Let's take the source and start processing.

1. Create 5 layers (Ctrl+J).

2. Translate the layer Copy 4 in b/w: Image> Corrections> Discolor (Image> Adjustments> Desaturate) Multiplication and set the layer opacity to 48%.

3. Translate the layer Copy 3 in b/w: Image> Corrections> Discolor (Image> Adjustments> Desaturate). Change the layer blending mode to Lightening (Screen) and set the layer opacity to 40%.

4. Change the layer blending mode Copy 2 to mode Overlay.

5. Change the layer blending mode Copy to mode Linear Light and set the transparency to 55%.

6. We get a rich, contrasting picture with dark gaps and a drawn skin texture. Add Layer mask(icon in the form of a gray square with a white circle inside at the bottom of the Layers palette) to all layers and wipe the eyes (tool Brush (B), color black) in layer masks Copy 4 And Copy, making the eyes lighter.

7. Create above the layer Copy, Adjustment layer Hue/Saturation(at the bottom of the Layers palette, click on the icon in the form of a black and white circle and select the appropriate command) and tone down the red color.

8. Print visible layers onto a new layer (create New Layer (Shift + Ctrl + N) above all layers and click Ctrl + Alt + Shift + E).

9. Create a layer Copy 10 (Shift + Ctrl + N) and sharpen Filter > Other > High Pass put the result in blending mode Overlay.

10. Create an Adjustment Layer Color balance 1(at the bottom of the Layers palette, click on the icon in the form of a black and white circle and select the appropriate command) and adjust the color of the picture so as to get the desired shade (add red, saturate it a little with yellow and uncheck “Keep glow”).

Retouching photographs is of great importance, not because the original image is poorly executed, but in order to hide minor defects and correct the color balance. Retouching a man's photograph differs from a woman's one in that there is no need to hide wrinkles and make the skin perfectly smooth, but at the same time it has its own characteristics.

Create a “Black and White” adjustment layer. We increase the brightness of some individual areas where the dominant color is red and yellow tones, moving the cursor towards their thickening.

Change the blending mode of this layer to “Soft Light”.

Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and reduce the saturation.

Create a Photo Filter adjustment layer and give the image some warmth, but not too much, so yellow will do. You can set the filter density.

In order to give the image a brutal look, you can create a “Color Search” adjustment layer and select the desired color scheme.

If the skin has become too warm in tone or has acquired red tones, you can cool it down with a blue Photo Filter adjustment layer.

Using the Curves adjustment layer, you can lighten and darken certain areas of the image.

We combine the adjustment layers into a group: in the layers tree, select the desired layers and press the key combination Ctrl + G. Reduce the opacity of the group to 72%.

Create a copy of the image layer and use the Spot Healing Brush tool to smooth out the wrinkles on the forehead, cheeks and under the eyes. The nasolabial folds can be left untouched. The tool is used as follows: hold down the Alt key and click with the mouse on the area of ​​​​the skin that is a template for the area that needs to be changed. We pass the brush over the area that needs to be corrected.

How to process a street portrait using Adobe Photoshop - watch the video tutorial by Alexey Kuzmichev. “Let’s start processing a street portrait of an elderly man. From the lesson you will learn how to achieve beautiful cinematic shades in a photo, as well as how to emphasize the necessary details using light and shadow" © Alexey Kuzmichev Information about the video Source: video tutorials on Photoshop from Alexey […]

How to do retouching male portrait in Adobe Photoshop - watch the video tutorial by Alexey Kuzmichev. “Today I will show you how to process a male portrait in Photoshop. You will learn what nuances there are when retouching male photographs, techniques for enhancing skin texture and ways to make the model in the frame more brutal.” © Alexey Kuzmichev Information about the video Source: video tutorials on Photoshop […]

How to make a professional retouching of a female portrait using Adobe Photoshop - watch the video tutorial by Alexey Kuzmichev. “Retouching is a very important stage in the processing of any photograph. Before tinting a photo, adding effects, etc., we first need to get rid of the main defects, otherwise in the future they can ruin all our work. Today I will show you the whole process [...]

