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59 Comments
- RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -3/+74This tutorial tells you how to do things the stupid way. YES - you should make corrections to a softer layer on a different layer, and YES you want those changes to kind of blend into the layer below it. The way they tell you to do it is by using the (completely destructive) eraser tool.
This is idiotic. The correct, and most powerful way to do this, is to use a layer mask. There is absolutely no advantage of erasing the retouching layer over using a layer mask - and there are hundreds of benefits to using a layer mask. This guy is obviously not a photoshop expert, or he would have known that and explained it. - RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24This tutorial is a joke. You may as well smear vaseline onto your camera lens.
- Terc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19Ryan Gardner, I think you're right. This is probably one of the easiest tasks to perform in photoshop. Taking out blemishes... yeah, now can we cover how to crop pictures?
- revmitcz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I noticed all the tutorials on the site are pigeon-holed and meant for the extreme novice, at best. Sites like that have their purpose, but I agree w/RyeBrye in the sense that it's setting bad habits for users by following these instructions. He didn't even say "use the stamp tool on a dupe layer", which shows that he's not bothered by destructive editing.
Makes me think I should post an in-depth "how the pros do it" PS tutorial on such a thing. I've been using Photoshop for over 10 years now. Maybe I'd get some diggs out of it ;) - DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9This is not a very good tutorial. First of all, if you have a newer version of Photoshop, you will want to use the heal or patch tool instead of the clone tool for removing blemishes. The clone tool has it's place of course. It can be handy near contrasty borders for instance because the heal tool will tend to pull in colors that you don't want.
Also, the smoothing out method employed does not provide a very realistic result. One of my favorite methods is to carefully use the healing tool to clean up most of the skin then use heavy noise reduction on a selection of the face. PhotoShop's latest noise reduction works quite well and it allows you to visually tweak the result for a good balance between smoothness and detail. There are more manual methods that provide even better result but this does quite well with minimal effort.
The really important advice is that there is no substitute for good makeup. - GrahamStw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Much better tutorial: http://www.lunacore.com/photoshop/tutorials/tut018.htm
- EssPii, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Just use a new layer and a layer mask and you can set the opacity to whatever you want. No need to pigeon whole yourself into something that is always 50%. Destructive edits like this one are pointless, especially since PS has a great and easy to use masking system. Black = Don't show, White = Show. Pretty simple.
Also what about the Patch and Spot Healing tools? I use those more often than the Clone stamp.
http://esspeaphotography.blogspot.com - CosmicJustice, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7He missed the metal shard in her nose.
- ShaolinTiger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6patch tool is WAY better than clone for fixing skin blemishes, patch tool is actually quite intelligent.
You can fix pimples etc flawlessly with patch. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Thanks retard, I'll be sure to just make additional physical copies of a class instead of using a pointer next time I write a program.
There is a right way and a wrong way. Deal with it, hippy. - RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I've noticed even that a lot of the books on the market teach bad techniques.
Another point I would mention with this article was how he "color corrected" the skin by "eyeballing it" for CMYK. I'd hate to be his client when that job went to press... ("But it looked right on screen!")
For anyone interested in learning professional methods of retouching - I highly recommend books by Dan Margulis. A slightly-dated, but still excellent book on prepress photoshop work is "Makeready". There you will learn how to do some of your own color correction "by the numbers" - and the target fleshtones on page 156 are worth the price of the book. He has a PDF floating around somewhere with one of his chapters available as a sample.
I was thinking the same thing as revmitcz... thinking of making an actual PROFESSIONAL-level photoshop tutorial place. Heck, maybe even some kind of "peer-reviewed" publication to help distill the tips even better... And I've been using Photoshop since "Fast Eddy" in '91... - sobriquet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5While i do use the clone stamp tool to correct blemishes, this tutorial left out a good trick, which is to set the opacity and fill of the stamp to 50% each. It looks much better to slowly and softly touch over the area than to just smack over it and blur it out later.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11Kickass!
I absolutely HATE minor imperfections!
[/sarcasm] - sixlocal, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Erasing the layer above it is sometimes just faster.
You have to remember that many people started to use photoshop before it even had layers and masks, so erasing parts of layers seems second nature.
