(For those wanting to ask the obvious question – yes I am, but I am also happily married and I spent many moons writing for Dykewrite explaining why it was perfectly normal.)

Anyway, it tickled me to see some of the stuff that I’d written because not a lot survives – which is kinda sad since I’ve been writing/blogging  since 1999.

June 16, 2003 – 10.57am

The word for today is “Apathy”.
Who likes that Aerosmith song, “Janie’s got a gun”? I used to sing it at the top of my lungs whenever I heard it. But you sorta can’t do that in the middle of an office at 9.30am. It’s too early for my sort of noise.

I’m not going to be lame and post the lyrics here. You want the lyrics, go look ‘em up yourself. Heh.

I’m feeling so inane this morning. Too tired to deal with the phones and everything else. I hate this job. Hate this city. I love Melbourne, but not when I have to work in the middle of Assholelawyersville and have to deal with their trumped up, glorified secretaries on power trips (P.A’s) every few minutes and then have stress attacks because they will not fucking listen to a word I’m saying.

For instance, last week we had a problem with a particular office. The place is run by PA’s who seem to think they are top shit (as usual) and don’t actually need to do any actual work until their bosses realize that, hey, no work is getting done! And then all Hell breaks loose when they (the PA’s) don’t get what they want – which is everything the day before they actually order it.

On the Friday before last, this chick rang up and said that she’d keyed in a matter that she wanted to chase up. It was keyed in the day before. In otherwords – “No way, no how.”

But she was not to be deterred.

Her: So I won’t be getting the certificates back today?
Me: No.
H: Not even the online ones?
M: *sigh* No.
H: What about early next week?
M: Like, on Tuesday?
H: Yes!
M: No.
H: Oh. Well, that’s not good. I need these certificates by Wednesday.
M: The applications are being sent out today. It’s a long weekend. Chances are that the authorities won’t even be getting them by Wednesday at the earliest.
H: Why? You’ve got an online system. Why can’t you do this for me?!
M: *explaining the whole rigmarole from beginning to end, knowing that the client knows exactly why she can’t have her certificates when she wants them, and finishes off the schpeil with a suggestion that she let me cancel her application so she can apply directly.*
H: I don’t think that’s really worth doing. We’ll let it go through the system and see how we go next week. (Or, in non-bullshittry, “That sounds like work to me, and I’m too busy reading Vogue and painting my nails to do that!”).
M: *getting frustrated as we are not allowed to say “no” to these clients outright but simply try in vain to dissuade them from doing the inevitable* I cannot guarantee that we will be able to chase these certificates up… (…another schpeil about turn-around times, etc, etc, etc and other stuff she’s not listening to anyway)…
H: Well, I need these certificates by the end of next week, so we’ll see how it goes. (meaning – “I don’t care what you say, I will do things my way and you will help me get these certificates or else I am complaining to your boss and will threaten for the umpteenth time this month to go with OurCompetitor.”)

Sure enough, on Tuesday, MP got the call from the boss of this secretary (who is another PA – yes, PA’s have their own PA too!) who decided to go ape-shit and demand all her certificates. Not only that, but three other girls from the same office called about the exact same matter and had three out of the four available hotliners chasing the same thing for the better part of an hour until I realized what was being done. Needless to say, there was much swearing heard from everyone.

It’s frustrating.

And today, the system is down, so of course people are angry again. Not good for first think on a Monday.

In other news, Jo was evicted from Big Brother last night! I’m happy. I didn’t watch the show as I was too busy sobbing over the fact that I wasn’t at the last John Farnham concert last right at the Rod Laver Arena. Grr. Fortunately, Channel 7 telecast the event semi-live because they knew a shitload of people would be wanting to see it too. I consoled myself with the fact that I probably had better seats in my loungeroom than I would have at the actual concert… but I still wanted to go.

And it was his last big venue concert. Ever. *sob*

He puts on a great show though. And he finally did “Sadie, the Cleaning Lady” at the end, which was very, very cool. I’m buying the DVD next week.

I guess I better go and do some work now…
*trudges out of blogland*

Ok, not really converting the front room into the studio but you get the idea – I am enthusiastic.

And the front room would make a bloody fantastic studio.

I am all about women – all women, any shape, any colour, any age – feeling good about themselves. This has been my creed for the past six months even while the plans were merely pipe dreams.

