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RE: Senior Portrait Tips: Why Your Photographer is in Love With Your Make-up Artist
Hi my friend.
I find precisely that the abusive use of the Gaussian blur in the video, as well as the bleaching of the teeth brings us to a type of beauty much too stereotyped ...
I find that the management of the light, the DnB is superb.
But why go so far ???
Hi, @siavach - thanks for the comments and question. We don't just use gaussian blur, that's just part of the frequency separation technique. The idea is to separate any color differences in the skin from the skin's texture so we can work them individually, and allows us to get rid of the red splotchy colors in the skin while leaving the skin's texure. If you look at a 100% crop of her skin, the natural porous texture the skin possesses has been virtually uncompromised aside from the removal of blemishes like pimples, scars, and even sweat. Only the color has been retouched. The gaussian blur is applied only to the color after it is generated, which prevents it from over-smoothing the skin's texture.
Also, the teeth whitening. Firstly, the whitening of the teeth itself is its own layer. Once the whitening occurs, then the opacity of it is backed off so that it's not too overpowering. It's difficult to see this is in the video because it's sped up very fast, but just after the teeth are whitened, the whitening is then faded out a little to allow for the original color of the teeth to be seen slightly.
Here's a 100% crop close up of the model's face after retouching. (Right-click, open image in new tab.)
And here'a great video from Phlearn which explains how frequency separation works. It's completely badass, and definitely something I think every photographer who has any knowledge in Photoshop should know how to do. :)
I discover split frequency with Phlearn too... it's juste incredible.
Anyway, i like this portrait spécially your work on skin colors ...
I have just a personnal problem with the gaussian blur hihihihi :)
The gaussian blur is part of the frequency separation technique.
You know that is not an argument my friend :)
I jsute say my opinion, in fact i really appreciate your work and i think that you have a better technic as me... so don't worry !!!
Also, as far as "stereotyped" - whether or not that's the case, we make sure our clients know what they're getting when they hire us. In fact, most times, they see our work before calling us, knowing what kind of retouching we do for these once-in-a-lifetime portrait events, such as senior portraits, family portraits, child portraits, and even formal bridal portraits. Most people are very self-conscious and want to look the best they can. We do get requests for only minor touchups sometimes, and that's no problem. But by and large, we find that giving a customer what they ask for is better for business than to try to talk them out of it for morality's sake. ;-)