How to Retouch a Portrait in Photoshop

Knowing how to light, pose, and shoot a portrait is only half of what it takes to create a great image. In order to create a polished, professional portrait, you also need strong editing skills. This excellent video tutorial will show you everything you need to know to professionally retouch a portrait in Photoshop and to also add your own personal style to it. 

Coming to you from Eli Infante, this great video tutorial will show you how to retouch a portrait in Photoshop. In it, Infante covers a wide range of useful topics, including frequency separation for hair retouching, dodging and burning for skin retouching, color grading for adding style, selective color, Curves, and more. All these features and techniques are rather powerful tools, and whenever you are retouching people, it is important to not go overboard; otherwise, you can end up with a shot that looks artificial. I generally like to zoom out to keep an eye on the overall progress every few seconds, then step away from my computer to reset my eyes after I finish the edit to give it a final evaluation before I export it. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Infante. 

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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