September 5th, 2008 by Stephanie Chan

Portrait Retouching Techniques – Photoshop World 2008

Three most common portrait retouches:

  1. Removing blemishes
  2. Balancing skin tone
  3. Softening skin

Use retouching tools in the following order:

  1. Healing (tiny things) / Patch Tool (big stuff)
  2. Paint Brush
  3. Liquidfy
  4. Cloning Tool

Removing Tan Lines

  1. Color in the area
  2. Apply the Color Blend Mode
  3. Adjust the opacity
  4. Use the Clone Tool at 50% opacity and with a large brush to blend the overlaping tan lines area

Skin Softening

  1. To keep the skin looking more natural, use 30-35% opacity of the blurred skin + keeping some skin textures

Adding Skin Texture

  1. If it looks a little too much on screen then it is perfect for print

Slimming Effect

  1. Liquidfy > Push Tool (5th tool down from the tool bar)
  2. Move up = push left
  3. Move down = push right

Tucking in the Chin a Little

  1. Filter > Distort > Puck
  2. (Select area and use filter)

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