A comment was made earlier this week on a photography forum that I tried extremely hard not to take offense to… but sort of did anyway.

Although I know it wasn’t personal, nor was it directed at me nor was it made in any seriousness, it still hit me like a punch to the gut.

A reply to a request for suggestions on how to pose larger ladies was:

I guess it would be too cheeky to suggest that a wide angle lens may be a good starting point?

(For the record, the poster of that comment apologised and removed it – though not before I got onto my high horse and said something for which I in turn have apologised.)

It’s precisely that sort of self-depreciating comment or veiled insult that I would really like to stop.  We’re all worthy people (except for those who aren’t – like murderers, racists, rapists and kiddy-fiddlers) and we all deserve much better than to pay ourselves so much disservice.  As a woman, life can be particularly cruel if you’re not a glamazon.  I’m not sure what it’s like to be a male in the same situation (for obvious reasons) but I’m sure it’s the same sort of “not fun”. It’s hard enough to summon the gonads for dropping one’s daks and getting nakey in front of a lens. Snide remarks of any sort are neither appreciated nor wanted. And we’re certainly all capable of making such comments about ourselves.

My business is all about “love thyself”, self empowerment by showing people that they can look fantastic and doing a boudoir shoot for themselves more than a partner.

Consider me a “happiness consultant”.

Yes, I watched the first episode of Hung.  Oh Thomas Jane, why did you stoop so low? I could forgive you for The Punisher but you have done your dash now.

This post is dedicated to two of the most lovely and beautiful (inside and outside) ladies I know… Tam and Janet. The former possessing a shining inner light and major spark of creative fun, the latter possing a sublime grace and elegance I could only dream of having. They are my inspiration.

Tam (left) & Janet (right)

Okay, so here’s the plan.

Ren starts a business.

Good plan?

A photography business. A boudoir photography business.

‘Licious Photo has been born – at least in concept. There’s lots of developing business plans and the like, but this is going to happen, one way or another.

Not a lot of people approve.  Or they just don’t get it.

“I’m going to be a photographer,” I say.

“Oh wow! That’s impressive!  Are you doing weddings?” They say.

“No, I’m doing boudoir,” I say

“Oh…”  They are not impressed.  They are confused. They are even a little put off.

I’d like to know what’s so damned difficult to understand about boudoir photography.  I’m not a dirty pervert.   I love taking photos of women. Women are pretty; all shapes and curves and gorgeousness.  They look good in print. I want to do that.  What’s more, I want women to feel good about themselves – skinny or fat, young or old. I want it to be my mission to prove to ladies that they can be superstars in front of a camera.  I know what it’s like to look and feel ugly.  I can sympathise and empathise.

It’s a great feeling knowing that you’ve made someone feel special.  It’s a bit addictive.

I’ve had some excellent feedback in regards to the photos I’ve taken of Janet and I know I am on the right track. With a little patience and practice, I’ll actually be good at this stuff.

And I do so desperately want to be good at something.

Yes, this is a rambly post, I know. It’s Sunday night, I’m in the homework doldrums and dreading another full five days of the day-job beginning tomorrow morning.

It was a day of learning for me.  I know I had done this before in a semi-workshop environment last year but remembering just what the hell I did then that might work in this new scenario was tricky.  Having Tam there as a source of inspiration (and knowledge) was reassuring and I’m not ashamed to admit that I did the boudoir/studio equivalent of setting up a shot in her tripod holes (as people often do in landscape photography) just so I could get the same amazing angle that she saw when I didn’t.

I guess that sort of thing will come with practice.

Before everyone had arrived, I’d cleaned out the master bedroom, re-sheeted the bed with crisp white sheets and pillowcases and then laid out a couple of luxurious throws and a few other bits and pieces which were intended as possible props. The room is painted white and has a huge west-facing window that gets fabulous light throughout the day. It’s like standing in a giant reflector box.  Perfect for picture-taking.

The bright white of the room turned out to be a blessing as Janet has brilliant blue eyes and richly coloured hair, stunning against pale, pale, nearly flawless skin.  Any bit of colour on her just popped.

