How to fix very bad skin ! A must have tutorial

[HarjTT]

I've been battling for the last day or so with trying to fix very bad skin of a model that I shot recently and its been driving me nuts. I'm no pshop guru but I can get by but fixing bad skin so that you can have a shot that looks good has been a serious headache. I've tried lots of different methods (soem so complex I' gave up after the first two pages) but I stumbled on one tutorial by accident tonight which really does work - insteda of takign nearly 1hour trying fix an image, its 10 at the max - still way more than I'm used to but at least I'm not giving up after an hour.

Here's the link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?cbjuonbj1vu

Its by a shooter on Strobist/flickr.com and I'm so happy he passed his technique down and into a pdf for all to share.

Cheers

Harj

:? :O
From now on I'm shooting models like Laura, Lucie and Katie who have oretty close to perfect complexions.

[gwillys]

thats a good tutorial, thanks Harj. send nancy to me, i'll deal with it, lol

[Steven R]

Hi Harj: Glad that you finally fixed the skin. The tutorial was informative. But if you are going to be shooting a lot of models, there is some very effective and inexpensive software available that does skin very quickly. Visit the following web site, you should probably download the free trial version. I think you will probably buy it after you use it a few times. There is a $59 version, as well as the full $99 version.

http://www.portraitprofessional.com/

Best luck,

Steve R

[Mikefellh]

Not a tutorial, but a great example of before & after of how far you can take skin smoothing (as well as other improvements)...note this link opens up with just an image of a face:
http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/dig...ini/index.html

Mouse over the image to see the before image.

These images should be shown in school in media awareness class to show girls why they can't look like the magazines, and to boys to show that you'll never find someone as perfect in certain types of magazines.

[HarjTT]

Hi Guys

Thanks for the links esp Steve and Mike. I had a good look at the that web page (I've bookmarked it) with the before and after - I wouldnt say the model I shot had facial skin as bad as in that example but it was pretty close. On a personal note this is the first time I've ever had to look at retouching that hasn;t lasted for more than a couple of mins of cloning and I really wish I didn;t need to do so. If I did my usual workflow then only a handful of images could be used and all of those would show part of her face in view. The F2 definitely isn't kind to anyone without very good skin.

Willys, I've sent Nancy on her way!

Cheers

Harj

:? :O