Tips for Retouching Images

Tip 1:

Over-retouching is the most common mistake, and the art of retouching is to make it seem perfect but natural. It’s the many small things that come together to make an image great. It’s not necessarily the big dramatic move that makes perfection. Make a retouching plan on a separate blank layer, and stick to it. Retouching on a duplicate layer lets you turn it off to view the original below. Of course, it also gives you a safety net.
 
Tip 2:

Work editably and give yourself a safety-net in every situa- tion. Use Snapshots, Layers, History Brush and use Layer-Masks instead of Eraser. If you have many small layers that together form a compositional element (e.g. an eye or a building) con- sider joining them together in a Group. A Layer Group can also be masked off, so that you’re in effect masking off several lay- ers together. It’s easy to generate too many Layers, and to lose track of them. It also helps to name the Layers. Whatever you do, always bear in mind that each element should be reversible without too much trouble.
 
Tip 3:

Even if you work with Layers, the History Brush can provide an additional safety net when embarking on some tricky work with the Clone Stamp tool and Healing Brush. Mark the His- tory Source box of the present history state before you start cloning, and use the History Brush tool to reverse it exactly where it went wrong, or to reduce its effect in areas. Snap- shots are a good way of marking the progression of a retouch- ing task, and can be referred to as History Sources. Click on the Snapshot button in the History Palette at every significant stage in the process (but don’t go completely wild, as it takes up memory). When using the History Brush, you have to make sure you’re on the right layer – a layer that existed when you took the Snapshot you’re borrowing from. The History Brush won’t work if the Layer or image has been transformed or resized.

Tips for Skin Retouching

Tip 1:
Lear how and why make up is used! It’s really important to understand makeup if you're going to be a good retoucher. It can also help you become a makeup artist.

Tip 2:
Pore Structure: Usually you don't want to sand blast someone's face. Real people have pores and you want to keep them as much as possible. In the highlights you may want to tone down pores that are very high contrast and prominent, but in other areas it's not as essential and can even create a plastic look.

Tip 3: 
Not all wrinkles are created equal and some are actually good. They make you look human. No sand blasting, remember? So forehead lines, laugh lines, and other significant wrinkles should remain. You may want to reduce them somewhat (remember it's just a darker shade next to a lighter shade), but you want to keep them. Good retouching is about taking a few years off of someone, not genetically re-engineering them. People are not pefect and attempting to make them so usually doesn't work out well.
Thinner, smaller wrinkles are usually fine to get rid of, especially the ones underneath the eye. Although again you want to be careful about making it look natural. More significant wrinkles can be made shorter and less 'deep' by dodging and burning.
 
Tip 4:
Know where your light is coming from! Where was the light source when the photo was taken? You can usually figure this out by looking at the catchlight in the eyes or the specular highlights on the cheeks.
When retouching you may want to create additional depth to the image, for example, burning in additional shadows. To do so, you need to identify the natural contours of the face to accenuate them. You can't do this correctly unless you know where the light is coming from.

Also, if you add makeup digitally, like eye shadow, you'll need to adjust the color to lighten the eye shadow where you would expect the highlight to fall. You'll use one shade for the eye shadow, but a lighter shade dabbed on top where you think a highlight should be.

Tips for Beauty Retouching

1. Avoid sharpening before you retouch, but clean up the colors in Levels and Curves before you start retouching. Good color correction will also make the image look sharper in a natural way.
2. Always retouch on separate layers, leaving the Background intact. The Background layer below serves as a safety-net if the retouching really goes wrong, but more importantly, lets you see the before-version at any time.
3. Avoid achieving excessive perfection in one area at an early stage of retouching, because you might commit yourself to a high degree of retouching in the whole image, which will often cause the image to look totally unnatural.
4. Work on the skin first, because this will help you avoid layer conflicts later. The skin can be regarded as a canvas, and the features can be treated as separate elements to focus on later. While you work the skin, you also get the chance to get to know the face, and note the other things that need to be refined.
5. Don’t forget to retouch the area between the eyebrows and the eyes and also the area between the nose and lips, and transition between hair & skin.
6. Eyes can usually take a bit extra contrast and brightness. This doesn’t mean that you should brighten only the whites. A well-designed Curves adjustment for the whole eye will usually do the trick.
7. The difference between the Healing Brush and the Clone Stamp Tool may seem subtle as you work on skin, but is actually quite major. The Stamp Tool simply clones one area onto another (with a hard or soft edge and a chosen opacity). The Healing Brush is great for cloning texture.
8. The Healing Brush often bleeds when you heal close to a contrasting colour. Try using the Clone Stamp Tool in these cases, or learn how to refine your technique. Cloning & healing with too much repetition is the most typical retouching mistake. Breaking up subtle gradients in the background or skin when using the Stamp Tool can often be avoided by switching to the Healing Brush.
9. Using the Blur Tool on blemishes simply does not work! Blurring is something that should be applied heavily – usually as a filter – and used only very lightly.10. While you do want to work in Layers to give you a safety net and stay in touch with the original, you may find that layer conflicts can occur towards the end, when you want to work on a joined-up layer. You may have to merge everything into a new layer on top of your layer stack, for the finishing touches.