Beauty Retouch (Part 3)

In this Photoshop class, professional retoucher Viktor Fejes shows how minor adjustments can have a big impact as he continues with the beauty retouch from the previous classes, revealing a number of exciting new insights into professional retouching.

Viktor shows you a number of different techniques for retouching skin, focussing on achieving beautiful, even skin tones by evening out highlights and shadows and balancing hue, saturation and luminance.

Using a number of different tools, you will learn how to use visual aid layers to identify imperfections and demonstrate how small adjustments can go a long way in enhancing the overall quality of the image.

Download the visual aid layers action

In this class:

  • How to retouch a beauty image
  • How to retouch skin
  • Understanding hue, saturation and luminance
  • How to adjust color tones
  • How to correct saturation differences in an image
  • Using layers and layer masks
  • How to balance shadows and highlights

To see the initial stages of this retouch, please watch Part 1 and Part 2.

Questions? Please post them below.

Comments

  1. Alexis

    Hi Karl, Viktor is talking that with D&B their could be little saturated zone. But I was thinking why not using the layer in the blending mode luminosity and preserve the rest of the image.
    Thank you a lot !

  2. hectography

    Hi Karl! Thank you very much for all this information and also to Viktor Fejes for sharing these powerful tips. Even if I pay for this subscription, I feel indebted by this wonderful knowledge that I learn from you and that I have not found in other courses. On the other hand, I have a query Karl, will you have any content related to Capture One? Where do you express your opinion about the potential of this software for RAW development, correct and professional ways to use it? I would like to know your opinion. Thank you so much for this great contribution.

    1. Hi and thank you for your kind words about our platform. We don’t currently have anything on Capture One although I have used it and it is a very capable RAW processing software although I don’t like the image cataloging function I think it’s a waste of time in this sort of software and that photographers can just as easily organise their own folders of images. The actual RAW processing of the software isn’t much different to that of Camera RAW in PS or LR or the one you will see me use regularly on this platform called Phocus. If you understand the principles of adjusting RAW files then using Capture One is no different to using any of the others with the exception that some of the buttons may be in different places.

    2. I could not agree with you more. The level of training and insight we get here is exceptional and worth every penny.

  3. Dear Karl, I’m a graphic designer for over 20 years, but I didn’t see anywhere some of these techniques. What I see here is mind blowing! Thanks a lot!

  4. Karl, this is a great course! Thanks Victor for sharing this! One thing I missed is about Saturation – I did not get what he was changing and smoothing with the saturation. It would be great if he explain this in 2-3 sentences. Thanks!

    1. Hi Alex, thank you and absolutely please can you just point me to the time in the video so I can check.

      1. ok, I re-watched this and I got the reason the saturation is “fixed”.

        Also, I noticed this course was created ~5 years ago. I wonder what’s changed over the last years for Victor retouching wise?

        1. Hi Alex, not a great deal has changed in terms of solid pro level retouching as covered in this course. The features that have been added are what I would call more gimmicky things like sky replacement and haze reduction but the fundamentals of retouching, hue, saturation, luminance and burn and dodge are with us forever as HSL is all there is in any image. You might like this class where I cover that – https://visualeducation.com/class/live-workshop-post-production-techniques/

    1. Hi edlloyd, my pressure sensitive settings are on on my wacom tablet but the size of the brush I set manually with the keyboard, the pressure works in the same way if you were laying paint down with the brush, a light touch will do less. The tilt sensitivity is also on so it works just like a brush it’s just the size I change with my keyboard shortcuts.

  5. Hi Karl,

    These tutorials are absolutely amazing and really useful.

    I have one query on the values that Victor enters during hue correction i.e. plus and minus (+15 and -15) and the mid tones that is selected in the curves layer in D&B. Will these have any different effect on dark and light color skin tones or can these values remain same while retouching different skin tones?

    1. Hi, I use these values for almost everything but there is no problem in making your own sets with higher values if you need too.

    1. Hi, It was part of the ‘Actions’ file which you can download from our ‘downloads’ section.

  6. Hello,
    Great video as always. I wish that you wouldn’t have fast forwarded through the dodge and burn section when victor was smoothing out the shadows. I know it was to save time. but I shouldn’t be sat at my computer after this tutorial dodging and burning and having no idea of what the real technique is. how, why and when, and what not to do and what to look for and what’s to be left alone and why. its like this was the key, and it was left out. could we please have an in depth video on this. there is nothing around out there. just one big secret that no one is talking about.
    Thanks Team Taylor. love you guys

  7. Karl, my models skin Hue on the colour picker was 13. Nowhere near the 20 – 30 Hue.
    Possibly because she was made up heavily MUA in a paler foundation/blusher. The video didnt explain how to increase this. But I`m assuming you`d get a lower value in Hue in a High Key lighting?

    1. Hi Chris yes any increase in exposure value usually results in a decrease in saturation value. Remember there are only three things in an image 1. Hue 2. Saturation. 3. Luminosity – Hue is the colour, saturation is the intensity of richness of that colour and luminosity doesn’t actually need colour it is a brightness value only but as something gets brighter or darker the look of the colour changes.

    1. Hi Rayon, please could you let us know where you feel he’s missed something as we’ve not heard this before and we would like the opportunity to address your concerns, could you please give us the timecode of when in the video, thank you. Also the action to create and open all of the layers used is available to download from our downloads section.

      1. Hi Karl, thanks for feedback. I believe the error was on my side. I watched it again and it looks ok. I probably somehow skipped time. My apology for that. However I think some photographers would like to see tutorial time/efficiency method if possible. Thank you.

  8. Hi karl. I know youre giving the actions as a part of the course but I would like to know how to make them myself, is that ok?
    I mean the hue adjustment layer and so on..
    thank you in advance

  9. Vicktor sounds like RollSafe, I love it. Best Tuts I’ve ever seen too. Thank you so much for this KT. Well worth the purchase price.

  10. Great video, some of this was beyond overkill at one point. I’m on a 4k monitor and couldn’t see many of the changes he was making.

  11. My $2000 ( LG 38UC99-W) monitor has a terribly hard time picking up those subtle hue and saturation changes on the video. Eizo upgrade in the future.. Good video, thanks guys!

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