The Retoucher's Blog

Calvin Hollywood interviewed me

retouchersblog — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 11:20:10 +0000

I was very sick and nervous (really stiff )

http://www.calvinhollywood-podcast.de/

White Skin

retouchersblog — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:14:00 +0000

Black Skin

retouchersblog — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:13:19 +0000

Also, try using this very same technique to enhance detail in landscapes!

Texture

retouchersblog — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:52:53 +0000

Disclaimer
This thoughts are to try to explain how we can make texture work from one image to another.
This is not meant to say you should remove skin texture when retouching beauty and then reapply it.
The guidelines are still the same for Beauty and Fashion Work: Don’t lose texture to begin with.
But since you’re not always given an image with texture to begin with, this could be useful. If you’re gonna do it, do it right!
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Texture

A lot of ppl often question about adding textures to different surfaces.

The important thing to remember is that “texture” is a really relative terminology.

First we need to determine what texture is

For example… in a close up beauty image we can agree that texture would be pores, hairs, fur

But if we are talking about a fashion/glamour image where the model is placed far in the BG then the pores are not longer the *texture* of the image. The texture in that case would be tonal variation in the skin/clothes.

Having said that we can go even further when relativizing the term and say: there’s different kinds of texture within one.

Lets go back to the beauty image of the first sample.

IMO – The skin texture is a summary between small radius tone/light graduations – the pores/hair/fur – and pixel dust (three different radius of detail joined together to create the visual illusion of “skin” – I’m saying illusion because you could fake what it’s there, in a beauty image, by default)

Now.. going away from the Beauty example we could say the same thing about ANY texture in ANY image.
Texture in clothing of an old image: small radius tone/light graduations – fabric material – grain

So… now that we understand that texture is not just ONE radius of information we can say that to move texture from on place to another you need to separate that texture into the different radius of information.

Using HP for this (specially the apply image based HP or -50 legacy contrast based HP for accuracy) you create one HP of each radius you *think* adds up to create the final illusion. You place one over the other into the area you need to texturize and then use different contrast based blending modes (Linear light/Overlay) to make them work together.

Then, if applying this correctly you can create the illusion of any kind of texture in any kind of surface.

Unsolicited Advice II

retouchersblog — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:48:21 +0000

For the Stater Retoucher (The biz side of things)

There are a lot of myths in this industry.

Such as:
You need a full portfolio before you can contact an agency/photographer/brand
You need a classy website with a Gallery
You need to have contacts, “know” people in the industry
You need to be good at everything: retouching/design/3D
You need to know how to use photoshop, illustrator, maya, indesign
You need to charge $20 to stay competitive

In my opinion there’s no “luck” in this biz, luck can only take you so far.

*Practice daily

*Practice some more (I STILL do images that I like just for doing them, those usually take me more than 5 hours)

*Create competitive samples respecting photographers and copyright

* Email photographers you love (directly addressing always to their name and complementing exactly what you like about their work and how you can benefit each other, no “general emails”)

*Be concise and direct

*Offer to TEST for them with a very accessible taste rate NEVER FREE

don’t use any internet terminology or you’re out immediately

What you do need:

You need an ftp server with your name/company name – yousend /megaupload screams “amateur”

You need 2 or 3 striking samples displayed correctly (hosted html rollover) would do, just link them in your contact email

If you’re good and your prices are competitive, they will call you.

Very Important about Portfolio Material:

Just like the saying goes, “To get the job you want, you have to dress the part.” This applies for retouching as well, to get the type of clients you are looking to work with, you have to present a similar portfolio to the work they have in theirs.

Retouch the images that are going to land you that NEXT job. If you settle for cheap clients, you will always have cheap clients.

If you proudly display 20 minutes retouches in your portfolio you will only get 20 minutes $20 images to work on.

FAQ

How many Samples should I have?
It depends on the kind of retouching you do. Beauty, fashion, Glamour, Product/Still Life?
2 of each is enough to get you going. Always remember your folio or the material you display has to be the best f the best

How much should I charge?
Rates depend on many things to have an estimated. But I can tell you that if you’re charging $20 an image and that image is taking you more than 2 hours, you’re better off working for mc donnals.
But always take into account the amount of hours you need for the project.
Small images such as catalog work take less time than A3 printing for portfolio.

How much time should I spend retouching?

It always depends. Who is the client? How’s gonna be printed? What is it for? What’s the budget?

Catalog for a small company? Spend more than 2 hours on it and you’re wasting everyone’s time and money

Product Advertorials or editorials mixed brands? same as before, always ask for a layout pdf so you can see which images are gonna take on a full page and witch one won’t

Advertising in mags for a good brand – 4 hours, till 6

Bigger than magazines – 1 day + + (depending on budget)

Unsolicited Advice

retouchersblog — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:43:29 +0000

For the Stater Retoucher

3 major Things to take into account in retouching

* Not because you can do it means you should

* Not because it looks better means that it looks good

* Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken

When retouching an image, specially when it’s a portfolio image (testing) you make all the aesthetic decisions (or most of them), then you need to make the right ones.

To name an example… When you change the lipstick tone, you need a reason other than “I think it’s going to look better”.

Everything you do to a model should be to enhance composition, you don’t slim her down to slim her down but to make her fit better in the frame, make the shape more interesting, the same with clothing, eyes, arms or nose. When you change the lipstick/eyeshadow tones, you do it to take attention from them or drawn attention to them.

