Tips for retouching acne (very red)?

divamum

I've developed a workflow I like for "average" skinwork (small lines, undereye shadows, occasional blemishes etc), but I'm currently working on a set where I'm encountering severe acne for the first time. Biggest problem is that even once I use the spot healing brush to get rid of the blemishes themselves, the cheeks/forehead are still really *red*.

Any tips or tutorials for this particular skin challenge? Thanks in advance!

ivar

Will this work, Diva? The book that is linked in the bottom is an awesome one, btw.

divamum

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Thank you!!!!!

zoomer

Sorry...I cheat and use a NIK filter.
It is called dynamic skin softener and it has a slider called color reach....I just slide it until the right amount of red has been removed.....whew...that was harder work writing it down than actually doing it .
I normally use this on guys because it give me absolute real time control using sliders on how much skin gets softened or decolored.
Also on older folks that need to keep their wrinkles.

Portrait Professional also does an awesome job of getting rid of acne and evening out the color, takes about 3 or 4 minutes per photo....pays for itself pretty quickly if you are spending 5-15 minutes per photo cleaning up skin on a lot of pictures.
I normally use this on younger gals, models, girls that will look good with their skin really cleaned up.

divamum

Thanks Zoomer. I think if I ever wind up with another megaproject like the Headshot Marathon I'll invest in one of the pro retouching packages; at the moment, I'm doing it with a combo of healing brush, patch tool, cloning, dodge/burn, Magic Skin action and the Coffeeshop "Glamour Glow" action (which I REALLY like - the eye definer in that is good, and if you use a very light touch with the skin softening layer in that it does a nice job, particularly at lightening under-eye circles. VERY light touch, eg 18% brush and then I knock back the layer opacity to suit as well!). And yes, it does take AGES. "Deep editing" these headshots runs to about an hour or more a picture (I SERIOUSLY didn't get paid enough for this assignment!! :tiptoe). What takes the time isn't "retouching" but doing it so that it looks like NOTHING has been done to them; I want them to look really natural which of course is much harder work than just slapping on some blur

But thanks for the recommendation. Do you prefer Portrait Pro over the other choices out there?

Edited to add: Also, how far does one go with acne skin? I've removed the actual blemishes, but have left the texture itself, especially pores. But how much is too much in a shot that's meant to look flattering, but still natural. This one is a guy, too, so I'm hesitant to make it too smooth.

I'll post samples tomorrow if I get a chance; I'd definitely welcome some outside eyes to glance over them. Tx in advance!

zoomer

If you have a minute go check out my post from a couple days ago in the People section about the Senior Pictures...Guys are tough.

He has very bad skin.
All of those are done with the NIK filter.
About 30 seconds per photo.

I cleaned the skin in every photo in that gallery except a couple that were very far away in less than half an hour.
Of course you may think they look over or under processed but there it is...

While you are there at my website click on one of the galleries of Brianna or Tara and all those closeups were done with the Portrait Professional program about 4 minutes per photo.

If you are spending an hour per photo these filters pay for themselves VERY quickly.

Doing it by going through all those processes isn't it pretty difficult to get a consistent look from photo to photo??

When I used to do it kind of like how you are doing it when I was all finished cleaning I would just select the entire face and go to saturation and reduce the red a few points.

I imagine there is a really good way using layers to do exactly what you are asking for where you would reduce the redness on a layer to exactly the opacity you want. Hopefully someone will come on and explain how, I never use layers..

divamum

I'll definitely have a look at those galleries in the morning -thanks.

Edited to add: couldn't wait, so had a look Holy cannoli, man - those are superb!! You'd never know you found him "difficult" because they're just fantastic - light, posing, personality. You nailed it all. Hard to judge the skinwork without seeing the original, of course, but as a finished product they look good to me.

Consistency? That's a good point - hadn't thought about that. Most of the shots I deep-edit aren't a series as they might be at a wedding or a senior shoot (people only choose 1-3 final shots usually), and even if it's the same person in multiple shots from a session, it's usually different styling/lighting/clothing etc, so I guess consistency hasn't been so noticeable. Food for thought there, though.

Thanks!