Marlène, one of the makeup artist I work with, came up to me a few weeks ago asking for a few beauty closeups as well as before/after pictures. She wanted to be able to use the pictures to promote her makeup courses. So it had to be as close to perfection as possible when came down to retouching.
For this particular image 95% of the skin was "cleaned" only with dodge & burn layers. I also used the spot healing brush on a blank layer as well frequency separation to cleanup a few spots I couldn't get right with dodge & burn. Cleaning skin with dodge & burn takes time and requires a lot of precision, but to me it is the technique that gives your the best results!
Model: Fiona Giannarelli
MUA: Marlène Bérard
Photographer: Quentin Décaillet
Perfect. Nice skin texture.
Flawless...such a clean retouch.
I would like to see a SOOC shot.