It’s official — I’ve stepped foot on fashion photography soil. No, this isn’t a complete deviation from what I already love to photograph — I’m simply just exploring my interests and expanding my knowledge of this multi-faceted industry. And now that the gates have opened, I want to share with you my first attempt (lesson, rather) on professional retouching. Prior to this, I have only done light, minimal edits — maybe a curve bumped up a notch, levels adjusted slightly, and at the very extreme — removal of eye bags. That kind of stuff. The goal then was to keep photos very natural and real.
In fashion photography, anything goes. I feel that I can infuse more of my fine art aesthetics into the development of the final product. My mission, regardless of the assignment, is to create beautiful images. Each day I am learning something new that not only contributes to my ideals, but challenges them as well.
In the sea of tutorials, articles, and forums about retouching in general — I have discovered that noteworthy commentaries on high-end techniques (i.e. not involving the quick and effortless Gaussian or Surface Blur to smudge out wrinkles, dark pores, and other skin imperfections) are scarce. I’ve also discovered that there is no one way to retouch a photo. So let’s just keep that in mind as you continue reading. In an effort to try and teach myself this process, I was able to piece together limited bits of information scattered throughout the web and select the steps that worked for me. What I anticipated was that it would be a much more thorough, meticulous way of editing a photograph (the one below took a total of 15 hours) — which I prefer because I literally have total control of every pore, without damaging natural facial texture. What I didn’t expect was how addicted I’ve become to this method.
So here you go. My (learning) process. Read on.
1. I begin with making a copy of original image. I start with basic adjustments — curves, levels, and color correction. I tone down my reds, as flaws tend to be red in nature.
2. I remove all noticeable blemishes, lines, and stray hairs with the clone stamp tool. I’ve grown to dislike the healing brushes because they destruct the original texture.
3. Here is where I spend 10-12 hours of my time: Fill a new layer with 50% gray and set layer to Overlay. With a brush with 0% hardness, 100% opacity, and 1% flow, paint black to darken areas and white to lighten areas. I use the smallest brush I can and zoom in 300% to do this until everything looks smooth. At the end of this step, you should still be able to see skin texture, only smoother and even-toned.
4. Once the skin has been smoothed out, I make a new layer to carve out highlights and shadows. I usually sample a color and with a 0% hardness and 3%-5% opacity, I paint the areas I want to emphasize. This needs to be done gradually and carefully, on separate layers if you need to, so that you can easily mask it out if you go overboard. On this particular image, I also smoothed out her make-up. (Just a note — the make-up artist did a great job but since it was a really hot day, the model’s eye shadow started smudging towards the end of our shoot.)
5. Lastly, I adjust overall hue/saturation. This is by personal preference — I know everyone has one. I tend to lean towards desaturated images and warmer tones.
And that’s it. I’m sure there is more to be done, but like everything else I choose to spend my time on, practice is key — and with (lots of) practice, improvement is inevitable. I’m pretty satisfied with my first attempt. Here is the final image:
I hope someone finds this information helpful! Maybe one of these days when I’m more proficient, I’ll create a demo video. Now what I want to know is — how do you retouch YOUR images? If you have other ways of retouching (besides the blur filters), please do share! I am always open to learn new (or unknown by me) techniques. :)
Junk & PO 
