Michael Donovan Rulezz wrote:
I just looked at a retouchers samples and I noticed their beauty shots had these strange looking "fake pores." I'm doing more and more beauty and these do NOT look like pores I've seen on a real person. It looks like the retoucher just added noise and dropped the opacity to give the image some texture. But the pores look worse than anything a real person would ever have; the pseudo pores are either too tight or make the model look like she has a furry face.

This retoucher is not alone- I see this all over the place.

But what is the purpose of these? Where did the trend start? Why does it continue?

It's called taste (or lack of)

I'm guessing you're talking about the "high pass look" - easy to over do.

Does it look like baggy plastic with selctive softness?

and btw...u get what u pay for

x

Michael Donovan Rulezz wrote:
I just looked at a retouchers samples and I noticed their beauty shots had these strange looking "fake pores." I'm doing more and more beauty and these do NOT look like pores I've seen on a real person. It looks like the retoucher just added noise and dropped the opacity to give the image some texture. But the pores look worse than anything a real person would ever have; the pseudo pores are either too tight or make the model look like she has a furry face.

This retoucher is not alone- I see this all over the place.

But what is the purpose of these? Where did the trend start? Why does it continue?

If I suggested you're seeing the 'blur + noise' technique, would that about describe what you're talking about?  It's common because it's easy.

Sean Baker wrote:

If I suggested you're seeing the 'blur + noise' technique, would that about describe what you're talking about?  It's common because it's easy.

That may be it. Or the high pass feature discussed earlier. Either way it is tacky and unattractive.

Michael Donovan Rulezz wrote:

That may be it. Or the high pass feature discussed earlier. Either way it is tacky and unattractive.

You may side with Natalia about it, but the 'high pass' technique doesn't have to be unattractive and it is used by some high end shops.  It's just a matter of knowing how to use it and applying it artfully.  Like all techniques, it's that last part which is lost on folks (myself included quite often).  The straight blur + noise technique, on the other hand, really has no defense in either theory or practice.

btdsgn wrote:
Any tool/method used improperly will look like crap... I've posted images here and asked "How can this look be achieved?" The most common answer was "dodge & burn and a lot of time." Being that I retouched the image, I knew for a fact that it was done using blur and high pass and didn't take hours. I use both methods and feel both have their place in retouching.

do you have examples shown at 100%? i'd like to see them.

toan thai photography wrote:
do you have examples shown at 100%? i'd like to see them.

+1
The sensible question

toan thai photography wrote:
do you have examples shown at 100%? i'd like to see them.

Here's the only image that I can think I have online right now using blur for the retouch. I was playing around with sharpening after reading Sean Bakers high pass sucks thread. It's not 100%, but its a decent size crop from the original. If you want to see 100%, I'll upload it somewhere later today when I get back home and on my computer. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3635/364 … ebc4_o.jpg

The image is leaning towards over sharpened because of what I was playing around with.

Sean Baker wrote:
You may side with Natalia about it, but the 'high pass' technique doesn't have to be unattractive and it is used by some high end shops.  It's just a matter of knowing how to use it and applying it artfully.  Like all techniques, it's that last part which is lost on folks (myself included quite often).  The straight blur + noise technique, on the other hand, really has no defense in either theory or practice.

+ 1.

btdsgn wrote:

Here's the only image that I can think I have online right now using blur for the retouch. I was playing around with sharpening after reading Sean Bakers high pass sucks thread. It's not 100%, but its a decent size crop from the original. If you want to see 100%, I'll upload it somewhere later today when I get back home and on my computer. http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3635/364 … ebc4_o.jpg

The image is leaning towards over sharpened because of what I was playing around with.

i can see that the image is sharp but what i don't understand how blur/high pass speed up the retouching process. for instance, a beauty image with a model that has lots of zits and little facial bumps; i don't think blur/high pass would take care of that and leave pores intact. perhaps i need to see more examples

toan thai photography wrote:
i can see that the image is sharp but what i don't understand how blur/high pass speed up the retouching process. for instance, a beauty image with a model that has lots of zits and little facial bumps; i don't think blur/high pass would take care of that and leave pores intact. perhaps i need to see more examples

I never said its speeds up the process, I said blur and high pass have a place in retouching just like any other method. My reference to time was a jab at people saying retouching has to take x amount of hours to be done right.

