Perfect skin in Photoshop - easy and fast! How to Photoshop a Face – A Detailed Guide to Photo Makeup

When photographing people in dimly lit rooms, many use a flash. At the same time, even from an external flash, ugly highlights can remain on the face, usually on the forehead and tip of the nose and shadows under the eyes. There is a very simple way, using Photoshop, if you do not solve this problem entirely, then significantly smooth out the unwanted play of chiaroscuro. In addition, using the same technique, you can improve general form skin in the photo, hiding fine wrinkles and small defects. So, let's try to fix the flash action and achieve perfect skin in Photoshop. I advise you to also read about how to use Photoshop.

I'll use the photo on the right as a base. The photo was taken, as they say, on the go, and even with a flash, so highlights and shadows are very noticeable, in addition to this, there are two moles on the face, which should also be removed to get perfect skin. But first, in my opinion, it is worth slightly sharpening the photo in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe hair, eyes and lips. To do this, as usual, we create with a copy of the image. Then apply the filter "" (" unsharp mask") with the following parameters: "Amount"- 89%, " Radius"- 1.2," Treshold«- 0.

We got a sharper image, there was a beautiful shine on the hair and in the eyes, but at the same time the whole image became sharper, which is absolutely not necessary. Therefore, add to the layer from the menu " layer» (« Layer«) — « layer mask» (« Layer mask"), but not as in the previous lessons, but in the mode" hide all» (« Hide all“) and, taking a soft brush, carefully circle the girl with white, leaving the background “under the mask”. As a result, we have increased the sharpness of the portrait, while the background remains the same as it was at the beginning.

Now we need to remove skin defects on the face, namely 2 moles on the cheek and under the eyebrow. To correct the image, we need to go on the top layer from the mask directly to the picture, for this we click on the preview to the left of the mask in the layers panel. Now select the tool Clone Stamp Tool» (« Stamp"). At the top, you can select the properties of the tool, as for a brush. We choose a hardness of 50% and a diameter of a little over size moles in the photo. Then move the mouse over the area next to the defect on the cheek and while pressing the " alt»Click on this place with the left mouse button. Thus, we have chosen the source for cloning, now we just carefully paint over the mole. Repeat for the mole under the eyebrow. We will talk about the Stamp tool in more detail in another article, but here it works just as an auxiliary tool.

There are no more large natural defects on the skin of the face, and it's time to remove the excessive play of chiaroscuro. To do this we need another layer. Copy it from the bottom one, and it will appear below the layer on which we sharpened. Now take the left mouse button on the top layer with the mask and move it under our new one.

Select the top layer (the one without the mask). And blur with the filter Gaussian Blur» (« Gaussian blur") with radius 3. Parameter " Radius» (« Radius") we choose in such a way that all unnecessary defects on the skin, in this case shadows, highlights and wrinkles from the nose to the lips were very blurred.

The last action left is to apply a mask on the blurred layer in the “ hide all» (« Hide all“) and again, taking a soft brush, we begin to sketch the skin on the mask. In this case, we need to leave the eyes, lips, and nose hidden, with the exception of the glare at the tip. If this is not done, then the face will turn out flat and unnatural.

To make it more clear, I got such a mask. Now let's relax a little Opacity» (« Visibility") of our blur layer, the slider is at the top right in the layers panel. I chose a value of 75%.

As a result, after applying blur, we get a photo with almost perfect, even tone skin, and with correct mask save volume. At the same time, highlights and shadows from the flash are softened, of course, you can remove them completely, but again, this can lead to an excessive flattening of the image.

If this article did not quite help you, I can suggest reading about how in Photoshop.

  • smooth and remove wrinkles;
  • get rid of pimples and acne;
  • whiten teeth and whites of the eyes;
  • remove the red-eye effect;
  • remove oily sheen from the face, smooth the skin;
  • add a glamorous effect;
  • process a portrait with one of 40 stylish effects.
  • color effects
  • Stylish Effects

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After automatically improving the photo portrait, you can play around with the settings yourself virtual makeup and exclude some options. To make your skin look more tanned and secondary details recede into the background, apply a “glamor effect” (also called the “soft focus” or “glam retouch” effect).