The article describes the entire path of photo processing including image analysis, working with Liquify, using layers, Dodge & Burn, color correction and final sharpening.

The material is designed for users who are familiar with Photoshop, namely: they know how to change layer blending modes; remember where the program’s standard filters are located and how these filters roughly work; guess where to find and how to apply adjustment layers. If possible, the Russified names of some tools and blending modes will be duplicated in English.

The article describes the retouching process using tools and methods that seem convenient and optimal to me at the moment, but this, of course, does not mean that the described method is the most correct. And one more addition: this is more about the logic of the process than a description of the exact values ​​of the brush and tool parameters, since it is difficult to use specific settings in work: it is more important to simply understand what needs to be done in each individual case and at each stage of work. Let's take this portrait of a girl as an example of processing.

Principles of portrait retouching

It is advisable to try to use shots that are initially successful in their execution (composition, lighting, etc.). If you are a novice photographer and do not yet know how to take photographs at the level required for high-quality retouching, or a novice retoucher who does not have access to high-quality materials, be sure to look for suitable sources for training on the Internet and get your hand and eye on good work.

The basic principle of processing that should be followed: retouching is needed in order to make it more expressive good shot, and not in order to redraw and redo an image from scratch that is initially no good. The second principle follows from the first principle: do not overdo it. If we have already chosen a high-quality frame for work, then it cannot be remade endlessly. Sometimes it's better to do a little less than to completely change the picture.

A few words about conversion.

Before opening an image in Photoshop, it is often necessary to pre-process the raw file in one of the converters. The default is Adobe Camera Raw (ACR for short). There we can immediately correct the exposure, white balance, image contrast and other indicators. This is what my settings looked like in ACR.

The specifics of preparing an image for processing in Photoshop is a separate topic for discussion, so I’ll just note that my main goal when converting the photo was to reveal as much detail as possible on the skin by moving the exposure sliders and highlights to the left, and shadows to the right, in order to reduce the overall contrast photos. In addition, there, in Adobe Camera Raw, I changed the white balance to a less yellow color, and using the curves tab, I added a reddish tint to the shadows. The last manipulations are completely optional at the beginning of work, since some people prefer to do color correction after technical retouching, but for me it is more convenient to work with the image when the main color scheme has already been determined.

Red channel curve settings in ACR:

Now let's pay attention to the line at the bottom of the Adobe Camera Raw dialog box with image parameters:

We convert photos in Adobe RGB color space, 8 bit. For high-quality retouching, it is usually recommended to convert an image at 16 bits, but 8 bits are most often enough for my work. Keep in mind that even though we've now selected the Adobe RGB option, once your photo is processed for use on the web, you should always convert it to the sRGB color space.

At the end of working with the converter, click the “Open Image” button in the lower right corner of the dialog box, and the photo opens in Photoshop.

Photo analysis

In working with this photograph, we set ourselves the goal of “combing” the picture and making it more expressive, while leaving the image as natural as possible.
As usual, we start any work with image analysis. For training, you can create a separate “photo analysis” layer (it doesn’t matter whether it’s an empty layer or a copy of the background), on which we will literally use a brush to mark everything that we want to correct.

In our example, these are ordinary skin imperfections, uneven transitions of light and shadow on the model’s forehead and chin, and blood vessels on the whites of the eyes. I also want to smooth out any hairs that are straying out of my hairstyle. Let's slightly correct the shape of the hairstyle, slightly open the eyelid of the left eye, lower the left shoulder, which is too raised. Additionally, we will clean the background from the dark spot in the corner on the right. When we have decided on the main tasks, we can turn off the “photo analysis” layer and return to it as we work to see if we missed something.

Photo analysis layer:

Filter “Plastic” (Liquify)

We create a copy of our original image, and using the “plastic” filter we correct the shape of the hairstyle, lower the left shoulder and slightly adjust the shape of the left eye.

