http://www.vizualgroove.com/digitalimaging/velvet1.htm*
Some tips on retouching for velvet skin. BTW, it's different from plastic skin. I'll get into that another time....
What is the number one and I do mean number one thing you gotta start with for good skin retouching results? Why, a pretty model with good skin, of course!! So I'm not varying away from the norm here folks. hehe
Seriously, it's all in the prep, all in the prep, all in the prep. Sounds kinda redundant but for really nice or even fairly decent results, a retouch map is a good base to start with. So what the foo is a retouch map. Simply means you need to assess the image for various levels of tonality, blemishes, stray pokies (you know, those things that poke out like hair and boogers and such), as well as odd lighting variations.
As an example, let's use the sample I posted. We've got an even tonality, minor blemishes, a few stray pokies and pretty standard lighting. (1 main with Photek Softliter 60", 1 fill with Larson long hairbox, 1 hair and side popper snooted for control)
At this point, you decide if you want to basically keep the overall light and tonalities or whether you want more contrast and/or softness with maybe some contrasting areas to offset the facial toning more. I decided to use some contrast masking to pull in a line of shadows based on less fill and a bit more main. This is where knowing how light interacts can be a great help to you. Shooting your own stuff can give you a bait of insight here.
But before I did any masking, I selectively worked on the blemishes, uneven skintones and minor hair infractions. I usually work at 100% view here, popping back and forth between 100% and 25% as most of my images end up as 8x10 prints. I use the healing brush but rely mainly on the clone tool. The secret to getting a good clone with skin retouching is to use a low opacity (20% or so) with a decent soft edge. Use Shift ] to bring your brush to its hardest edge, then tap Shift [ 3 or 4 times to soften the edge. A rough rule of thumb is to use a brush about 1/2 the size of the area you're trying to fix. This works well for medium to small areas and you'll end up with smaller sizes as the area gets bigger, say like the forehead. This is to avoid the dreaded splotch look.
Once the bad areas are evened out a bit, (you don't have to be perfect here) I have several ways of smoothing skin. It's all kinda based on where the end will go but one of my favorites is using the dust/scratches filter mixed with a median blur on one or more duped layers. There are no exact presets here, you have to eyeball the image and you'll get a feel for the amount to use. You're looking to have no detail left other than skin shadows and tonals. I then use either the history brush and/or layers masks to brush in the amount of touchup I want. Further tweaks with layer opacities can help as well.
Finally, I applied one of my contrasting softener actions to get the final shadow contrast on the overall image. The eyes followed as I usually leave these to the last so nothing messes with them.
Sounds like a lot but overall, less than 15 minutes on average.
I know it's not that detailed but the actual process isn't something within the scope of this forum. However, maybe it will give some of ya'll some insight into the system one way or another.
Regards,
VG


*Image Copyright 2005 by Vizual Groove
*You do not have permission to alter either of these images in any way.