How to Retouch a Double Chin Using Photoshop

A double chin is one of the most common cosmetic issues a client is likely to want you to correct, but once you understand how to retouch it, it is not particularly difficult to do. This great video tutorial will show you how to use Photoshop to retouch a double chin. 

Coming to you from Unmesh Dinda of PiXimperfect, this fantastic video tutorial will show you how to retouch a double chin using Photoshop. One important thing to remember is that correcting a double chin often starts a long time before you get to the retouching stage. Proper posing can correct a double chin the majority of the time (Peter Hurley has a lot of great material on this very subject). However, if you are in the retouching stage and need to get rid of a double chin, it is not overly difficult. One important thing to remember, as Dinda shows, is that it is not just about using the Liquify tool to ease the skin into place; it is also about controlling the shadows the reduce the sense of depth and to create the look of flatter skin. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Dinda. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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12 Comments

I once did a product shoot for a client using two male and two female models, which were chosen from their photographs. One of the female models had her photograph edited so much that when she arrived she hardly looked like the same girl. So I told her to go home and come back when she looks like her photographs. You can fool some people some of the time, but you can't fool everyone all of the time.

That is why serious agencies send you (or have on their website) "polaroids".
In the old times they were taken with a real polaroid camera. Nowadays it means that they are photos taken digitally without any retouching (sometimes taken with a phone by the model itself).
Mostly the models are clothed in swimwear to evaluate their bodies (for professional purposes). This is important to know how they look if you want to book them for swimwear and to see how much retouching is needed (which can drive up postproduction costs).
And - important - the polas should be made recently since a body can change.

If the agency can provide that you would not have come into such a position in the first place since it is not very pleasant to tell a model she does not look "good" or appropriate. I would not feel comfortable and I guess the model neither.

You're right. Unfortunately, I am an armature photographer and didn't think of those points at the time. But I think being deceived was more uncomfortable for her than me.

I do a fair number of shots for agented models in which the agency wants form fitting clothes (swimwear if they're comfortable with it), full length frontal, full length profile (left and right) and head and shoulders. Little makeup, and hardly any retouching--just temporary blemishes, color balance; that sort of thing. All shot on a gray or white BG. They're specifically for casting directors.

A lot of times I also end up shooting those same models with a full-blown "stylization" for their own or my portfolio. Some of the time, the agency will use those photos on the model's profile page or comp cards. But, always, there are the ones referred to as "polaroids." I've not heard anyone call them that but I've only been doing this for a few years. but it stands to reason.

Maybe the term "polaroids" is a german thing (where I live). Normally here you see them on the model's page and they are mostly done without any "photographic stylization". Just plain shot - sometimes on the phone. But they are not on the comp card - which we call "sedcard" (don't know if that is a term in the US).

As for your comment - I am not sure I understood: So you DO shoot "polas" even if you call them differently? And they are the ones you shoot without stylization (in your 1st paragraph)?

too easy, try this one =)

I grew a beard so I only had to fix it once

Hold my beer, getting some popcorn.

always good to watch some editing technique . iy often come handy to do something else :)

It 's great if the model or sitter for the portrait is happy for everyone to think.. my you've piled it on since then..

One posing technique that can save a lot of post work is simply to have the subject extend their head straight toward the camera. I call it "Doing the pigeon", after the way pigeons' heads bob back and forth. It stretches the neck and tightens the skin under the chin. Feels odd to the subject, and looks odd from the side, but from the front it looks perfectly natural. My clients laugh when I ask them to do it, then they love me afterward when they see the results.
I got this technique from some famous photographer online, but can't remember who it was.

That would be Peter Hurley