You can read more about the Liquify filter in the article “Using the Liquify filter in Photoshop”.

Auxiliary layers

To begin, create a group of auxiliary layers:
1) First adjustment layer of curves: bend the line down until the details in the lightest significant areas of the image become sufficiently contrasting (in our case, this is the skin on the forehead and nose). Let's give it the name "Blackout". For now, turn off(!) the visibility of this layer.

Darkening curves layer and its effect on the photo:

2) Second adjustment layer of curves. Let’s call it “Lightening”: we bend the line upward until the details in the darkest significant areas (shadows in the hair) are visible. We also make this layer invisible.

The brightening layer of curves and its effect on the photo:

3) Another auxiliary adjustment layer “Black and white”. We also disable it after creation.

We put these three layers into a separate folder and place it above all other layers:

We will use auxiliary layers during the processing process in order to better see imperfections, additional details, as well as transitions of light and shadow. Try turning them on and off now to understand how they change the image and what details appear when using each of them.

Working with a healing brush.

Let's move on to retouching.

Create three layers for retouching and combine them into the “Healing brush, skin” group:

1) New clean layer with normal blending mode to remove visible small skin imperfections.

2) New layer with blending mode “darken” – In order to clean the skin from spots that are lighter than the general surrounding background.

3) New layer with blending mode “replace with light” (eng. “lighten”) - In order to remove spots from the image that are darker than the general surrounding background.

Using the same principle, we create a “Restoring brush, hair” group from three layers.
This is what our adjustment layers look like at this stage of work:

Select the lowest transparent layer “Normal” in the “Healing Brush, Skin” folder and take the “Spot Healig Brush Tool”. The hardness of the brush is minimal (during the work, the hardness, as well as other parameters of the brush, can and should be changed).

We choose the image scale large enough (up to 100-200%) to see all the nuances on the skin. The main rule is that the size of the brush is slightly larger than the spot that we are removing. We constantly change the brush size using square brackets on the keyboard, canceling unsuccessful actions with the key combinations Ctrl+Z or Ctrl+Alt+Z.

During retouching, it is very useful to turn on and off auxiliary layers, which are located in a separate folder above all other layers. The most important thing in such retouching is that it is enough to get your hand and eye to pinpoint the imperfections with your brush, since working carelessly can only aggravate the situation.

When you're done with the first layer, move on to the next "Lighten" layer to remove small dark spots on the surface of the skin. After it seems to us that everything is ready here, go to the “Darken” layer and darken all the small light spots that we see. As a result, each individual retouched layer will look something like this:

We work with the group of layers “Healing brush, hair” in the same sequence as with the previous layers, only here there is one nuance - it is more convenient to work with hair on an enlarged fragment of the image with a very small stamp tool (optimally - slightly thicker than a hair, which trying to delete). We remove stray and too contrasting hairs. It's also useful to practice and use all the capabilities of our auxiliary layers. After retouching, our image looks neater than before:

Next, if we notice some details that require mandatory correction, we create the “Additional retouching” group, where we add as many new layers as necessary. For example, using the Clone Stamp Tool (select the “layer sample” parameter with the value “active and below”, English “Sample” - “Current & Below”) I removed the dark spot in the lower left corner of the photo and the same Using a stamp on a new layer, I cleaned the whites of the eyes from red blood vessels (we do this very carefully, with a brush transparency of about 20-40%).

Additionally, on a separate layer with a brush minimum diameter and with a suitable color I drew several new hairs on the eyebrows and along the contour of the hairstyle to make everything look more natural (although hair processing, again, is a separate topic that we will not delve into now).

Group of layers with additional retouching:

Additional changes in the scale of the entire image may look very small, but it is important for us to remember that it is the little things that give our work a finished look.

Dodge & Burn method

The Dodge & Burn retouching method in various variations is used everywhere, and now we will not be an exception. Let's create two adjustment layers with curves. We do this in the same way as we created auxiliary layers before:

— let’s call the first one “Lightening” (Dodge), bend the curve upward to make the picture lighter, and invert the layer mask.

