Retouching Skin Utilizing Frequency Separation

When retouching photos of people there are a lot of things to take into consideration, especially when it comes to working on their skin. Retouching skin can be a very tricky thing! It’s very easy for it to look too blotchy or too plastic, and normally that is not what you want. My favorite method is frequency separation, and I reference this tutorial by Sara Kiesling often. How do you retouch skin? Let us know in the comments!

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http://fstoppers.com/author/rebecca Rebecca Britt
Oh, I love Sara’s work. Thanks for sharing this. :)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003881522928 Andrew Zerick
SHE HAZ THE VOICE OF AN ANGEL
thecackster
I could listen to that girls voice all day… Hey man, do you think she shoots barefoot?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=511145679 Aljosa Alijagic
OMG saraH made the front page!!!!
http://www.facebook.com/michael.miller.5815 Michael Miller
she sounds like a good person right?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=511145679 Aljosa Alijagic
She definitely shoots everything on film!
noamgalai
this is great. im doing a lot of similar editing, but never did it this way. great to learn a new way.
And she does sound nice ;)
http://www.facebook.com/IamJeffRoberts Jeff Roberts
The angelic voice of minnesooota.
http://tambnguyen.com/ Tam Nguyen Photography
She sounds almost as good as Lara Jade. Almost.
http://www.facebook.com/sarakiesling Sara Kiesling
OMG I love Sara Kiesling so much!!
thecackster
Stop Trolling plz.
Peter Nop
I hear she makes the best sandwiches too!
http://www.thrashonistas.com/ Anthony Ryan Tripoli
…you would.
http://fstoppers.com/author/rebecca Rebecca Britt
She doesn’t make sandwiches, she makes sammiches, better recognize.
Joe Gunawan
I use frequency separation pretty religiously. What a great way to do skin retouching, especially for fashion and commercial work (www.fotosiamo.com)
Joe Gunawan
SLR Lounge Editor
Mike_Kelley
This comment thread is just adorable.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=563353245 Olivier Borgognon
the post is just awesome, fantastic and simply taught retouching. and amazing how a female voice can make everyone just soft as a lamb :) sweet ;)
ThePope2012
you guys need to get laid….. i pity you
http://www.elliottmontello.co.uk/ Elliott.G.Montello
Aside from her voice, she’s a pretty messy retoucher…has no one spotted that? She didn’t follow the direction of the light of take any care on skin texture being in the correct places ect. The work is good and frequency separation is a great technique but it needs to have more time spent on it, and she needs to correct finer details in the image. I mean did her brush go below a 25px radius in the video?
ThePope2012
and with here eyes close while she plays the harp….
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003881522928 Andrew Zerick
No one wants to see a 4 hour video of someone retouching with a 2px brush.
http://www.grahamwinslowphoto.com/ Graham Marley
Someone get the poor girl a Wacom tablet. I use a combo of HSL, Channel Mixer (in CMYK, as far as killing purples in skin, it works better there) and an inverted high-pass layer (with some other stuff going on) painted in at a really low opacity. I think this video did a great job at leaving skin looking like skin, which is super important. I’d prefer a slightly more dramatic effect, but nice job.
http://www.patdavid.net Pat David
For GIMP users, there’s long been a plugin called “Wavelet Decompose” that nicely automatically produces as many different frequency scales as you want to use that is excellent for this exact purpose. I had written up an article a while back that demonstrates its use:
http://blog.patdavid.net/2011/12/getting-around-in-gimp-skin-retouching.html
Super handy to have, even for simple, light retouching of skin features.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=582860993 Bryan Leighty
NOTE — When she does the Apply Image step in the texture layer the example she uses is for 8 bit photos. When working with 16 bit images use the Apply Image settings as shown in this tutorial: http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/split-frequency-healing/
The woman that did the Creative Live course last week went over this in great detail. Definitely need to ensure you use the correct method for best results. :)
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=582860993 Bryan Leighty
The main thing for best results is that once you set your blend mode on your texture layer the image should look EXACTLY the same as it originally did. If you turn and and off the blur and texture layers it should look exactly the same as the original layer. If you dont set your Apply Image correct it wont. fun fun fun…
http://tambnguyen.com/ Tam Nguyen Photography
Agreed. This was just a quick overview. It gets people started, and it’s free. Why don’t you just take it for what it is. In fact, you should make a tutorial video for us all and we’ll be the judge.
ThePope2012
funny thing is.. the most important part of the tutorial is not really explained.
as if we have not seen cloning and patching skin irritations away 1244706 times before.
but the thing with the texture layer is not well explained.. so all in all as a tutorial it is not that good.
if i did not know this technique i would be puzzled as what she is doing and why with the texture layer.
ThePope2012
well yeah but this is about seperating low and high frequency.
not just having a high frequency layer with inverted high pass.
that´s all pretty old stuff and imho the low/high frequency split method works better.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=511145679 Aljosa Alijagic
People are starting to get rude in here…
Take a break and go look at cat videos :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5YfkY9KwjY
ThePope2012
why? because whe don´t praise every little tutorial as if it where made in heaven?
get real….
http://www.vinsonimages.com yamaha83
i agree!!! make us a tutorial!!!! yay!!!
ithackermike
That woman was Lindsay Adler and it was a great Creative Live tutorial on Freq. Sep. among other things.
Robert Koren
i agreee …horrible work but interesting technique
http://fstoppers.com/author/rebecca Rebecca Britt
Then don’t reference it. Either find a better one to reference or make your own. I think for people who are not familiar with this method it’s a great starting point.
http://twitter.com/ralphhightower Ralph Hightower
I agree with the others: She does have a cute, sexy voice!
But I have a question. Is there a Botox plugin for Photoshop? That is definitly a lot of work.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000196366769 Jonathan Nock
When i read the comments i just feel more confused like maybe there were some things werent explained that i need to know to make this really work well (ie 16bit image what?)? Ive tried some re touching techniques and my results are often too noticeable.. so maybe i should try exactly what she is doing here… but im wondering if I will get the same frustrating results! I guess only one way to find out…
http://profile.yahoo.com/5WQGU55RI3TOPWRTCMONLEWG44 misa
I Think that they all should credit Natalia Tafarel for this technique, the only different thing is that she didn’t give it a fancy name as frequency Separation, she calls it the high pass thing lol
http://profile.yahoo.com/5WQGU55RI3TOPWRTCMONLEWG44 misa
There is check Calvin Hollywood way of skin retouching is really good and takes way less time to achieve!
http://profile.yahoo.com/DU2OIHXCSV46Q64SXWQKWP3M24 KasumiY
This is old it’s about time someone noticed
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=883990161 Raffaella De Amicis
Very helpful tutorial – thanks for sharing.
christian lacasse
Great tutorial Sara although I find the music distracting. I would rather watch the same video without the music, or keep it to something very faint, as I find it distracts me from what you say. Keep’em coming, thanks again. C.

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