You stay pretty busy retouching... Does a beauty shot take you over 5 hours? Do you use blur, clone, high pass, what methods? Got any examples?

toan thai photography wrote:

i can see that the image is sharp but what i don't understand how blur/high pass speed up the retouching process. for instance, a beauty image with a model that has lots of zits and little facial bumps; i don't think blur/high pass would take care of that and leave pores intact. perhaps i need to see more examples

It won't speed up anything which would normally require healing or cloning to fix (though doing those operations on frequency-split layers is sometimes helpful due to the way PS handles the tools).  The value is in areas where you would normally do a lot of tedious D&B to smooth regions of skin, quite possibly like the second aspect of what you're describing.

btdsgn wrote:
Does a beauty shot take you over 5 hours? Do you use blur, clone, high pass, what methods? Got any examples?

this one took me over 16hrs. d&b and cloning. no blur and high pass were used. most other beauty images took equally as long.

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/gallery/17.html

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/closer_look/8.html (detail)

toan thai photography wrote:

this one took me over 16hrs. d&b and cloning. no blur and high pass were used. most other beauty images took equally as long.

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/gallery/17.html

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/closer_look/8.html (detail)

Was this for commercial use? Did you charge the client hourly? How many images in the series?

I had a conversation with Natalia the other day via messaging and I told her how on a given image I would work on would take 3 hours and the client would tell me that I'm way to slow.

This is a top level photographer who has shot at the highest levels in fashion and deals with major ad campaigns. I'm not sure how to get any faster, but I keep getting that push. I have friends at both view imaging and box who both have called me slow as well...

Sean Baker wrote:

It won't speed up anything which would normally require healing or cloning to fix (though doing those operations on frequency-split layers is sometimes helpful due to the way PS handles the tools).  The value is in areas where you would normally do a lot of tedious D&B to smooth regions of skin, quite possibly like the second aspect of what you're describing.

thanks for explaining. i guess seeing some examples on here made me think blur/high pass is not the way to go when comes to beauty retouching

toan thai photography wrote:

thanks for explaining. i guess seeing some examples on here made me think blur/high pass is not the way to go when comes to beauty retouching

IMO, it's all about getting where you want to go the quickest way possible.  Blur / HP / etc. is just one way to do something which otherwise would be slow and monotonous; albeit one which is as difficult to learn to apply properly as learning to D&B is.

btdsgn wrote:

Was this for commercial use? Did you charge the client hourly? How many images in the series?

I had a conversation with Natalia the other day via messaging and I told her how on a given image I would work on would take 3 hours and the client would tell me that I'm way to slow.

This is a top level photographer who has shot at the highest levels in fashion and deals with major ad campaigns. I'm not sure how to get any faster, but I keep getting that push. I have friends at both view imaging and box who both have called me slow as well...

i wish not to discuss the nature of payment because i want to leave the photographer out of this discussion. depends of the usage, some clients do not want to pay 16 hrs worth of work for an editorial spread. but i do it anyway. i like to challenge myself.

your friends at view imaging and box spend less than 3 hrs on a beauty retouch? too bad you can't see their work.

toan thai photography wrote:

this one took me over 16hrs. d&b and cloning. no blur and high pass were used. most other beauty images took equally as long.

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/gallery/17.html

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/closer_look/8.html (detail)

BTW  good work.........

toan thai photography wrote:
this one took me over 16hrs. d&b and cloning. no blur and high pass were used. most other beauty images took equally as long.

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/gallery/17.html

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/closer_look/8.html (detail)

I was wondering how long that one took! Incredible job.

ezpkns retouching wrote:
Internet tutorials gone wild!

If education site walkthroughs and youtube demos convinced as many people that they could breakdance as:
   retouch images
   build attractive websites
   do awesome skateboarding tricks (Chee
   do anything else in Photoshop
   do anything in After Effects,
walking down the street would be a whole lot more entertaining.

(PS stumped for examples, I did a google search for "online tutorial", upon which it offered up two suggestions for related searches: photoshop tutorial and html tutorial. It's not my imagination that the whole world thinks they're "awesome at photoshop")

do awesome skateboarding tricks (Cheese and Crackers) well worth it

ezpkns retouching wrote:
Internet tutorials gone wild!