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Publication date: 11.01.2017

An important part of retouching photographs, especially portraits, is detail and skin color. One of the most convenient methods processing, popular today - the method of frequency decomposition. It is very convenient and simple, if you work with it clearly according to the instructions.

Before and after:

For me, the frequency decomposition method is like a proven recipe. Works flawlessly. Even in the most difficult situations when you don't know where to start.

The photos used in this tutorial were taken with a Nikon D810 camera. This is one of Nikon's newest models, a versatile 36.3 MP high resolution camera. It allows you to create detailed images with the smallest textures. For retouching images of such high resolution, it is quite important (and at the same time difficult) to save small parts. Therefore, it is better to use the frequency decomposition method than processing with smart tools.

PREPARATION

To begin with, we will carry out a series of preliminary mandatory procedures. Let's divide it into those same frequencies, component parts. Below is a detailed step by step guide.

1. First of all, we create 2 layers of a copy of the original image. It can be done different ways(for example, as in the screenshots), but the fastest is the Ctrl + J keys. To make it easier to navigate, it is better to immediately give the layers names. Without thinking twice, let's call them low and hi, later these will be our low and high frequencies.

Making copies is very simple and good habit, especially when retouching. You will always have the opportunity to refer to the source if something goes wrong.

2. Turn off the visibility of the top layer with the copy, we'll deal with it later. Go to the low layer, i.e. to the first copy.

3. This layer needs to be blurred with the Gaussian Blur filter. Here, as in any recipe, the first creative moment comes. You need to select a blur radius. We need to remove skin roughness, fine wrinkles, dust and the like. But we will most likely want to leave the eyes, nose and eyebrows. Therefore, starting to increase the radius, we carefully watch how the picture changes.

The result is very dependent on the size of the source (our example is a little more than 20 MP), as well as on how much space a person takes in the frame. For this image, let's stop at 13px for the blur radius. It is important to remember the selected value, this number will come in handy in the next step.

Over time, you will learn to determine the appropriate radius right away and appreciate how convenient it is to have a set of prepared scripts for decomposition with different radii.

4. The bottom half of the image is done, now move on to the top hi layer. We need to compensate the image in such a way that when applied to our blurred low layer, we get the original image as a result. For this, a filter is used, which, together with suitable mode blending will give the opposite effect of the Gaussian Blur we used earlier. And the name of this filter is High Pass.

In the High Pass window that opens, there is only one adjustable parameter, and this is again the radius. Here you need to set the value from the previous step. Set it to 13px, that's how much we blurred the low layer.

5. Set the hi layer to Linear Light blend mode. This mode works in such a way that grey colour becomes transparent, and any deviation from gray dramatically increases brightness and contrast. The result after overlaying on a blurred layer is exactly twice as high in contrast as the original image.

6. You can reduce the contrast in many ways, I prefer to use adjustment layers, i.e. layers with settings (for example, a layer with curves). This method easily allows you to turn off contrast reduction for a while. It is very convenient to work with the contrast version during retouching, all the bumps and details that you can accidentally miss when looking at the original version are immediately highlighted.

So, create an adjustment layer: New Adjustment Layer > Curves.

7. In order to apply the contrast reduction only to our top layer, we create a Clipping Mask. The entire effect of the curves layer will only work on the layer below it. This can be done via the menu or, holding Alt, click on the junction between the layers for which we want to create a Clipping Mask. At this point, the cursor will change the icon to an arrow with a square, and after clicking in front of the layer, only the arrow will remain. This means that everything went well.

  1. Now about the curve itself. Go to the adjustment layer settings (they appear by double-clicking on the curve image in the layers palette). Here we are interested in the extreme points, they are responsible for the boundaries of the brightness of the image: the lower left is the blackest, the upper right is the whitest. To decrease the contrast, drag the bottom one up and the top one down. To accurately hit the value and reduce the contrast by half (and not 2.02), you need to tighten these points by exactly a quarter from the top and bottom, respectively. You can also set the coordinates manually by activating the fields by clicking on the curve point. In the fields for the top point, set Input 255, Output 192, for the bottom - Input 0, Output 64.

Everything came together, the picture on the screen looks exactly the same as the original original. Our image is split into two parts and is ready to go.