We started off with some easy stuff, getting Janet comfy in front of the camera by plonking her right in the middle of my lovely king-sized bed and surrounding her with seemingly endless metres of cotton mosquito netting. This stuff added some great texture to the photos and had the added bonus of being softer and more malleable than tulle or satin gauze.  It had a lush quality about it.

Janet was a natural in front of the camera and made our little adventure very, very easy. Just for the record, I haven’t change the colour of Janet’s eyes at all.  They are naturally that blue.

After we’d warmed up, we broke out the black corset and a beautiful, furry, teal wrap…

And then some pearls…

And then my trilby…

Unfortunately, while the images on the back of the camera were looking fabulous, I had forgotten one very, very important thing.  The ISO.

See, the last time I used the camera, it was evening, it was dark and I’d boosted it to 3200.  For those who are unfamiliar with the consequence of having your digital (or even film) camera boosted to 3200 ISO means noise.  grainy, ugly noise.  Digital noise in particular is ugly.

Ah well. Live and learn.  We carried on.

TBC

Twilight – in 197 Seconds…

From Head Trip - headtripcomics.comicgenesis.com

Bella: OMG this town is like, so depressing.

Bella: But the boys like me.

Bella: Oooh, look at that pretty boy over there.

Edward: *glare*

Bella: He doesn’t like me.

Edward: *stare*

Bella: Doesn’t matter. I have two boys wanting to ask me out.

Edward: *grin*

Bella: BUT HE’S SO PRETTY! *SQUEE!*

Edward: Hi, my name is Edward and I’m bipolar. I will hate you one day and be enraptured with you the next. Do not ask questions.

Bella: Dude, you just stopped a van from hitting me WITH YOUR BARE HANDS! Hero! *SQUEE!*

Edward: I know. I’m cool like that.

Bella: Cool, but not humanly possible. How did you do that?

Edward: First rule of mighty strength and super speed – YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT MIGHTY STRENGTH AND SUPER SPEED.

Bella: Fine. I like you. Be my friend?

Edward: *glower* Ok. But I am a scary friend.

Bella: *dreams inappropriate dream of Edward*

Jacob Black: Hi, I am Jacob Black. I am not as old as you but I am still hot. I will now tell you scary cryptic things about Forks. (The town, not the utensil.)

Bella: Know anything about Edward?

Jacob: Yep. Dawg’s a vampire. We don’t like him. Because we’re werewolves.

Bella: *dreams inappropriate dream about Edward & Jacob*

Bella: *perpetual bad mood*

Edward: *glares*

Bella’s best friends: We are going shopping and you are coming with us in an obvious plot device to get you into trouble.

Four bad guys: We are planning on doing something very nasty with you in an obvious plot device to get your almost-boyfriend to come rescue you.

Bella: Don’t mess with me for I have secret ninja powers! HI-YAH!

Edward: I have come to rescue you (possibly from yourself).

Bella: My hero! *SQUEE!*

Edward: *possessive growl*

Bella: You’re so pretty. I think I love you.

Edward: I know. I’m dead sexeh. (DEAD sexeh—get it? MUAHAHAHA!!)

Bella: I know you’re a vampire but I want you to be my boyfriend. Everyone thinks we’re going out anyway.

Edward: But I am incredibly moody, somewhat manic-depressive…

Bella: … and pretty… *squee!*

Edward: …and may possibly, y’know, eat you. Not good boyfriend material.

Bella: I am not frightened of you! *dramatic pose*

Edward: You should be. Because I SPARKLE. *sparkles*

Bella: So what do you eat?

Edward: Mountain lions and grizzly bears.

Bella: But they’re a protected species!

Edward: I only eat them when the population gets too high. I am an environmentally friendly vampire.

Bella: *SQUEE!*

Edward: But I am still a bad boyfriend.

Bella: No you’re not.

Edward: Yes I am.

Bella: No you’re not.

Edward: Yes I am.

Bella: No you’re not.

Edward: Yes I am.

Bella: You’re too beautiful and moody to be a bad boyfriend.

Edward: You smell tasty. *sniff sniff… lick*

Bella: BAD! BAD BOYFRIEND!

Edward: *sad sparkle*

Bella: I love you anyway for you have been upgraded from merely “absurdly handsome” to “excruciatingly beautiful”… and you smell minty fresh. Which is odd for a guy who’s been dead for 90 years.

