Pimples and redness

[tomorrowstreasures]

Acne. I/we could really benefit from some good advice from you about this. It is a fine art, I am sure, to achieve a professional, pleasing, natural result.

[PKMax]

aye, i'd be interested in hearing about any tips on this subject. my brother has quite back acne, I have tried "fixing" it in photoshop, but generally make him look like a toy doll doing that lol.

I'm sure you could probably do something with the red channel due to pimples/acne generally being red in nature.. hmm.. might play with that.. that's gotta work..

[Ben H]

The best general advice I'd give is to dupe your picture layer, do all the spot fixing using whatever Photoshop techniques necessary (healing brush, cloning, smoothing etc).

Once that's done, you'll have a too-perfect image. Now simply knock back the opacity of the fixed layer a bit to reduce the "strength" of the fixes, bring the original skin stuff back in.

This means you don't have an overly perfection complexion, it's just better than what it was, and you can easily determine by eye the right level by playing with the opacity of the fixed layer.

[tomorrowstreasures]

The best general advice I'd give is to dupe your picture layer, do all the spot fixing using whatever Photoshop techniques necessary (healing brush, cloning, smoothing etc).

Once that's done, you'll have a too-perfect image. Now simply knock back the opacity of the fixed layer a bit to reduce the "strength" of the fixes, bring the original skin stuff back in.

This means you don't have an overly perfection complexion, it's just better than what it was, and you can easily determine by eye the right level by playing with the opacity of the fixed layer.
I have PSP - I do very basic things on there as I have not had the time to devote to learning the program yet. I will certainly see if I can give your advice a go! Thanks, Ben.

Marko -I would still like to hear a podcast on the subject if you are game.

[Marko]

TT,

It's my pleasure to try and help with post-processing techniques, But in no way am I an expert in the domain...post processing/retouching is something that I'm learning along with the rest of the members. That said, of course I'll share what I know.

It's tricky because podcasts on post processing are not 'standard'. Just about everyone on this forum uses a DSLR or SLR...but not everyone uses photoshop which is what I use. So any tips on how to get rid of pimples may or may not apply if you are not using photoshop.

I'll still do it though - though ben H already gives excellent advice on this topic in this thread.
thx
marko

[tomorrowstreasures]

TT,

But in no way am I an expert in the domain...post processing/retouching is something that I'm learning along with the rest of the members.
marko

This got me thinking. Since PP is such a new, but necessary playing field how about if we have an assignment thread in Post Processing/Photoshop, PSP, etc.. Each month, someone can volunteer to submit an image that we can all "tinker" with... record the steps we use, share the different out comes and learn new things along the way. I know that there are members who are way beyond the basics, seeing what they would do to an assigned image would be of great benefit. Not to mention the aspects of creativity. There is so much to learn here that having an assignment designated specifically to PP seems to me to be the next step in growing as an image maker.