You should, however, frown upon his use of the rubber stamp over the heal brush. Everybody should have picked that up by now. - thekak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4And scene: http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/3303/retouch2zh.jpg
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is like "The Emperor Has No Clothes" isn't it?
Imagine this group behavior, to a power of ten, on a political topic, and you've got most online forum discussion. The errors in fact and in judgment are so blatantly obvious--like a patch of Calamine Lotion smeared on a woman's face and drying--that you would have to be an idiot to not see them, and yet pointing them out in any rational way will only get you downmodded.
Prediction: This comment will go to 0 and receive no follow-up comments. If this thread were active, though, someone would insult my "lack of social skills" and suggest that "experts" must be respectful of others' (misguided) opinions to communicate effectively, but the person making that comment would fail to realize that this type of appeasement only encourages the irrationality of the mob. People must be given stern warnings when they error in fact or logic. - EssPii, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Last time I checked skin defects had nothing to do with camera noise.
- citor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5lol.. this tutorial really is a joke. I'd say she looks better without the retouch :D
- xjimtx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Wow, Digg has hit all time low. A freakin photoshop tut as a top story. Digg has been going down hill for a while with people posting their blog entries trying to get AdSense clicks on their site, but come on, a photoshop tut that's on a thousand other photshop sites.
wtf - sogracefully, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4chemical peels and microdermabrasion aren't surgery, THUS, also not plastic surgery.
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This tutorial isn't aimed at professionals, most of which know how to soften skin like that (Even I know, and only use Photoshop for hobby/photography/college stuff)
Yes, colour correcting it by look might be bad for print, but chances are anyone who has to follow this tutorial isn't going to print the picture to a printer that it will matter..
The way I'd do it would be to make a new layer, use the healing brush with sample-all-layers checked, and hide any of the worst looking bits (possibly merge it down, depends if I'll ever need to re-adjust it, depending on how much you sort with the healing brush, duplicating both the layers, and merging them down would be better),
duplicate the background layer,
blur the diplicated layer,
add a layer mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All),
select the layer-mask in the Layers palette, and draw black with a really soft brush over the eyes/lips/background (any anywhere else the blurring doesn't look right)
Finally change the blending mode to something that looks good, and sort the opacity
- Ben - Drgn547, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Fools...that is a terrible job...where she had that dig out of her face, there is an obvious wrongly colored blob in its place...could have been much better done with the combination of spot healing, clone stamp, layer masks and some basic airbrushing skills.
- mpancha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I learned Photoshop in a graphic arts class back in College many years ago. Then I stopped using it for years just b/c of lack of interest and time. When I finally went back to using Photoshop regularly for minor image manipulations, we were on Photoshop 7, there was history, there were masks, there was all kinds of stuff that changed. Since my switch to v7, cs1 and now cs2.. .I've barely scratched the surface of what is available in Photoshop. I've been looking for a good beginner's tutorial to take me from knowing almost nothing to knowing what all these tools do, but I havce yet to find a good one.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Haha, when I first saw the original I was thinking "oh good, he's going to remove the stud."
- chipper3344, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Her face looks much better in the after picture but now you can no longer see the crispness of her hair. It all just blurs together instead of seeing each individual strand.
- ShaolinTiger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Thanks Graham, that tutorial is pretty awesome and very comprehensive.
It puts the dugg article to shame. - crizo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Photoshop pros know there's more than one way to skin a cat. I know guys that started with Photoshop 1.0 and never use the built in drop shadow or glow filters. They say they can do it just as fast the old fashioned way. It makes me crazy every time I open their files. I started with 2.5 and I use all the new stuff I can in CS2.
While this tutorial does more or less suck, there are times when erasing another layer is just as good. I use a similar technique to create selective depth of field. The masking process is more complicated, but this is a beginner's tutorial. - crizo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Here’s what i’d do if it were up to me…
http://www.chrismillerstuff.com/images/retouch-tutorial.jpg - emooney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Another way to do this is to work on the image one channel at a time using the clone tool. This works best for small imperfections.
- hmreality, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Crappy tutorials like these is why Digg needs "anti diggs" on stories as well as comments.
- jdonner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Will all respect, but I have good reason to believe that you don't know a whole lot about professional photo retouching when you make such a statement.