The high frequency layer, which we call hi, contains the texture of the skin, fine details of clothing and hair. But the hair color and skin color are in the low layer. Thus, it is convenient to correct skin irregularities and defects in a layer with a high hi frequency.

HIGH FREQUENCIES

There are several ways to work with the high layer. With the help of blending modes, you can switch and work with both a gray image and a normal one. It may be convenient for someone to edit the original hi layer, but I would recommend making a copy to keep the original.

The first way, retouching a gray image

Turn off the visibility of the curves adjustment layer and change the blending mode of the gray hi layer back to Normal. Create a new layer on top of the hi and it will automatically go to the Clipping Mask. This layer will be our retouching.

Choose a stamp. Tool settings:

Required 100% opacity and 100% hardness of the brush (adjusted along with the size of the brush on the right click) so that blurry areas do not appear. We are ignoring the color at this stage, so all textures fit perfectly with the hard stamp settings. If you're using a tablet (and it actually speeds things up), don't forget to turn off the opacity adjustment from touching the stylus (grid circle icon with a pencil).

The second way, retouching a full color image

Hi layer in Linear Light mode. Duplicate it and translate it into a Clipping Mask. In this new layer we will do retouching. Turn off the visibility of the curves adjustment layer.

Stamp settings are almost the same, with the exception of Sample - you need to change it to Current Layer.

Finally, we move on to the skin retouching itself. And this is the usual work with a stamp: we take an area with a texture we like and replace what is required.

Here are some tips from personal experience on the use of the stamp:

  • the time spent on retouching is synonymous with the quality of retouching, tune in to monotonous work with a stamp for 40-60 minutes;
  • with a tablet, work will go a hundred times faster;
  • don't take too much big brush, it is better to make more strokes. For our format perfect size brushes 15–25px;
  • it is not necessary to change the source for the stamp after each click, but try to do it as often as possible to avoid artifacts;
  • Moles are not skin defects, but don't forget the less obvious parts of the body. Lips, nose, protruding hair, exposed parts of the arms and body also need your attention.

Let's evaluate the result after working on the upper frequency. We have worked on the skin in detail with just one layer, and now it looks very smooth. But at the same time, sharpness was preserved, there is no this soapy effect on the skin, which usually gives out poor-quality retouching.

LOW FREQUENCIES

Sometimes you can do with what has already happened and not touch the bottom layer. But for the educational effect, let's still try to do something else. It is very easy to work with the lower frequency. You can use a stamp or regular brushes with suitable color, but only the softest hardness settings and opacity at the level of 20-30% are required.

Here are a few tricks that the blurry low layer gives us access to:

  • even out the tone of the face, get rid of light / dark / color spots;
  • work locally with the background, remove unnecessary shadows;
  • remove the waves on the background, make the background more uniform.

To work with stains, a regular brush is perfect (the softest, opacity 20-30%). Create a new layer above the low layer. By color swatch or by holding Alt key, select a color near the area you want to paint over, and with gentle brush strokes apply it to that area. You can change the color of the brush in order to achieve optimal correction.

Often interesting photo obscure some of the details. This may be the effect of an incorrectly taken angle or problems with appearance, which can be both temporary (pimples, rashes, etc.) or permanent warts, etc.). Not to be thrown away good photo, you can carry out a number of simple actions in the popular graphics editor- Photoshop. Perfect skin, which will be the result of image manipulation, will allow you to enjoy and also show them to others.

But it must be remembered that perfect skin in Photoshop, this is the result of changing the digital parameters, so you should be careful, otherwise the result may turn out to be very unnatural. To avoid this, you should use "soft" tool settings and do not set large values ​​for them. There are two areas of work:

Alignment of skin tone on the entire image;

Elimination of individual shortcomings.

For the first method, “Gaussian blur” is used, a standard function located in the “filter - blur” tab, for the second option, the tool from the main panel, located on the left by default, is used, this is the “healing brush”, or “healing brush”. The name depends on the version of the program or its localization. For those using the English version of this software, the names will be respectively as follows: "Blur - Gaussin blur" and "Healing brush tools". With their help, perfect skin in Photoshop will be made in the shortest time. Don't doubt it!

