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Portraiture Basics betterphotoshoptechniques15

Simple
Photoshop Techniques

Retouching
Don’t go too far with your portrait retouching. By Peter Eastway.

One of the ways you can differentiate the quality of your portrait photography from the
average snapshot is to ‘retouch’ it with Photoshop, Photoshop Lightroom or Photoshop
Elements.
Retouching used to be (and still is) almost as much of an art as taking the portrait
itself. In the early days, brushes, inks, dyes and scapels were used to correct prints and
negatives in the quest for the perfect complexion. Today the approach is similar but the
tools are much more accessible.
Retouching is necessary for a variety of reasons. In the case of the portrait here, the
young boy didn’t normally carry the battle-scars from riding too quickly on his scooter
(the small grazes between the eyes), so it was appropriate to ‘retouch’ them out. On the
other hand, if a subject has a birthmark or freckles which are as much a part of them as
their hair colour, it is probably not appropriate to retouch them.
Sometimes this aspect of retouching can be tricky because you, as the photographer,
might not necessarily know whether a client wants a mole or eye wrinkles removed. If in
doubt, ask. And be as diplomatic as possible!
There are different levels of retouching. Photographs seen in glamour and fashion
magazines are usually extensively retouched, but generally this is not appropriate for
family portraiture. A fashion shoot may demand a highly finished result, but a familiy
portrait is better served with a more natural look. And that means less retouching.

