or lighting hair highlights.

Once the skin (face AND BODY) are all good. I use the a curve action I made a while back called Chloe. It was named after… Chloe I’m always making and saving Curves. In my option Curves in Photoshop is way more powerful than Levels
This is what Chloe looks like (It’s where all the magic happens) 🙂

Behind the Scenes

I always shoot in the same corner of the house. I do this for a few reasons.
It’s the ONLY south facing window in this house. the other reason is because it’s the only window/wall without some kind of plant, couch, chair or a farm animal blocking it.

window light camera right defused with a white bed sheet. v-flat painted one side the other side left white to use as a fill.

The white board on the floor you can get at lowes in the lumber section. isle 47 (I know this because I worked in that department for two years before getting fired for calling out too many times to do photoshoots.) its called Panel bored. its good for getting that clean floor look. it also serves as a reflector and bounces not a lot but a little bit a light back into the person’s under chin.