There are two methods you can use to get perfect skin in Photoshop by applying the Gaussian Blur filter. With one of them, after loading the image, you should create a new layer. This happens through the "layers" context menu located on the right. To create it, you can drag the main layer down by first holding the left mouse button, or click on the button located at the bottom of the window.

Having selected a new layer, you should call the blur settings and select the radius displayed in pixels there. Adjusting this setting comes down to personal preference, but it's important not to overdo it. When performing these steps, you need to remember that the main thing is to get perfect skin in Photoshop, and you don’t have to worry about everything else, because after merging the layers everything will remain as it was.

By applying blur, a layer mask is added to the selected layer. Then on the left, on the main toolbar, you need to select the “brush” and set the desired diameter and softness, which can be taken with great value. The color can be left white, it is the default. Then the brush is drawn over those areas of the image where you need to correct the appearance of the skin.

Another way is to use a "Gaussian blur" on the image, then select the "eraser" and erase everything except the skin. Then, by combining the layers, you can enjoy the result.

If, on the whole, the image is normal, but there are individual flaws in appearance, such as acne, warts, etc., then you can easily get rid of them by using the “healing brush” tool. With its help, a skin area is selected that is close in shade, and then the “alt” and the left mouse button are pressed. Next, you just need to move the cursor over the flaw that needs to be fixed, and click on the left mouse button. As you can see, perfect skin in Photoshop is very easy to do and does not require a thorough knowledge of the intricacies of the program.

After reading this instruction, how to make a face photoshop in the program Adobe Photoshop, even a novice user can complete this task.

All you need is competent and detailed instructions. The retouching methods described in the article will help you retouch a photo no worse than professionals from glossy magazines.

Remember! At the final stage of retouching, the skin of the face should not be too blurry and “plastic”. Apply all the effects and techniques in moderation and then the photo will seem natural and of high quality.

Method 1. Working with layers

Stage 1. To start open photo, which you want to edit in the main program window. For retouching, only high-resolution images are suitable, that is, those that can be greatly enlarged and consider the very texture of the face.

Now we need to start working with layers. Duplicate the layer by pressing the Ctrl and J keys. Then immediately press Ctrl + G. The layer will be copied and placed in new group. For groups and layers, users must name them, so I'll list them as Airbrush1 and Blur1.

The created Blur1 layer is displayed in the program as follows:

Blur1 is essentially a blurry display of the skin. Next, you need to add another layer, with the help of which the skin and face will again acquire a natural embossed appearance. Again press Ctrl and J and Ctrl + G.

Double click on the previously created Blur1 filter. The layer editing window will open. To perform blurring, select the Surface Blur filter. It allows you to achieve a good degree of blur without smearing the edges of the lips, nose, eyes. Adjust the slider so that the skin looks even, but not too oily. Work out in detail each fragment of the picture, using the zoom window. Take Special attention edges of lips and eyes.

After finishing editing the layer, save all the changes made and close the layers window. As a result, the main image should be very even, and the skin of the face smoothed, as shown in the figure. In this case, the eyes and lips will have natural look, as it shown on the picture:

This blur stage allows you to create a foundation for subsequent work. If you feel that you have leveled the layer too much and the picture looks unnatural, but the following steps will give us the opportunity to fix this problem.

Stage 2. Simultaneously press the Shift+F5 keys to open the fill window. In earlier versions of the program, the hotkey combination may not work, so open the window using the Edit - Fill menu. Set the window parameters as shown in Figure 4. Click OK to save the changes.

Rice. 4 - change the texture fill parameters

Stage 3. At the third stage of editing, you should add quite a bit of extraneous noise. This trick can make the skin of the face more natural and natural. Remember that after working with the filter, the image should not be very sharp.

Open the Filter - Noise window. Adjust the slider so that the skin has a barely visible relief, as shown in the image below:

To leave the skin natural and remove the extra created noise on the rest of the photo, you need to use the Gaussian blur tool (Gaussian Blur). Select it by going to the Filter - Blur window.

In the window that opens, you need to set the radius of the created blur and apply the effect. We advise you to set the parameter to "1". After that, press the OK button.