Edward: *happy sparkle*

Bella: So when do we… you know?

Edward: Can’t. Ever. May crush your skull in fit of passion. Plus this book was written by a Mormon housewife which explains why I’m not even getting to second base even though I am a painfully good-looking, testosterone-filled, 17 year-old male.

Bella: So. Not. Cool.

Edward: *uncomfortable sparkly vampire version of blue balls. Resorts to sniffing Bella. A lot.*

Cullens: We like to play baseball. In the woods. During thunderstorms.

Bad vampire (James): Bella looks tasty.

Evil vampire’s girlfriend (Victoria): *OMGLOLGGLBBQQANTAS!*

Edward: *FEROCIOUS GROWLY SPARKLE*

Useless vampire (Laurent): James is evil and now wants to eat Bella, but I’m not going to help you save her because I am the useless vampire and will bugger off to another some other good vampire family conveniently located in the kingdom of Far, Far Away.

Bella: *flits off to Phoenix to save mother from nasty vampire James while Cullens aren’t looking – even though ONE OF THEM SEES THE FREAKIN’ FUTURE*

James: I tricked you! Nyah nyah! But before I eat you, let me tell you all about my evil shenanigans, therefore giving your boyfriend and his friends adequate time to locate us, burst through the door, kill me and rescue you.

Bella: You’ve watched too many James Bond movies…

Cullens & Edward: *burst through door, kill James, rescues Bella*

James: *is deader than a few minutes ago… and slightly on fire*

Cullens: Oh dear, Bella got bitten by evil James. Edward, it falls to you to save her. Try not to get hungry and eat her in the process, m’kay?

Edward: *saves Bella, doesn’t eat her, thereby proving her point that he is a good boyfriend*

Bella: *SQUEE!*

Edward: Let’s go to prom!

Everyone: Yay!

The End. THANK GOD.

New Moon is currently being drafted.

I lost everything.

All my photographs.  All of my purchased stock resources. All of my writing. All of my inspirational resources. All of my art and writing for the past several years. Everything. Ehv-ree-thing. Well, everything not including my last round of assignments (for which I was all but accused of cheating on but that’s another story for another day), my vector car and the fantasy portrait I completed of Tamara.

That, my dears, is it.

How did this disaster happen?

I was dumb.  I was using what was supposed to be my backup storage as another drive.  As a result, I ended up hearing the click of death early on Saturday morning.  Accessing the drive suddenly became impossible.

I don’t think I could adequately describe the feelings I was experiencing, though I think it can be summed up as complete and utter devastation.

The manbeast tried very, very hard to save the day. He pulled the thing apart, threw it into his caddy and tried to access it.  Nothing doing.  Gone.

At the moment, my only hope is either running some software to get the stuff back or handing the drive over to a data recovery facility.  Considering the sensitivity of the data on the drive, I’d rather spend the big dollars to get the professionals to (hopefully) fix it than run the risk of ruining any chances of recovery by attempting to do the job myself.

So I guess the moral of the story is keep back-ups of your back-ups and back-up to multiple sources, ’cause I tell ya, this sucks.

SUCKS.

Bueller?

It’s been a long time since I’ve used this blog to rant about the world.  I sort of miss it.  It happens during the day, still.  I’ll be sitting somewhere away from my computer and say “God, that annoys me, I want to write about how I’m feeling” but by the time I get home, the feeling’s gone and the impetus to write about it – or anything else for that matter – is also long gone.  Blogging was such a cathartic activity for me.  Cathartic in the way that buying thousands of dollars worth of beading supplies (of which only a fraction has been used). Cathartic in the way that buying a $1800 lens felt.

Guilty pleasure.  Addictive.

It’s also a little weird that this blog is now not quite as anonymous.  Hell, I’ve linked it to Facebook often enough.

(Side note, my mother would be horrified to know that I have been airing my dirty laundry for over ten years.)

…

(She abhors the idea of blogs and people talking about personal stuff so that anyone can read it.)

…

(She can barely stand Facebook.)

…

(She does have a Facebook account, however. )

…

(Hi Mum!)

…

Anyway…

How do I feel at the moment?

Put upon.  Which is laughable because I am probably the least put-upon person in the world.  I have a few commitments but apart from that life for me is easy sailing.

What have I got going in my life?

