The human eye is far superior to any, even the most advanced camera. Therefore, the colors and shadows seen by the eye are very different from the image on the camera. Looking at each other, we do not pay attention to redness on the skin, bags under the eyes, a protruding tummy, sticking out strands of hair. However, in the frame it is very noticeable.

To eliminate imperfections, photos are retouched. When retouching a female portrait, we strive for a fragile image, perfect skin, luxurious hair and rejuvenation. But a male portrait should leave an impression of masculinity, so you should not completely remove wrinkles on it, make perfect skin.

Consider step by step one of the ways to retouch a male portrait. The picture was provided by the photographer, organizer of expeditions to exotic places of the world Alexander Permyakov. The portrait was taken with a Nikon camera. Retouching was carried out in Russified Adobe Photoshop CC 2017.

NIKON D7000 / Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D SETTINGS: ISO 100, F1.8, 1/50s, 75.0mm equiv.

Many photographers are against retouching, arguing that the picture can look beautiful without processing. Well, in our case, there is a good cut-off pattern in the frame. But for perfection, the portrait lacks a few strokes. It is necessary to even out the skin tone (get rid of redness) and remove extra spots on the face, increase highlights (they emphasize details), lighten the dark part a little, add sharpness. Highlighting dark fragments is more difficult if the shooting was carried out in low light - noise may appear. However, Nikon cameras shoot with minimal noise even in difficult lighting conditions. If noise does appear, it is monochrome, comparable to film. This makes it easier to lighten shadows in photographs, making it easier to lighten dark areas without annoying noise and loss of detail.

Let's get started!

Open the photo in Photoshop. Be sure to make a copy of the layer (Ctrl + J) and work with it. This will allow you to quickly restore losses in case of failure or simply compare the result before and after processing. Enlarge the image to 100% (key combination Ctrl and + to increase, Ctrl and - to decrease).

We carefully examine the skin to understand what defects need to be eliminated. This photo shows the stains that we will get rid of first.

You can use several tools, but in this case, the Healing Brush Tool is more suitable.

We select the appropriate brush size and click to eliminate all unnecessary spots. The size of the brush can be adjusted using the keys in the alphabetic part of the keyboard: "x" - decrease, "b" - increase. In the brush settings, set the parameter "Source" (Sourse) - "Sample." (Sample), Mode (Mode) - “Normal” (Normal). Leave Hardness at 100%.

We bring the brush cursor to the area that we will paint over, and, holding down the Alt key, select a healthy area of ​​​​skin suitable for replacement. So we get a sample of the area with which we will paint over the defect.

At the time of painting, the cross will indicate the source. We remove all unnecessary stains and rashes.

The result of painting over spots:

The next step is to eliminate redness and even out skin tone.

Everyone has redness. If before shooting the skin was not toned with makeup, red spots in the photo will be required. In the case of a female portrait, things are simpler: women usually put on makeup before shooting. But not every man will agree to fall into the hands of a makeup artist.

The photo circled areas of skin with an uneven tone (redness):

Create an adjustment layer with the Hue/Saturation effect. You can call it in the lower right corner on the toolbar under the layers.

You will have a new layer and the effect control window will open.

We pass to the red channel, click on the pipette, and then on the area of ​​redness that we want to get rid of.

After that, you will see the shift in the spectrum.

Raise the saturation and hue to around 70-73.

By moving the checkers on the gradient, we ensure that the coating is not all over the skin, but only in those areas where you want to remove redness.

Reset the saturation to zero, and move the hue until we see desired effect. In my case, it is +15.

Now we need to restore the natural color of the lips, since the pink tint has disappeared along with the redness. To do this, select the tool “Brush” (Brush), set the color to black, select the desired size and paint over the lips with a brush, remaining on the adjustment layer “Hue / Saturation”.

Result:

Now we need to return the details and highlights lost during processing.

To do this, create a new layer (Ctrl + Shift + N). Go to the "Channels" layout of this layer.

Here the image is decomposed into channels. Turn off each channel one by one (click on the eye to the left of the image icon). Our task is to choose the most contrasting channel. Obviously, it is blue, it retains more details.

Create a duplicate of the blue channel (select it and right-click on "Duplicate Channel"). Next we work with a copy of the blue channel. All other channels must be invisible. We stand on a copy of the blue channel and press the key combination Ctrl + l. The channel levels window will appear.

Drag the input value checker a little to the right, click Ok. This will enhance the contrast.

Now select only the light areas of the channel. To do this, hold down the Ctrl key and click on the icon of your blue channel. You will see dotted highlights in the light areas. It may seem that not everything is selected, but do not hesitate, indeed all the light areas are selected.

Go to the "Layers" layout and create a new one (Ctrl + Shift + N). At the same time, your selection of light areas is preserved (dotted lines are noticeable).

Select the Brush tool, set the color to white and paint over the new layer. You can paint everything or those places where you want to increase the brightness of highlights. White color will lie down only on light areas of the image. If you plan to paint everything, keep the brush diameter large.

Below is the result. Notice how the details have changed. Try turning off and on the visibility of the bottom layer by holding down the Alt key. So you will see the picture before and after processing.

