Model Portfolio retouching with Photoshop
Today I’ve been retouching the images below with Photoshop from a recent Model Portfolio. Mandy asked if I could edit these two additional images that she particularly like in addition to the other ones I had already done. She was very keen to have have her skin smoothed out in a similar fashion to the other images that I had already retouched.
I use Kevin Kutota Photoshop actions to edit most of my images as this saves a lot of time and they produce great results for weddings and fashion. Kevin was one of world’s top ten wedding photographers a year or two ago as well as running Photoshop workshops internationally, so I figure he knows what he’s doing with this stuff 
I learned about him last January when I attended an all day seminar by Doug Gordon at the SWPP convention in London. Doug is also a world leading international wedding photographer who inspires me but I digress.
As the images I worked on here are close up shots of Mandy’s head & shoulders I felt the actions I used before would not be sufficient to successfully smooth her skin texture. So in addition to my usual actions I experimented with another called China Doll, which smooths the skin without adding a glow. I chose this as I wanted it to still look believable and not too plastic looking as you see in many magazines that are over air-brushed. China Doll is created in a new layer with a mask that you can gently brush away to reveal the softening effect underneath by as much or as little as desired.
China Doll is only a small part of the processing however. I start all portraits using a Portrait touch up action that creates several Photoshop layers to apply various effects. The main layer creates a duplicate copy of the selected image, which is used to remove any blemishes – I use the patch tool for this almost exclusively. There are another two layers for lightening or darkening skin tones, which could be used to make up for lighting that is less than ideal – must admit I’ve not played with these layers as yet. Another two layers exist for whitening and de-saturation, which are ideal for eyes and teech – I only apply these very lightly so they do not appear unnatural. Finally there are another two layers; one for increasing the saturatin of the eye’s iris and the other for darkening the eye lashes etc. As you can imagine this can be a very lengthy process as the actual retouching must be done manually. I always use this action first in my work flow as some of the other actions used in Photoshop require the image to be flattened. It is important to do this before the overall image is altered in any way.
After I was happy with the retouching China Doll was applied to soften the skin, even though most of the blemishes had already been removed. China Doll was carefully painted on until the desired result was achieved. The finishing touch is another Kevin Kubota action called Lord Of The Rings Everyday, which aims to create a deep romantic feel of a movie by adding colour richness, contrast and a slight glowing effect.
This shows the before shot with the only processing done in Lightroom.
This is the final result after processing.
You may see another picture of Many where I used a different approach to softening the skin by allowing it to burn out, which is another method often used to create a high-key fashion effect.
What do your thoughts on the final results – have I gone too far or could I have gone further?
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