— for the second layer “Darkening” (Burn), lower the curve so that the image becomes darker. We also add a black mask.

I don't have specific parameters according to which any curves need to be bent. We do everything by eye, so that both when darkening and lightening, details remain in the photo. This is what all the layer groups we currently have look like:

Now we begin the long and rather monotonous work of smoothing out various spots on the skin. Take the Brush Tool.

We set the Opacity to about 6-10% and Pressure to about 20%. During retouching, we constantly change the value of these parameters and the image scale. It will be equally bad if, instead of smoothing out the spots, you multiply them even more or if you perfectly level the surface of the skin, leaving a flat pancake in place of the face.

Hence the conclusion that, in addition to mastering Photoshop tools, it is good to have at least a superficial understanding of the anatomy of the face and the human figure in general. We begin to carefully draw on the masks of the created layers where we respectively want to lighten or darken areas of the image.

Let me remind you once again that here again our auxiliary layers will help us a lot and, of course, we need some practice in such a difficult task as Dodge & Burn. This stage can take a very long time (from half an hour to a couple of days), so you will need perseverance, attentiveness and, which is very desirable, the presence of a graphics tablet.

At the end of the work, when you decide that everything is done accurately enough, try reducing the overall opacity of the “Dodge & Burn” layer group to about 80%. Perhaps this will make your photo more natural and hide some of the flaws that you may have made during the hard work of dodging/darkening. At least this technique often helps me.

As a result, our adjustment layer masks might look something like this:

Let's compare our penultimate version of the image after additional retouching and the version after Dodge & burn.

Color spots. Reduce saturation or layer in “color” mode. Working with masks.

We are done with the main retouching. Let's pay attention to the color. After intensive actions to smooth out the skin, spots that were too saturated in color or, conversely, discolored spots could appear in the photo. Here's a suggested solution:

1) To decolorize too saturated spots, create a black and white adjustment layer with a black mask and a white brush with low opacity settings, very carefully paint on the mask in the areas that we don’t like.

2) In order to give the desired color to discolored areas or places that have significantly changed the hue during our retouching, create a new transparent layer and change its blending mode to “Color”. Then select the brush tool with a small transparency (10-15%). Now, when we hold down the alt key, armed with a brush, our brush turns into an eyedropper, and we can take a sample of the desired color in order to gradually paint over spots of different colors.

Again, cautions: firstly, it is better to take a color sample close to the place where you are going to work, and secondly, you do not need to cover large areas of the skin with one color, as this looks very unnatural. It’s better to call the eyedropper more often and take new shades, again close to the area where you are working.

There were no obvious color distortions in our photo, and I limited myself to light correction with a layer in the “Color” blending mode.

A separate lesson dedicated to the Dodge/Burn technique “Retouching a female portrait - working with shadows and highlights.”

Refinement of the portrait on additional separate layers.

To smooth out the structure of the skin on the neck, create a new empty layer and use a stamp with a transparency of about 10% to draw over the desired areas several times. Repeated movement over the same place blurs the texture of the cloned area, and we get a soft effect, but we have the opportunity to preserve the naturalness of the image, since we act on a separate layer (if necessary, the transparency of the layer is reduced).

On a new layer, using a stamp, we will work on the eyes again. Additionally, add an adjustment curve to this layer to subtly highlight the eye area.

Color correction

Next, two adjustment layers were created: a black and white with 10% transparency to slightly reduce the overall saturation of the image, and a curves layer, where I slightly increased the contrast of the image and slightly changed the tone of the image, randomly moving the points on the curves in different channels. As a result, the transparency of the layer with curves was lowered to 40%, since the adjustments seemed unnecessary.

Group of layers “color”:

Adding volume.

