Fine Art Portrait Skin Retouching Photoshop Tutorial
Would you like to know how to retouch the face and body in your (self) portraits in a high end, professional way? Then read on because today’s article is dedicated to fine art portrait skin retouching in Photoshop.
(Just so you know: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases).
Introduction
If you’ve tried your hand at Photoshop editing before, you may have noticed that doing things “the basic way” is quite easy - like removing a dark under eye circle with the clone stamp, for example.
Indeed, I’ve found that most tutorials I watched when I first started learning Photoshop showed how to do things “the easy way”.
The problem with that is: using limited tools in a more basic way won’t give you that beautiful, high end retouched look for several reasons:
You often work destructively and delete too many pixels, resulting in strangely blurry areas (a real problem if you want to print your pictures)
You use random tools in a random order, fixing things here and there without a system - this costs time and is super frustrating
You blur out the skin too much by using retouching tools in an imperfect way, resulting in a loss of skin texture.
The better option: a systematic approach
Through trial and error (and a lot of patience), I’ve developed a systematic approach to skin retouching that really works for me and results in beautiful flawless skin with natural texture.
Now, I do wanna say that in Photoshop, there is no right or wrong.
As I’ve mentioned, you can use almost any tool for anything you want, and if you ask ten photographers how they retouch skin, you will get ten different answers.
So, feel free to experiment with the following editing steps, and if you find a more efficient way of doing things, even better (and let me know 😃)!
What’s contained in this post
In this post, I first share some general tips for digital retouching, from hardware to Photoshop best practices.
I then share my skin retouching approach with all the steps in a logical order.
I’ve also recorded a video tutorial for each step so you can actually watch me do the editing.
Part 1: General tips for digital retouching
Use a tablet
The first and possibly most important tip I have for you is to edit using a tablet.
I’ve had lots of RSI issues in the past, so I know that overuse of the mouse is less than ideal.
But more importantly, a tablet gives you so much more control - you can use the pen like a brush to smoothly edit even the tiniest details.
I use the previous version of this tablet by XP-Pen and would very much recommend it - it’s nice and big and has some customisable buttons on the side. If you’re looking for a budget version, this one is also a great choice.
Use keyboard shortcuts
My next tip is to get familiar with the most important keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop.
It’s simply so much easier to quickly hit some keys than to constantly navigate through menus and submenus.
It seems overwhelming at first, but these shortcuts will quickly become part of your muscle memory, and once you start using them, you will never look back!
You can find the most common shortcuts by doing a quick Google search.
Always work non-destructively
Another incredibly important tip!
This is one of those things that you may learn the hard way - when you’ve made some less than ideal edits, but realise that you can’t undo them because you’ve worked directly on the main background layer.
Instead, get into the habit of always:
creating a new layer for each editing stage, e.g. one layer for the healing brush tool, another layer for the clone stamp, etc. This way, if you don’t like what you’ve done, you can simply delete the last layer you created and everything else remains the same
creating a layer mask to erase/delete areas, rather than working on the layer directly (for example, don’t use the eraser tool directly on the background layer, as you will permanently erase the pixels.
Instead, use a layer mask and the white/black brush to reveal/conceal parts of your image. You can see me do this in the part 4 tutorial, “Adding more dimension with Dodge and Burn”.
Keep your layers tidy
Sloppy layer management is actually something I’m very guilty of!
I often get so sucked into the editing that I forget to name and group layers, but it gets so frustrating when you suddenly find yourself with 20+ layers and have no idea what each of them contain.
Instead, it’s best to name each layer immediately (e.g. “blemish removal”).
Also, once you’ve completed a particular editing stage, e.g. colour corrections, you can put all the respective layers into one folder to keep things even tidier.
Calibrate your monitor
Next, if you’re serious about skin retouching and digital editing in general, I recommend you calibrate your monitor.
This will ensure that the colours you see on your screen are accurate - very important when printing your photographs.
I love this tool for monitor calibration.
Don’t forget to save!!!
My last tip is a basic one - don’t forget to save your file!