- explodingtree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1When I started out doing photoshop touchups, I used a similar method for emulating depth of field (varying blur layers, erased at the sharpest points). I guess it's good to give novices the basic toolkit of ideas, but they should disclaim and say that there are a multitude of ways to do this for better results.
- citor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2this one really rocks!!! Thanks GrahamStw.
... the actual digg-link sucks! The tutorial totally is a joke. I'd say she looks better without the retouch :D - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2With all the retouch portfolios that have hit the front page, a good tutorial would actually be a great front page article. The problem is, this is not a good tutorial. This is the kind of tutorial a computer illiterate might put together. "Hey, I just got PhotoShop. Look what I figured out how to do on my own." That's why this is lame. And people stating the obvious on this subject are modded down. That's why Digg has hit an all-time low.
- aoeu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3The tutorial was lousy, but the girl was pretty. Let's all digg the girl, both literally and "not literally" ;)
- jpowell180, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like the "Before" pic better....imperfections make her beauty stick out more...
- TheMachine1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Skin Detection
http://www.geocities.com/jaykapur/face.html
Then despeckle/median filter the skin mask.
Nice smooth skin and everything else stays sharp. - pyrodude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1directing this comment to sixlocal... do you not know photoshop history... the reason that photoshop is as big as it is today is due to layers... and the only way someone would have used it without it is when it was photoshop 2.5 or earler.. in which case it would have been display or imagepro.. and that was more than 12 years ago... the only ones that would have used it back then are pros now.. dont give me that bull crap that its habbit.. as to the tutorial its very wron.. never use eraser and always use mask.. and dont try and take the easy way out and use a gBlur
- bumblebeetuna, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'd have to totally agree that there are way better ways to do this. However, there are way better ways to do everything is Photoshop. Being an experienced photoshop user, this obviously would not be the way I would go about this (especiall the clone stamp), but, I think if you've got a cool picture of you and your friend and you just want to fix a couple of blemishes before you print it out and set it on your desk, this works ok. It's not the best way, but why confuse new users with more advanced tools if this is all they really want to do once in awhile. Everyone should know by now to atleast save a duplicate anyway, so destroy away beginners, you just better have another copy.
- s14sh3r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I always make a copy of the original then make an editing layer. I like using the clone tool, but I set the opacity to around 30 percent and sample all layers so any editing is non-destructive and I can make changes to my editing layer. I've found that by using the lower opacity I get smoother results. I really dislike the destructive editing techniques he talks about in the story. There are better ways to do the same thing.
- bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I use photoshop daily to do professional photo retouching amongst other things, and I can honestly say that the basic tools are still the most frequently used: duplicated layers, eraser, airbrush. I even rarely use the clone or heal brush, often prefering the increased control of duplicating the layer or a selection and adjusting the brightness or hue with dodge or a multiplier brush. Liquify on the other hand is invaluable.
To each their own I guess, but as with any medium, each person will have their own way of achieving their results with none being the "right" way or the "wrong" way. In the right hands, photo retouching can be done with nothing more than the airbrush tool. - lucask, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1fairly noob tutorial
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"This is not a very good tutorial. First of all, if you have a newer version of Photoshop, you will want to use the heal or patch tool...
"Also, the smoothing out method..."
Oh, and the end product looks like *****! - miestersean, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This explains why internet babes are so damn hot
- thekak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Lol what a bad way to do it. She looks fake as balls and there's no contrast in the image. Good job!
- ComAge, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2On you or the model? The LENS??? What fun is that!
- jdonner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Never understood those web designers who only reserve a 500px wide column for the main content...
- misskari, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I photo retouch for a living (unfortunately) and all I EVER use are the healing tool and the clone tool at 14%.
That tutorial is ass. - mikegioia, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4I thought it was a really good tutorial. yea i guess it could be done better, so make a better tutorial. and to anyone that thinks that after photo is worse than the before you need to get your head checked.
- thewinelover, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2There's one thing to learn here. There are lots of ways to do things and as long as you get the effect you want, what difference how you get there? I think it was nice for this person to share this technique. You guys are way too hard on people sometimes.
I do, however, appreciate everyone else's techniques too. People can learn a lot from this thread. -
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