It’s very important to stay in touch with the full image. Most of the times I see retouches that focus on small details but forget about the full frame, you have perfect skin when close up, but the full frame looks blotchy, my advice is, every once in a while, zoom out to print size (or further) and look at the image, really look at the image.

These are 4 aspects I concider when retouching:

* Composition
* Tone
* Light/shadow
* Texture

Composition: Nothing stands out. If something calls the eyes too much, you remove it or blend it better with the rest of the frame. If you have half a shoe/light/leave/watteva you remove it, it’s either in the frame or out. If you have something in the frame that you can’t tell at first glance exactly what it is (some fur, piece of skin somewhere, accessories in weird angles, you remove it, hide it, cover it up – why? Because the brain likes it better when it’s clear if can’t tell what something is right away your brain “gets it” as wrong and the image becomes less attractive to the human eye.
Hair is part of the image too… Don’t forget to retouch the hair, it’s like half an image!
Remove, flying hairs, make texture smooth, D&B shadows and highlights to shape it… What ever it takes to make it congruent with the skin retouch,

Tone: You decide your final tones before even opening the image, once you have them, make them even.
The skintones shouldn’t be monotone, there’s natural variations in skin, but there shouldn’t be differences between face, hands, body
When doing beauty, eye bags have less saturation, shadows usually have more and those things need to be taken into consideration.

Light/Shadow: Unless it was meant to be harsh (And sometimes even then)
Transitions between shadow and light need to be smooth. This includes transitions like from neck to chest, cheekbone to cheek, nose to mouth – and – texture wise.

Texture: Texture is nothing more or less than local contrast in small ranges of skin.
Edges of contrast. Texture needs to be even, but always respecting the original patterns of skin. You don’t have the same texture in the forehead than u do in cheeks, nose, under eyes, chin, over lips, neck or body.
When working with the split (Frequencies or Inverted Highpass) you can’t just use ONE radius for the whole image, because you are only retaining ONE range of edges, just one kind of texture, ergo: IT WILL LOOK FAKE

Within the same line of thought… stay away from plug ins that use general radius on the whole face or you’ll end up with blotchy skin with “selective shine” like you spread wax on the models face forgetting about bigger inconsistencies between shadow and light.

Learn to look at the image a lot before doing anything, make good calls, have a base for your aesthetic decisions.

Only fix what calls the eye.
Don’t remove every pore, make the texture even but keeping the original pattern
Don’t remove all the peach fur, make it consistent.
Don’t remove every flying hair – just the ones going against the flow.

High Pass Way

retouchersblog — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:25:14 +0000

If you saw my video you know I use the high pass filter for more than sharpening.

I tried to find someone who could explain it better than me but I failed miserably and decided to give it a try (This is part of a full retouching tutorial I’m writing but that’s going to take some time)

In the Procces of retouching an image there are a lot of steps and this is NOT the first one, in the sample image there has been curves, levels, fixing of the background and diferent exposures of the raw, not to mention a lot of healing so, one more time…. this is just another step an to make that absolutelly clear:
…Now we are going to use high pass to enhance skin.

The High pass way is something like an automatic (not as detailed and not as undestructive) way of getting smooth but tight skin.

What we do is retain the edges of texture with the high pass, blur them a little (for the same reason we use a soft edged brush when Dodging and burning), invert them (to get the negative of the details light/shadow) and blend them linear light because this blending mode burns or dodges by decreasing or increasing the brightness, depending on the blend tone. If the blend tone is lighter than 50% gray, the image is lightened by increasing the brightness. If the blend color is darker than 50% gray, the image is darkened by decreasing the brightness (Very like D&B with a set of layers, that’s why I call this automatic D&B)

Now … you won’t be using this on the entire image, so what we do now is mask the whole thing out (Layer/layer mask/hide all) and then paint back with a white soft brush where it’s needed.

How to chose your radius?

We are always using numbers we can get 1/3 of (multipliers of 3) and it depends on what you want to D&B out of the image.

Small texture – radius of 3 or 6
Medium spots or holes in the skin – radius of 6 to 15 … maybe even 21.
Fix sudden change of light or general face features – Radius of 30 – 45 – 60

Find the problematic area / Chose your high pass / Gaussian Blur 1/3 of the HP radius / Invert (command/ctrl i ) Blend linear light / Mask to hide / Paint back where need it.

In the sample image I just used a 15/5 and a 45/15.

Hello world!

retouchersblog — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:36:36 +0000

This is my first blog ever, be patient I’ll learn as I go.

Let me introduce my sellf first.

My name is Natalia Taffarel, I’m from Argentina and my life is retouching. Becoming a Digital Artist was a natural progression for me. I have a background in Advertising and Graphic Design, and I was born in to a family of printers, therefore I grew up with a great understanding of colour theory and I learnt every method of traditional printing in side out.

I began learning Photoshop as a hobby, which quickly turned in to an obsession.
My printing background proved useful, as many of the filters that are used in the Photoshop are based on the analogue methods which aided in my understanding.
I have since become a Certified Adobe Expert, and built up a strong client base.

I find the retouching process an inspired way to take a good image and develop it in to something perfect, or to make a perfect image amazing.

I’m a neurotic, detail maniac, control freak who thinks beauty is shown solely through the details. Everything has a hidden beauty and it’s my job to unleash it.

I believe hard and constructive criticism is the only way of achieving continued self-improvement. I strive to be the best.

As you can see… I’m also modest!

I want to share my retouching experience with all of you out there that want to learn the craft. For those of you who haven’t seen my youtube video, enjoy wile I make new ones