Stage 4. Now we need to determine the exact skin color that is used in the blur layer. This can be done using the well-known pipette. This tool is located on the toolbar on the left side of the main program window. Select an eyedropper and click it on the area of ​​the skin, the color of which is the most natural for you. Then a color palette will be displayed, on which the color you have chosen will be determined. Click on the triangle to open the color options list window. In the list, check the HSB model. Remember the meaning of the HSB fields. This will be very useful in future work.

Stage 5. Now let's adjust the color saturation. To do this, select “Background Saturation” in the main menu of the program or press the Ctrl and U keys. The Colorized item should be checked. Next, set all three parameters to the same values ​​that the HSB model had at the previous stage.

Stage 6. Now find the layers panel. It is always displayed in the main program window. Click on the previously created Airbrush1 layer. Now on the main menu, select the "Layer" window. In it, click on "Layer Mask" and then click on "Hide All".

This action allows you to create new mask layer. It will be completely filled with black. This area is needed to create areas that will later be used to retouch the image.

Stage 7. Press the D button on your keyboard. This allows the program to automatically detect background colors. On the Photoshop toolbar, select Brush. Set the following settings shown in the figure:

The illustration must be enlarged by 100 percent. This will help to see the skin of the face as close as possible. Now paint over the skin with the brush. If the tone seems unnatural to you, it's okay - in the next step we will even out the color. Use the brush on areas of skin that need to be corrected for bumps and imperfections. Increase or decrease the size of the brush depending on the element being edited.

As a result, those parts of the face where you used the brush will be displayed on the black texture layer in white. The skin itself should look very smooth.

Stage 8. Now we need to remove the unnatural look of the face, while leaving the skin very smooth and even. Select the layer called Texture and open the settings window for this layer by pressing the Ctrl and U buttons.

To reduce areas of red areas of the face, you can set the Hue (background color) parameter to "10". If there is no skin a large number in such areas, it is better to leave the original value of the parameter.

The next parameter is saturation. Its setup takes time. By decreasing the value of the parameter, you can even out the skin tone. Adjust the value until you get desired result. Please note that the skin should not be too pale, do not overdo it.

Parameter Brightness (Lightness) also needs to be changed. While adjusting the slider, you can clearly see how the color rendering of the picture changes. Set the value that suits you best. The photo should not look too bright, achieve the effect of “daylight”.

Stage 9. At this stage, the skin still feels unnatural and a bit plasticky. You can remove this unpleasant effect by restoring individual skin details. In the main menu of the program, click on Tools. Then select External Image Channel. Now a window will appear in which you need to set the settings shown in the figure below:

As you can see in the figure, a red channel has been added to the parameters. This allows the skin to look more natural. You can also experiment with color channels to find the one that works best for you. The display of the skin in all three color channels looks like this.

The final result of the work. The final image of the face is indicated in the figure:

As you can see, the result turned out to be very successful. This technique of using an airbrush allows you to achieve very smooth skin and mask even the most obvious of its shortcomings. To see the work done, zoom in on your photo, focusing on the skin texture. As you can see in the figure, the skin in our figure acquires some features of porosity. At the same time, it is very even and has a healthy shade:

This technique is universal. All the necessary tools for work are in any version of Photoshop. You can apply effects to any photo. For achievement best result advises using images in which the face is shown close-up.

Method 2. Remove acne and wrinkles

In the previous method, we showed how to even out the tone and complexion using fairly good skin as an example. If you have visible imperfections that you would like to remove and leave the original complexion, use this method. It is very fast and can be used even in those photographs where the face is not shown close-up.

Open the photo in the program and immediately create a duplicate layer. You can do this in the layers window. Click right click mouse on the "background" element and in the pop-up list click on "Create a duplicate layer".

Zoom in on the photo in the program. This will allow you to see and remove even the smallest skin imperfections. Use the Scale tool:

Now select the Healing Brush at the top of the Toolbox. Edit its diameter and hardness. We advise you to set these parameters as 20 pixels and 50 percent, respectively. This level of hardness allows you to paint over imperfections in such a way that the brush marks will not be visible later.

Rice. 20 - the final result of retouching using the healing brush

After applying the Healing Brush, you can adjust color scheme images using the Color window. Adjust the brightness and contrast settings as you like.