If education site walkthroughs and youtube demos convinced as many people that they could breakdance as:
   retouch images
   build attractive websites
   do awesome skateboarding tricks (Chee
   do anything else in Photoshop
   do anything in After Effects,
walking down the street would be a whole lot more entertaining.

(PS stumped for examples, I did a google search for "online tutorial", upon which it offered up two suggestions for related searches: photoshop tutorial and html tutorial. It's not my imagination that the whole world thinks they're "awesome at photoshop")

do awesome skateboarding tricks (Cheese and Crackers) well worth it

toan thai photography wrote:
your friends at view imaging and box spend less than 3 hrs on a beauty retouch? too bad you can't see their work.

I can! The person I know at view is actually a good friend so I can get advice as well as layered files to see how they do it. I don't have that same kind of access to box work though.

Snap2 wrote:
The Apply Image is new to me. Im interested, where did you get the idea for this Sean Baker? Did you work it out or was there some kind of initiator for it?

For using Apply Image?  Or for starting the thread?

toan thai photography wrote:

this one took me over 16hrs. d&b and cloning. no blur and high pass were used. most other beauty images took equally as long.

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/gallery/17.html

http://www.redlanternstudio.com/closer_look/8.html (detail)

Just went to your website Toan...incredible retouching skills!

mikedimples wrote:
Back when I was starting with frequency separation (more precise high pass separation), I frequently overdid it causing the fake pore look. It's done by using too low of a radius in the original separation followed by too much smooothing on the low frequency layer. Besides blur then noise, this is another way to get fake looking pores. Funky settings in skin smoothing software like Portraiture will also cause fake pores.

The image on the right is a GREAT example of some of the bad stuff I was referring to (that is why you are supplying this image, correct?) I've NEVER seen pores like that on a human's face. It just looks gross and disgusting to me.

Snap2 wrote:
Sorry Sean I meant for using Apply image

I'd read an article about using GB + Apply Image for another purpose, but in it it mentioned HP being inaccurate.  It was something I'd always observed and found frustrating, but had written off to my doing something wrong.  Now I was validated by someone who knew wth he was doing.  After a bit of digging and realizing that some of the deeper code in PS doesn't work quite the way it should, I realized that some aspects needed working around (like needing a separate process for 8bit vs. 16bit editing to maintain equivalently accurate results) and so wrote about it to share as it hadn't been discussed before.

btdsgn wrote:

I can! The person I know at view is actually a good friend so I can get advice as well as layered files to see how they do it. I don't have that same kind of access to box work though.

a buddy of mine went to bunch of interviews in ny. while he was there, they show him a beauty retouch for a make up ad. they said the image was passed around from one retoucher to the next to work on. took them couple of days to retouch it. i don't think they would spend this much on an editorial beauty shot though.

Sean Baker wrote:
After a bit of digging and realizing that some of the deeper code in PS doesn't work quite the way it should,

Thats interesting. What do you mean by 'deeper code'?

No I expect 16 bit uses much higher values so the math will be different, I would expect that. I know the values should all multiply by themselves but there are going to be problems when you think about it.

Michael Donovan Rulezz  wrote:
One thing I'm noticing from the examples used in this thread: many of the people are using models with bad skin.

When you direct a high watt bulb at anyones skin, it looks remarkably flawed. Most models actually have very good skin, it just looks terrible under these condition. Some photographers use techniques to reduce the 'side light' that causes the pores to look so extreme.

Snap2 wrote:

When you direct a high watt bulb at anyones skin, it looks remarkably flawed. Most models actually have very good skin, it just looks terrible under these condition. Some photographers use techniques to reduce the 'side light' that causes the pores to look so extreme.

I understand how lighting skin works. I'm saying: the examples shown feature models with terrible skin. I know what flawless skin looks like and I see it quite often; flawless skin requires very little retouching and a simple understanding of light. I just started looking through more portfolios of "photoshop wizards" and I am seeing more and more samples where the models have awful skin.

Michael Donovan Rulezz wrote:
One thing I'm noticing from the examples used in this thread: many of the people are using models with bad skin. I know that isn't the retoucher's responsibility but it is terrible that so many photographers and clients do not make the time or set aside the resources to use quality models with great skin.

they do though. sometimes, some models have killer features that clients refuse to work without. i have seen models with great skin with horrible features.