My job has changed.  Well, not my job, just my role. I was appointed the team senior for reasons I will not understand though from a personal standpoint I pushed for it because it will looking fucking good on my resume once I’m done working where I am – whenever that will be.

Oh, I just swore.  I just swore in my blog…

I’M HOME! Did you miss me?

Anyway, the upgraded job happened about three weeks ago and the day after I promptly fell ill with some malaise (possibly Dengue Fever, Ebola or the Black Death – though I’m missing the fever, bleeding eyeballs and required pustules) that’s seen me off work and using up all my accrued annual leave and tipped into unpaid leave. Sucks to be me.  It’s still not completely gone, either.

I have also been attending a graphics design school, doing a course which will see be graduate as a bona fide Dip (and not just a regular dip) which, while I thought it would be a great thing for me, it… isn’t.

Apart from the recent spate of hassles that I’ve had with the institution at which I am studying, I’ve decided  I don’t want to be a graphic designer.  Frankly, I don’t want a job doing something I love to do.    When it becomes a job – when it becomes a chore - I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to lose the love of what I do.

How’s that for a conundrum?  Or is it a catch 22? Or a contradiction?  Or just Ren being STUPID as per usual?

I am approaching my photography business in the same way though.  I want it to support itself. I know full well that I will lose money initially but hopefully, if I stick with it, I will make money to at least cover my costs.  I am happy with that much.  I can indulge in my love of photography and Photoshop… unless I am so outrageously good at what I am planning to do that people will traverse oceans to be photographed by me and I am making squillions, then it might be a different story.  I do stand by my philosophy on the matter of “doing what you love” – when it becomes a chore, I no longer love it and I am not going to ruin something that I love by forcing myself to do it when I don’t want to.

So, I guess that means I will be forever stuck in jobs I don’t really like.

My husband won’t be pleased. He bears the brunt of my vicious mood swings and voracious unhappiness about my current state of employment.

Something I am enjoying is sharing what I do for fun on this blog. I love creating pictures. I love the process. I think I’d be happy working for a magazine putting this stuff together. I have been told I have a flare for writing (I hope they weren’t lying) and that I am, at least in text, entertaining. So I’ll continue to post pictures and how-to’s – the latter when I have the time to break down what I do… do. If anyone finds them useful, please leave me a comment. I love feedback – even the bad sort.

Oh yeah, and I also want a puppy.

This doesn’t please the husband either.

I’ve been asked (on a couple of occasions) what my sort of workflow is.

I have to admit, I really don’t have one.  Some days I will edit ten pictures in exactly the same way, other days I will spend ten hours on the one image, barely doing anything to it except fiddling until I find something that I like.  I haven’t been able to do that much recently due to school but last night I did what I would call a relative “quickie” where I mostly followed my workflow for retouching photos.  Kinda.

I also wanted to have a bit more of a play with the new Wacom Intuos graphics tablet I won from Shutters Inc – though with a much more realistic retouch.

You can listen to that podcast and see my workflow here.

But before that, keep reading!

Firstly I started off with a picture I took of my dear friend, Tam…

Obviously her make-up is a little tired and some of it’s ended up under her eyes rather than over them.  She’s got a few blemishes and such, but all of that can be fixed.

This is the result of fixing blemishes and skin tone and pores.  Yes, it’s a bit extreme but I wasn’t going for realistic.  My aim is a painterly feel to the overall finished image so painting various skin tones under the eyes, on the forehead and nose was called for.

In this one you can see that Tam’s chest is a little flushed (probably from a touch of sun), because I felt lazy, I didn’t bother doing anything to get rid of this. My excuse is that she’s just eaten… Heh.

I’ve done a touch more overpainting in this one, and employed the use of the Liquify tool to pull in Tam’s cheeks a bit. I normally never use the Liquify tool on facial features, however in the spirit of this picture – which is a creative portrait as opposed to a real one – I did use it. Just a tiny bit.  I also wanted to make a real feature of Tam’s eyes so I “bloated” them (half a second touch of the bloat tool in Liquify) and the same with her lips.   I also ran a Median filter over the entire image to blur out most of her chest and highlighted the lighter bits of her hair.

Now, on to creative lighting…

Here I’ve used adjustments layers to start pulling the warmth out of the image and start turning early afternoon to twilight. The best way to do this is to selectively pull down the yellows and boost the cyans.

