Okay.
So in a recent live broadcast I did on my YouTube channel.
I went through the retouch of this female portrait and in that
very quickly showed how I evened out the skin tones.
Now, this was done very quick, so I thought I'd record another video
going through it step by step, and also let you know that
I've recorded an action in Photoshop that you can download.
Right. Let's crack on.
When we look at this portrait
we can see that the skin tones
on her forehead are different to the skin tone around her hair line.
To fix this, we need to work on the color without affecting the detail.
So we need to somehow separate the image so that we have the color and detail
on separate layers so we can work on one without affecting the other.
And this is how we do it.
In fact, here I have an action that I've made to do exactly this.
This one here called Skin Fix.
So I'll press play.
You can see now that this action has created a group called Skin Fix.
And if we open this up, we see there are three layers.
The top layer is called details.
And if I turn every other layer off,
we can see here that the layer doesn't contain color, but it does
contain details which you can see really clearly if I zoom in.
Now, there's also a layer called color.
If I turn every other layer off and only show this layer,
we can see that the image is blurred.
So there are no defined areas and sharp details.
We can see this is a portrait, but because we've blurred it
slightly, it's more a collection of colors.
Above this layer we have a blank layer
and this is the layer we will use to correct any color issues
rather than working directly on the color layer itself.
For example,
I'll click on the blank layer,
then I'll zoom in on the area of skin that I want to work on.
I can then use a multitude of different tools to fix the color.
For example, I'll use the gradient tool,
so I'll choose the gradient tool from the toolbar or press g.
Then in the options bar at the top of the screen,
it's very important that I choose classic gradient
I’ll then choose a gradient from the basic folder.
And the one I need to choose is the foreground
to transparent, and that is really important.
I'll also choose a radial gradient.
Now that
I have that, I'll hold down the option key on Mac or Alt key
on Windows and click to sample an area of skin.
The color is now set as the foreground color, which we can see in the toolbar.
So if I want to fix the color,
all I need to do is drag out a gradient.
The great thing is that only the color is being affected.
All of the detail remains untouched, and that's because the details layer
is above everything else in the layer stack.
So I can continue to fix the color adding more gradients
because I'm using the foreground to transparent gradient option.
But what I will do is keep sampling different area of skin.
So as I do this, it helps it to blend together much more realistically.
Now, I could also use a brush to do this.
So I'll grab a normal round brush with 0% hardness
and I'll set the flow to around 20%
so that I can gradually build up the effect.
I'll sample the skin color by holding down the option
key on Mac or Alt key on windows and clicking down on the area.
And then I simply start brushing over the area that I want to fix.
Again, as I move along, I would continue sampling
different areas of skin.
Now, as you can see,
this works really, really well and it's kind of like a dumbed down
version of what's known as frequency separation.
And this is how we set it up.
Let's remove all of these layers here and go back to the original background layer
I’ll then duplicate
the background layer by holding down the command key or Mac
or control key on Windows and pressing J
and I'll rename it Color.
Then I'll duplicate this layer by holding down the command key
on Mac or control key on windows and pressing J.
And I'll rename this one detail.
Now that's done.
Let's get the color on the color layer and the detail on the detail layer.
We'll do the color layer first.
I'll turn off the detail layer
and click on the color layer so that it's active.
Then I'll go to Filter, Blur and Gaussian blur.
Now, this portrait was taken with a 100 megapixel Hasselblad X2D
so I’m going to blur this around seven pixels.
If I shot this with my Sony A7R4, which is 61
megapixels, I'd maybe go for five pixels in here.
So anywhere from five to a maximum of ten
is good, depending on the megapixels of the camera
you used.
I'll click okay.
And now we've lost the sharpness and the detail.
We can still tell what it is, but because of the blur,
we have different shapes of color, but no real detail.
Next click on the detail layer and turn it on.
I'll go to Image and apply image
Source is the file that we have open and we're working on. Layer
now this is where we need to choose the color layer.
We have the channel as RGB
I put a tick in the invert checkbox
and I change the blend mode to add.
You should see now that the scale is
set to two and the offset is set to zero.
If they're not, then just manually add that
and then click okay.
Then we change the blend mode of the details layer to linear light.
So now we see everything back in full color.
So if we turn
every layer off apart from the detail, we can see the detail.
And if we turn every layer off except for the color,
we can see the slightly blurred non sharp image, which is the color layer.
I'll now add the blank layer in between these two and rename it.
Color fix.
And let's put all of these into a group.
So I'll click on the detail layer.
Hold the shift key and click on the color layer.
So now all three layers are highlighted.
I'll then go to the Flyout menu in the top right of the Layers
panel and choose new group from layers
and name this skin fix.
I'll also give the group a color so it stands out in the layers panel
and I know where it is.
I'll make this one red
and then click okay.
Now we have it all set up and ready to use.
So like I said, I've recorded an action for the steps
and it's been recorded in such a way that means you could actually use this
at any stage of the retouching process, no matter what layers you already have.
The action I've made available to everyone in my email group.
So if you'd like it, just head over to my website.
Join the community and I'll email you straight back with the download
as well as my Lyme storm Black and white preset for Lightroom and Camera and a PDF
I've written about how to develop your own unique style.
Right. That's all
I have this video,
so I'd really appreciate a thumbs up if you've got anything from this.
And if you haven't yet, click on subscribe,
because that's just a great free way that you can support this channel.
But for now, that's me. I'm done.
I'll see you in the next one.