Photoshop doesn’t auto save, and it has a bad habit of crashing, so…
make sure to hit save from time to time because losing several hours of work is a massive headache (yep, I’ve learned this the hard way!). For a simple shortcut, hit Ctrl + S on Windows/Command + S on a Mac.
Part 2: My skin retouching process
Overview
Next, let me give you a quick overview of the main editing steps I use when retouching a self portrait. These are:
Basic clean up - removing blemishes, marks, stray hairs etc using the Remove tool, the Spot Healing Brush tool, the Patch tool and the Clone Stamp.
Frequency separation to even out skin tone with the Brush tool
Quick skin smoothing with the High Pass Filter and Gaussian Blur Filter
Adding more dimension with Dodge and Burn using the Curves and Brush tool
Colour changes with the Selective Colour and Hue/Saturation tools
This seems like a lot, but you could technically stop after step 1-3 - the adding dimension + colour change steps add a more artistic look to my self portraits that I love, but they are optional.
EDITING STEPS IN DETAIL (WITH VIDEO TUTORIALS)
1) Basic clean up
I always start my editing process with the basic clean up, removing visible skin blemishes, marks, stray hairs, dust particles, etc.
I use four different tools for this step:
The Remove tool
The Spot Healing Brush tool
The Clone Stamp
The Patch tool
You can use these interchangeably - I prefer using certain tools for certain tasks (for example, the Remove tool is great for removing stray hairs), but in general, there’s not any one tool that works better than others.
Just tackle each issue with one of these four tools and if it doesn’t work, try another one. I find that one of the four will usually do the job!
Here’s the video tutorial with the four tools in action:
2) Frequency Separation
When I first started editing in Photoshop, I would always steer clear of frequency separation - it seemed to be an über-advanced tool that beginners shouldn’t touch (maybe also because the name sounds so complicated and scientific!).
However, frequency separation is REALLY NOT COMPLICATED.
Here are the most important facts:
What is it?
Frequency separation means separating the image into two layers, one containing all the detail and texture information (high frequencies), and one containing the colour information (low frequencies).
How do you set it up?
There’s a simple process to set this up - you simply follow a set of actions which I describe in my video.
Why do you need it?
Frequency separation enables you to make changes to the skin without losing the texture. That’s because you can work on the low frequency/colour layer without affecting the high frequency texture/detail layer.
(Technically, you could do all your basic clean ups with frequency separation too, I just don’t think it’s necessary in my editing as I use the basic clean up tools quite sparingly).
What do you use it for in skin retouching?
I use frequency separation mainly for evening out the skin tone. This works extremely well for pigmentation, dark spots on the skin, under eye circles, etc.
I also sometimes use it to add light and shade to the portrait.
Watch me use frequency separation in the video below:
3) Overall skin smoothing
Next, I use a super quick technique to do some additional skin smoothing. This may be too much for you if you like natural looking skin - in that case, feel free to skip it.
However, I personally love that ultra smooth, highly retouched skin, and I find that this step brings everything together.
Watch me do it here:
4) Adding more dimension with Dodge and Burn
In the next step, I add a more painterly, artistic look to my photos.
Again, this may be an overkill for you if you’re doing more commercial retouching, so this is an optional step.
My favourite Dodge and Burn method is using the Curves tool with an inverted mask, adding highlights and shadows with the Brush tool.
I mainly use this technique in the iris, as well as on the hair.
Some people may favour doing this step with the Dodge and Burn tools, but I find that this can affect the colour if you overdo it, so I prefer using Curves.
Watch me do it in this video:
5) Changing individual colours
Finally, I always edit the colours in my self portraits.
For example, I may want to make my lips more red or change my eye colour altogether.
Also, what I always do is remove some red and yellow tones from my skin because I prefer a more porcelain-white skin tone.
This is now really moving away from realistic skin retouching, and I’m taking a lot of creative liberties, but I find that it really enhances my images stylistically.
But even if you’re looking to do a more realistic skin retouch, this step can still be useful because you can easily remove reddening of the skin (or even red veins in the eye).
Here’s the video tutorial:
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