Here I’ve pulled more of the green and yellows out and boosted the magenta settings just a little to make things look purple-ish.  You can see that the highlights are really starting to twinkle at you now. However the bright background in the top left corner is distracting and not darkening up as I’d like, no matter how much green and yellow I pull from that area.

Whoa! What happened here?  Nothing much. I just duplicated the original layer and pulled down the brightness and contrast.  To do this correctly though, I had to switch off all my adjustment layers.  The point of this is to darken up the top left corner without destructively erasing it or painting over it.

As you can see now, I’ve masked out the brightness of the top left corner and some of the highlights from Tam’s hair on that side, as I want the light to be mostly coming in from one direction.    So when we turn our adjustment layers back on…

Et voila!  Instant twilight. That looks much better. (And it’s about here that I start chirping about how cool Photoshop is.)  Anyway, I’ve also taken the opportunity at this point to intensify the highlights in Tam’s eyes by running the dodge bush (set on Highlight) over them a few times.  You can’t see it in these pictures but it’s very obvious in the larger versions.

Now we’ve really accentuated the eyes out by using a new layer set to “soft light”, a very soft brush set at a low flow and opacity and a dark red colour.  I’ve also added a bit of war paint over one eye by using the pen tool for a very sharp crescent shape.  I’ve masked out the scar where it falls over her eye and eyebrow and then blured it a little to make it look part of her skin. This layer is also set to soft light and has been dodged a little to match the contours of her face.

I know I rant and rail about vignetting images but I did vignette this one just to make the edges a little darker so Tam would pop out of the image.  Sometimes vignettes are a good thing.

BUT ONLY SOMETIMES.

Anyway, I could have stopped it here but I wanted to add in some textural interest…

And that’s it.  I found a texture that I liked and added it, set the blend mode of that layer to soft light and then masked out the bits that I didn’t want that level of  texture on.  I also added a basic texture under this layer so I could add a bit more depth to the face, however you can’t see it in these little images.

If you’re curious, here’s my layers palette:

That’s it!  Any questions, feel free to email me.

]]> http://www.getifa.com/2010/05/vampire-tam/feed/ 1 http://www.getifa.com/2010/05/make-mine-meat/ http://www.getifa.com/2010/05/make-mine-meat/#comments Sat, 01 May 2010 14:23:33 +0000 Ren http://www.getifa.com/?p=240

If God had not wanted us to eat cows, he wouldn’t have made them out of meat.

So, let’s say you’ve done a great photo shoot, you’ve got some mad photos of some beautiful women* and you want to make them look their best for your portfolio and theirs.  Problem is, their skin? Not so good.  Great make-up but there’s a little too much in the pore department?  A little mottling from too much sun?  Dreaded acne breakout that couldn’t be hidden with a trowel’s worth of foundation and concealer?

Easy to fix.  Photoshop to the rescue.  Again.

Take this picture for instance…

(Stock image found here: BerlinElliott aka Shai – I didn’t take the picture!)

This is Shai.  Shai is GOR-JUSS.  Seriously.  But her skin…  There’s a few scars, a few pimples, a few more bumps and discolourations than she’d like, I’d bet.

Here’s a close-up of the image at 100%:

See? Like I said. Not so good.

So let’s fix it!

By the way this method works really well for younger women. Older ladies with life lines need a little more specialised work which I’ll cover in a future tutorial sometime.

* Not really for the men folk.  You WANT texture for men.  The girls always look better softened, especially for glamour shoots (in the author’s opinion, ahem).

What you want to do first off is duplicate your original photo layer, just so you’ve got something to flick back and forth with so you can see the changes you’ve made more clearly.

Rename the new layer to something else… like “surgery”, because that’s what we’ll be doing next; a little surgery.

On this new layer, you’re going to want to use a combination of your Patch and Clone tools.  The patch tool can be found in the Healing Brush tool option.  (Hint: The healing tool is the one that normally looks like a band-aid, but you want the tool that looks like a hobo patch – click and hold on the healing tool to get the extended tool options and select the patch tool.)

Oh, now would be a good time to tell you that if you don’t know how to use these tools, go look up some info.  There are really cool descriptions of how it works and how to use it all over the web.  And if you don’t know layers, look them up too.