After all the steps described above, I had a desire to slightly emphasize the volume of the image, especially to enhance the depth of the model’s eyes. To do this, create the already familiar brightening curve, curved upward, add a black mask and use rough strokes of a white brush with an opacity of 10-15% to paint over the eyes, lips and highlights on the hair.

Let's use another way to make facial features more expressive. Select our topmost layer and merge all layers into one new one using the key combinations Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E. Convert it to black and white using the Ctrl+Shift+U keys and go sequentially to the menu “Filter” - “Other” - “Color Contrast” (Filtr-Other-High Pass). Choose a radius so that the volumes are visible black and white image, agree with the filter value and set this layer to Soft Light blending mode. On a black layer mask we draw the eyes, hair and lips.

Applying the “Color Contrast”/High Pass filter to obtain local volume:

Adding sharpness

After technical retouching, when the main imperfections in the photo have been removed, it is possible to add sharpness using the “Color Contrast” filter (High Pass).

We repeat the same steps that were listed in the previous step when adding a local volume: merge everything into a new layer on top, convert the image to black and white, go to the High pass filter, only now we take a small radius so that only the contours of the image remain.

Select the blending mode “soft light” and see how the sharpness increases. You can leave the sharpness on the entire image, but I painted the eyes and lips separately on the mask to keep the skin softer.

As a result, we can compare the image we got with what we had originally:

Also, for clarity, let’s look at an enlarged section of the photograph to make sure that the structure of the skin was preserved during processing without adding additional textures and noise:

General characteristics of the described processing method

Let's summarize our work:

1) The described method is far from the fastest, but it is very neat and allows you to achieve naturalness in processing.

2) With this retouching method, it is possible to make corrections at almost any stage of processing, since only adjustment and transparent layers are used. The exception is the “Plastic” layer, so you should think about when it would be more appropriate for you to do it: at the beginning of the work or at the end.

List of all layers used in the retouching process:

3) The Dodge & Burn technique requires some experience. It is advisable to work using a graphics tablet.

4) As with any other processing method, the main thing is not to overdo it, so as not to change the geometry of the face and body by adjusting the cut-off contour.

The human eye is significantly superior to any, even the most advanced camera. Therefore, the colors and shadows seen by the eye are very different from the image on the camera. Looking at each other, we do not pay attention to the redness on the skin, bags under the eyes, tummy tummy, sticking out strands of hair. However, it is very noticeable in the frame.

Photos are retouched to eliminate imperfections. When retouching a female portrait, we strive for a fragile image, perfect skin, luxurious hair and rejuvenation. But a male portrait should leave the impression of masculinity, so it should not completely remove wrinkles or create perfect skin.

Let's take a step-by-step look at one of the ways to retouch a male portrait. The photo was provided by photographer, organizer of expeditions to exotic places of the world Alexander Permyakov. The portrait was taken on a Nikon camera. Retouching was carried out in Russified Adobe Photoshop CC 2017.

NIKON D7000 / Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D SETTINGS: ISO 100, F1.8, 1/50 s, 75.0 mm equiv.

Many photographers are against retouching, arguing that a photo can look beautiful without any processing. Well, in our case there is a good cut-off pattern in the frame. But the portrait lacks a few touches to make it perfect. You need to even out the skin tone (get rid of redness) and remove excess spots on the face, enhance the highlights (they emphasize details), lighten the dark part a little, add sharpness. It is more difficult to highlight dark fragments if the shooting was carried out at insufficient lighting- noise may occur. However, Nikon cameras shoot with minimal noise even in difficult lighting conditions. If noise does appear, it is monochrome, comparable to film. This makes it easier to work with when lightening shadows in photographs, and it is easier to highlight dark areas without unpleasant noise and loss of detail.

Let's get started!

Open the photo in Photoshop. Be sure to make a copy of the layer (Ctrl + J) and work with it. This will allow, in case of failure, to quickly recover losses or simply compare the results before and after processing. Enlarge the image to 100% (key combination Ctrl and + to enlarge, Ctrl and - to reduce).

