Reply To: Honest Opinions

[soaringturkeys]

Well you are very beautiful!  You take self portraits very well! Considered being in front of the camera instead? Like Garry pepper style photo blogging?

But don’t worry about not learning how to retouch. It’s just another step that people need to take to get further up in fashion world. The most important part is that noone should know that the photo is retouched. That’s the fundamental difference between retouching and editing.

Lets look at 4 of my photos for example. I’m not the best retoucher so I apologize!! I know that I still have quite a while to go and I don’t usually retouch my photos. I only retouch when a client doesn’t want to pay for another person

 

Dodge & Burn Technique

The main purpose of this dodge and burn is to over accentuate certain features that she has.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/222546_484951474877963_1975386981_n.jpg

Notice the shine on the lips to make it a little more glossy. Her cheek bones are darkened. Her collarbone is burnt and dodged. Her forehead is evened out to have less shadow. But yeah this is a very over the top retouching. Not the most done up that I’ve seen but one of my most.

 

Selected colouring. ( I don’t know the official title lol I’ll explain)

So I would make a layer on photoshop to solely focus on the slightly bluer skin tone in her neck area, select only that and match it up closer to the rest of the body by adding red etc.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/530589_484960251543752_822353028_n.jpg

I chose this photo because it still has artefacts of the old skin tone. Notice her hand has slightly  blue tinge, so does her neck. I matched it up closer to the skin tone but take note that I only do it to a point. The main point of this technique is to cover up the mistakes that would otherwise be fixed with make up. This is wear blush and foundation on the body is actually useful because it evens out skin tone.

 

 

Clone

Getting rid of unwanted wrinkles in odd and love handles caused by wierd angles and positions. Now this might be a personal preference but if you are going to fashion then you need to do this.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/374395_484959814877129_873396279_n.jpg

So notice just by her belt that there are a little bit of wrinkles there. I didn’t get rid of it completely but I did eliminate possible wrinkles caused by having such a weird poses.

 

Grading and Colouring.

Make her look healthy.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/263552_484958904877220_1698214693_n.jpg

In this shoot the raw photos of her looked slightly blue. She looked a little bit pale and cold. Although the place she is in is a cold place, I didn’t want her to look sick. I put a bit of red in her skin tone just a little. Notice that even though she has a bit more red, she does not stand out from the environment.

So be wary of that when you do your final grades. Some of your shots makes the model look a little bit ill.

Anyway thats pretty much it 🙂 I’m not the best but google google google!! There are many many better retouchers than me. Usually I would hire Retouchers rather than do it myself! 🙂

 

In case you are wondering what i do with fashion. (now this is strictly fashion which is completely different to all my other works)
I would spend around an hour taking photos, choose the best and would spend about an hour editing the best photos.

I would first duplicate the layer.
Fix any minor imperfections, stray hairs, pimples etc.
First step of evening out small lighting imperfections
Fix any major imperfections ie big wrinkles, love handles etc.
Dodge & burn the main beauty spot [collarbone, cheek bone, jawline, eyeline, eyebrows, lips and neckline.]
Fix and skin tone abnormalities. Make a million layers to match skin tone with other skin tones.
Bring back original photo, and fix and imprefections that my editing may have caused, i.e cloning too much that skin repeats itself – I would bring back some of the original skin to give it an even look.
Grade the lighting
Colour Grading the skin
Colour grading the environment.
one hour later and 50 bagillion layers later. Save and export.
Get paid

And that’s it 🙂
Notice that there is no softening of the skin or surface blur. It’s a popular misconception but we never ever blur the skin!!

Anyway just remember that i’m not the best 🙂