Ok, back to Shai.

*sigh* Shai.

Ahem.

It’s at this stage that you want to get rid of all the major blemishes, leaving the skin texture intact however, because we’ll need that in a few steps’ time.

After all my cloning and patching, which was relatively easy as Shai’s skin is fairly good condition in most other respects, you can see my result, at 100%:

If at this point, your picture looks really, really good – STOP. Assess what really needs to be done before continuing.  Sometimes less is more.

For this tutorial, we shall continue.

Shai’s face still has a problem with pores and some uneven skin tone, so I want to smooth that out a little more.

Plus it gives me a reason to keep looking at Shai a little longer. She’s so preedy.

The next step is softening the skin.  For this, you will need to be on your surgery layer and then head on up to Select – Color Range.

Use the eye dropper tool and select an area of the skin. If your settings are like mine, much of the model’s face will be white (this is what we’re selecting).  If there’s a lot of grey, select your eyedropper tool with the plus (+) symbol and select some of the grey areas.  Play with the fuzziness slider so you’ve got a good bit of contrast.  The below picture shows my eventual settings for this example… don’t worry if you can’t get all of your model’s face white!:

When you hit OK, you will see the “marching ants” of the selection that Photoshop has made.

Ctrl+C (copy) this selection and then hit Ctrl+J to paste it to a new layer.

When you switch the visibility off for the layers below, you will see a fairly ghostly image of skin…

In the above image, I have started deleting the insides of the eyes and will delete the lips.  You can also use your eraser tool on the hair and everything else that isn’t skin that you’d like to soften. Don’t forget to erase over the eyebrows as you don’t want to soften them.

Right. Still with me?

Good.

Duplicate your new skin layer.  Call the bottom skin layer “soft” and the top skin layer “texture”.  Toggle the visibility of the texture layer OFF and select the soft layer.

Right. We’re going to soften this. With Surface Blur.

Now, a lot of photographers use this filter but don’t use it properly.  This is a proper way to use it.  The filter I am talking about is Surface Blur.  It’s an evil tool, but it’s evil can also be used to good ends. So keep up.

Filter – Blur – Surface Blur.

You will need to play with the settings here.  You don’t want it so blurry that the detail is lost but you also don’t want to make it subtle either.  A nice, even coverage with some detail is what we’re after.

Here are my settings:

(Remember, your lips and eyes will be properly erased. My example picture hasn’t been fixed up at this point.)

Nice and even?

Toggle the visibily of the layers below your soft skin layer back on and have a look at the effect.

It’s looking better but it’s too soft. All the texture has been removed.  This is where a lot of retouchers fall over.  You need to have the skin texture for it to be a realistic effect.

But first, we’re going to reduce the opacity of the soft layer to about 75% for this one.  Just reduce the opacity until you start to see some of the details in the skin, but only just!

See? You can just make out the pore detail on her nose and cheek.

Alright, remember that texture layer we made?

Turn that back on.

OMG! The bad skin is back!

Yes, but we are going to do something special.

We are going to use the High Pass filter.  High Pass is hightly underated as a tool but to bring back contrast, sharpness and definition, I personally find it very handy.

Anyway, go to Filter – Other – High Pass.

Now, your settings will definitely vary from mine, but you want to play with your sliders until you see some definition in all that grey in the preview window.

Don’t worry, we’re almost done.

Actually, no… I’m lying.

Once you’ve got your grey mud mask going on your model, you then need to change the blend mode of the texture layer to Soft Light.

Et voila!

Texture is back, sans ruddy colour.  Nice tone and no big blemishes.

Now, what you need to do is play with the opacity of the texture layer a little.  You don’t want all of your texture to show through, you want to minimize pores but not kill them off completely.

My texture layer ended up going down to about 60% opacity.

Here’s the finished product:

Finished result, extra tweaking done to brighten hair and eyes.

If you find that the texture is too sharp in some areas but in most other areas it looks perfect, use your blur brush or erase some of the texture layer by using the eraser or masking.  (Look layer masks up if you don’t know what they are.)

Here’s a close-up of how it all looks:

That’s it. Go play.

Postscript:

This is ONE method of retouching skin in Photoshop. If you know a better way or a different way and you like your way better, keep doing that.  This is the way I like to retouch.