70 Technical Details: Canon 1Ds Mark III with 50mm f1.0 lens, ISO 100, 1/1350 second at f1.4, hand-held.
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Portraiture Basics betterphotoshoptechniques16
Simple Retouching
Small grazes, scratches, pimples, lines and
wrinkles can be removed from subjects’
faces easily with the Spot Healing Brush
Tool – most of the time.
01 Boys will be boys and when shooting
family portraits you’ll often be asked
to remove unwanted grazes and scratches.
For older children, it might be a pimple or
two, while for parents it can be unwanted
wrinkles and lines.
Fortunately, many of these are not
difficult to fix with Photoshop, and for
Photoshop CS3 and later, it’s
even easier with the Spot
Healing Brush Tool.
LIke the Healing Brush
(discussed next), the Spot
Healing Brush Tool samples
the pixels near the area being
worked on and, generally,
fixes the problems. Grazes
are erased, spots are hidden, crinkles
dissolved.
72 Keyboard shortcuts for this technique: Press J to select the Spot Healing Brush Tool. You may have to press J several times as it rotates through four different tools.
The Spot Healing Brush Tool is the easiest
to use – just select it from the Toolbar, size
the brush appropriately (shown here) and
brush over the affected areas.
Photoshop is pretty good at guessing
what needs to be fixed and the correction
is made instantly.
There are six settings to consider with
the Spot Healing Brush Tool, but you might
only change the Diameter (the size of
the brush). The Hardness should be left
at 100% in most situations and the other
settings can also be left at their default
positions for most portrait retouching.
[Prior to the Healing Brush and Spot
Healing Brush, retouchers would employ a
variety of methods. Sometimes this would
involve the Clone Stamp Tool which would
sample an area of ‘good’ skin and cover
up an area of bad skin. However, if you
weren’t careful, the edges of the ‘stamp’
could be easily seen and extra remedial
work was necessary. The Healing Brush
and Spot Healing Brush tools do all the
remedial work automatically – most of
the time. However, there will be occasions
when reverting to the Clone Stamp tool is
necessary.]
 When sampling a ‘good’ area (green
circle) for the Healing Brush to use when
correcting a ‘bad’ area, select an area that
has a similar colour, tone and texture.
02 The Spot Healing Brush Tool is great
because Photoshop does everything
for you automatically. However, you will
find times when the Spot Healing Brush
Tool doesn’t seem to work
properly and Adobe seems to
acknowledge this by keeping
the standard Healing Brush
Tool in reserve. The difference
between the tools is mainly
in their operation. With the
Healing Brush Tool, you
need to show it the area you
wish to copy from before you start your
retouching.
Keyboard shortcuts for this technique: Press J to select the Healing Brush Tool. You may have to press J several times as it rotates through four different tools.
The Headling Brush Tool and the Spot
Healing Brush Tool will very often produce
a result that is identical.
With portraits, it’s a good idea to copy
from an area of skin with similar colour,
texture and lighting. In other words, when
the Tool resamples different areas each
time you apply the Healing Brush Tool, but
you can ask it to always sample the same
retouching a highlight area, don’t select a area by unchecking it.
shadow area to copy from. Similarly, to fix
a pimple, don’t select an area that also has
a pimple because you aren’t going to solve
your problem.
Fortunately, a little bit of practice will
soon have you removing simple facial
problems like a professional.
To use the Healing Brush Tool, set the
Hardness of the brush to 100% (click the
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arrow next to the Brush size icon at the top
of the screen to access the brush menu)
and set the size so it is apppropriate to the
size of the area to be fixed. Hold down the
Alt/Opt key and click a ‘good’ area nearby
(as described previously), let go of the Alt/
Opt key and paint over the problem area –
either clicking or dragging the mouse.
Note the ‘Aligned’ tick box on the top
menu panel. Normally this is checked so
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Portraiture Basics betterphotoshoptechniques16
Simple Retouching
Some people really hate seeing the black
bags under a subject’s eyes; others don’t
seem to notice them as most of us have
them!
03 To retouch the ‘black bags’ under a
subject’s eyes can be quite difficult.
Rarely do the Healing Brush or Patch Tools
work, and nor does the Clone Stamp Tool
get it quite right. The best way – which
does require a little practice – seems to
be an older technique that
combines the Dodge Tool
and the Brush Tool.
The theory behind the
technique is to use the
Dodge Tool to lighten the
‘black’ areas so they are the same tone
as the surrounding skin, even though they
will be a different colour. Then you select
the colour from the surrounding skin and
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A combination of the Dodge Tool and a
Brush in Color blending mode are used
to carefully remove the black areas and
replace them with better quality skin.
hint of the shadows can be seen below.
Lines and wrinkles can be handled
brush it back in. Here’s how:
To start, make a copy layer as insurance
(you can delete it and start again if
the same way, or with the Healing Brush
Tool as mentioned previously. This is just
another retouching technique to use.
necessary). Select the Dodge Tool and set When you’re happy with your skin
it to a small brush size with zero hardness retouching, you may chose to save your
(soft). Also set the range to Midtones, but work, flatten the image and then save it
be prepared to experiment with Shadows again as a new file for the next steps.
as well. And then set the Exposure
between 5% and 10% – you want to do
this very gradually. Now use the Dodge
tool to gentle lighten the bags under the
eyes. Don’t worry about colour differences,
just brush away until the tones are even
and the shadow has disappeared.
Next, switch to the Brush Tool and,
holding down the Alt/Opt key, sample
some well-coloured skin on the cheek.
Change the blending mode on the Brush
tool to Color and now brush in the colour
over the area you’ve just lightened. The
result should be spectacular!
As this is a family portrait and we don’t
usually want a ‘perfect’ face, reduce the
opacity of this retouching layer so that a
04 Let’sget to work on the portrait itself. It can be worthwhile
asking Photoshop to do an Auto Levels command. Do this
by adding a Curves Adjustment Layer (Layers > New Adjustment
05 It’s important for family portraits like this to be bright and
fresh. Perhaps influenced by the white shirt, Photoshop in
the previous step has left the image a little dark. Let’s lighten it
Layer > Curves) and when the Curves dialog opens, click on the up. Add a second Curves adjustment layer, but don’t make any
Auto button and adjustments to the
then click on OK. curve. Just press
This is an optional OK and then in the
step because the file Layers palette (see
you’re working might above), change the
already be very good. blending mode from
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What we’re trying Normal to Screen.

to ensure is that our This will lighten the
starting point has a image. Now move the
good range of tones Opacity slider until
and natural colours. you have the effect
that looks best – in
this example we have
chosen an opacity of
59%.