We carefully examine the skin to understand what defects need to be eliminated. This photo shows the stains that we will get rid of first.

You can use several tools, but in this case the Healing Brush Tool is more suitable.

Select the appropriate brush size and click to remove all unnecessary stains. The size of the brush can be adjusted using the keys in the letter part of the keyboard: “x” - decrease, “ъ” - increase. In the brush settings, set the “Source” parameter to “Sample.” (Sample), Mode (Mode) - “Normal” (Normal). Leave Hardness at 100%.

Move the brush cursor to the area that we will paint over, and, holding down the Alt key, select a healthy area of ​​skin suitable for replacement. This way we get a sample of the area with which we will paint over the defect.

At the moment of painting, the cross will indicate the source. We remove all unnecessary stains and rashes.

Result of painting the spots:

The next step is to eliminate redness and even out skin tone.

Absolutely everyone has redness. If the skin was not toned with makeup before shooting, there will definitely be red spots in the photo. In the case of a female portrait, things are simpler: women usually apply makeup before shooting. But not every man will agree to fall into the hands of a makeup artist.

The photo shows areas of skin with uneven tone (redness):

Create an adjustment layer with the “Hue/Saturation” effect. You can call it in the lower right corner on the toolbar under layers.

You will have a new layer and the effect control window will open.

Go to the red channel, click on the eyedropper, and then on the area of ​​redness that we want to get rid of.

You will then see a shift in the spectrum.

Raise the saturation and hue to approximately 70–73.

By moving the checkers along the gradient, we ensure that the coverage is not all over the skin, but only in those areas where you want to remove redness.

We reset the saturation to zero and move the color tone until we see the desired effect. In my case it is +15.

Now we need to return the natural color of the lips, since the pink tint has disappeared along with the redness. To do this, select the “Brush” tool, set the color to black, select right size and paint over the lips with a brush, remaining on the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Result:

Now we need to return the details and highlights lost during processing.

To do this, create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N). Let's switch to the "Channels" layout of this layer.

Here the image is divided into channels. Turn off each channel one by one (click on the eye to the left of the image icon). Our task is to choose the most contrasting channel. Obviously it is blue, it retains more detail.

Create a duplicate of the blue channel (select it and select “Create a duplicate channel” with the right button). Next we work with a copy of the blue channel. All other channels should be invisible. We stand on a copy of the blue channel and press the key combination Ctrl + l. The Channel Levels window appears.

Drag the input value checker a little to the right and click Ok. This will enhance the contrast.

Now let's select only the light areas of the channel. To do this, hold down the Ctrl key and click on the icon of your blue channel. You will see dotted highlights in the light areas. It may seem that not everything is selected, but rest assured, all the light areas are actually selected.

Go to the “Layers” layout and create a new one (Ctrl + Shift + N). At the same time, your selection of light areas is preserved (dotted lines are visible).

Select the Brush tool, set the color to white and paint on a new layer. You can paint everything or those places where you want to increase the brightness of the highlights. White color will appear only in the light areas of the image. If you plan to paint everything, keep the brush diameter large.

Below is the result. Notice how the details have changed. Try turning the visibility of the bottom layer off and on by holding down the Alt key. This way you will see the picture before and after processing.

In the photo, arrows indicate some areas where the details have become more expressive. For comparison: in the “before” version there is an arrow to the background; after processing it also became lighter.

If you want the highlights to be less light, lower the opacity of the highlights layer to the desired result.

You may find this method of enhancing highlights difficult because on a new layer you can simply paint white highlights with a brush and blend them out. But it will look rough, the glare will be unnatural. I propose to enhance only those highlights that were captured by the camera.

The final touch is sharpening. Select all layers and press the key combination Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E. This way we will combine all layers with effects into a new layer. Now duplicate the resulting layer and apply the High Pass filter to it.

In the window that opens, move the checker to the right until details appear in the image (look at the main image, and not at the fragment in the settings window).

That's all! Try, experiment, share your experience in the comments.