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Portraiture Basics betterphotoshoptechniques16

Simple Retouching

06 The eyes are the most important

part of a portrait and there are
four things to consider. First, the edges
of the pupil can be darkened to produce
additional contrast between the whites
of the eye and the colour inside the pupil
(this works best with lighter coloured
pupils).
To achieve this effect, add a Curves
Adjustment Layer (as per the previous
step), but make no curve adjustment.
Instead, change the blend mode to
Multiply. The image will darken.
Next, click on the mask attached to the
adjustment layer (just to be sure it’s active)
and press Ctrl/Cmd + Delete to turn the
mask black (assuming your foreground and
background colours are white and black
respectively). The image will now lighten
up and no effect is visible.
Next, select the Brush Tool, set it to 0%
Hardness (soft), very small (2 to 20 pixels),
and, ensuring the foreground colour is
white, paint carefully around the edges of
the pupil. They will darken up.
Usually the effect is too strong like this,
so reduce it by adjusting the layer opacity.
In this case a setting of 14% was used.

07 Next step is to lighten the pupils

themselves. Again, this step will be
dependent on the natural colour of the
pupils – you don’t want to change the
colour or make the eyes look different to
their natural state, merely enhance them.
Another Curves Adjustment Layer is
added (called Pupils in this example),
but make no curve adjustment. Instead,
change the blend mode to Screen. The
image will lighten.
Next, click on the mask attached to the
adjustment layer and press Ctrl/Cmd +
colour is white, paint carefully over the
pupils. They will lighten up.
Again, the effect is usually too strong
Delete to turn the mask black (assuming like this, so reduce it by adjusting the layer
your foreground and background colours opacity. In this case a setting of 51 % was
are white and black respectively). The used.
image will now darken back down and no
effect is visible.
Now, re-select the Brush Tool, enlarge
it a little bit and, ensuring the foreground

76 Keyboard shortcuts for this technique: text

08 To lighten the whites of the eyes,
repeat the process from Step 7
(adding a curves adjustment layer, setting
the blending mode to screen) and paint in
the corners of the eyes to lighten them.
Don’t over-do this effect.
The whites of our eyes aren’t really
white, but a cream colour, so a pure white
will look unnatural in a family portrait
context. It’s a different matter for a highly
retouched fashion portrait.
The beauty of doing each of these
adjustments separately is that you can play
make these adjustments to the image file
itself, although using actions there’s no
reason this technique can’t be just as quick.
around with each layer’s opacity until you
get exactly the result you want. You may
find when you revisit your handiwork the
following day that you have either under-
or over-cooked your subject, so the layers
make it a lot easier to fix up.
However, with experience you may

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09 The final step is to enhance the

‘catchlights’. Some photographers
add false catchlights by selecting a soft
white brush and painting directly onto the
eye, but generally you’re better off using
existing catchlights and lightening them,
certainly for a natural looking portrait.
A Curves Adjustment layer is added
(called Catchlights in this example) with no
curve adjustment and the blend mode set
to Screen. The image will lighten.
As in the previous steps, click on the
mask attached to the adjustment layer
and press Ctrl/Cmd + Delete to turn the
mask black. Re-select the Brush Tool, adjust
its size to match the existing catchlights
(ensuring the foreground colour is white),
and paint over the catchlights. They will
lighten up.
Again, the effect is usually too strong
like this, so reduce it by adjusting the layer
opacity. In this case a setting of 33 % was
used.
Compare the eyes at the beginning of
Step 6 to the final result here.
This is as far as we will take retouching
for this example. Older subjects may have
some further skin smoothing, but generally
it’s best not to overly retouch a portrait or
you will lose the ‘naturalness’ of the image.

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