In the photo, the arrows indicate some areas where the details have become more expressive. For comparison: on the “before” option, an arrow is indicated on the background; after processing, it also became lighter.

If you want the highlights to be less light, reduce the transparency of the highlights layer to the desired result.

Perhaps this method of enhancing highlights seemed difficult to you, because on a new layer you can simply paint white highlights with a brush and blend them. But it will look rough, the highlights will fall unnaturally. I propose to enhance only those highlights that the camera captured.

The final touch is sharpening. Select all layers and press the key combination Shift + Ctrl + Alt + E. This will merge all layers with effects into a new layer. Now duplicate the resulting layer and apply the filter “Color Contrast” (High Pass) to it.

In the window that opens, move the checker to the right until details appear on the image (look at the main image, not at the fragment in the settings window).

That's all! Try, experiment, share your experience in the comments.

Today we will learn how to process a male portrait in Photoshop. Men don't like glamorous things about their own photos, but sometimes they don't mind having their portraits done with a stylish treatment. Open the image (example) in Photoshop. Prepare the skin: with the Patch tools we eliminate skin defects, and the Blur tool makes it smoother.

Create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and reduce the saturation.

Create a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and increase the brightness.

We return to the layer with the image. Go to the tab "Filter" - "Imitation" - "Oil Painting".

Go to the tab "Filter" - "Sharpness" - "Smart Sharpness".

Go to the "Filter" - "Imitation" - "Outlined Edges" tab.

On top of all layers, create new layers and use a soft brush to match the color of the skin areas with a duplicate of the skin.

Go back to the image layer and add a layer mask. In the layer mask, use a soft brush of black type with a large diameter to hide the background.

We remove visibility from the background. We become on top of all layers and “Rectangular area” circles the entire image. Go to the tab "Editing" - "Copy combined data" - "Paste". Go to the tab "Filter" - "Imitation" - "Oil Painting".

Change the Blending Mode to Screen.

Create a new layer under the image layer. On the toolbar, set the color to #b8b3aa in the top square and black in the bottom one. Fill the layer with "Gradient" type "Foreground to Background".

Create a new layer on top of all layers and paint over the edge of the image with a soft brush, color #b8b3aa.

Again, we resort to the "Copy combined data" function. Create two such layers: layer number 1 and layer number 2.

For layer number 1, go to the tab "Filter" - "Sharpness" - "Unsharpened".

How to process a street portrait using Adobe Photoshop - see the video tutorial by Alexei Kuzmichev. “Let's start processing a street portrait of an elderly person. From the lesson you will learn how to achieve beautiful cinematic shades in the picture, as well as how to emphasize the necessary details with the help of light and shadow” © Alexey Kuzmichev Video information Source: Photoshop video tutorials from Alexey […]

How to retouch a male portrait in Adobe Photoshop - see the video tutorial by Alexei Kuzmichev. “Today I will show you how to process a male portrait in Photoshop. You will learn what nuances there are when retouching male photos, the technique of enhancing the texture of the skin and ways to make the model more brutal in the frame.» © Alexey Kuzmichev Video information Source: Photoshop video tutorials […]

How to make a professional retouching of a female portrait using Adobe Photoshop - see the video tutorial by Alexei Kuzmichev. “Retouching is a very important stage in the processing of any photo. Before toning a photo, adding effects, etc., you first need to get rid of the main defects, otherwise they can ruin all our work in the future. Today I will show you the whole process […]

In this tutorial, we will talk about how to process a male portrait in order to convey the character of the person in the picture as accurately as possible and enhance the element of brutality.

Introduction

Processing a male portrait is often more difficult than working on a female portrait. When editing a portrait of a girl, as a rule, the photographer strives to make a beautiful picture. When working with a male portrait, this goal loses its importance, giving way to conveying the character and mood of the hero. And for this, in addition to knowing how to remove pimples and wrinkles, it is useful to know something else.

Step 1

The first step is to process the eyes, as in. This action will help you solve a focus problem that may not have caught your eye exactly.

Step 2

Let's sharpen the image with the Unsharp mask filter. You can find it in the menu Filters / Sharpening / Unsharp Mask.

The values ​​can be set to taste or you can use those that will be shown below in the illustration. By the way, the values ​​are very dependent on the resolution of the photo, in our case it is 3500×5200px.

Sharpening with the Sharpening Filter

Step 3

Create a layer “Gradient map” (Gradient map) and reduce its opacity to about 36%. Nothing changes in the settings menu that pops up when creating the Gradient Map. Change the layer's Blending Options from "Normal" to "Saturation".

Step 4

Create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. In the drop-down window, change the set to "Custom" and increase the value of "Saturation" by 22 and "Brightness" by 2.

Create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer

Step 5

Create a copy of the main layer using the hot keys Ctrl + J and convert it to black and white, again using the hot-key: Alt + Shift + Ctrl + B. In the drop-down menu, you can leave everything as it is, or, to your taste, move the sliders through different color channels. Then lower the layer's opacity to about 70%.

There is another option: you can set this layer to blending mode “Screen” (screen) and also reduce the opacity, but up to 50%.

Step 6

Create a copy of the main layer using the ctrl+j hotkeys and convert it to black and white, again using the hotkeys: alt+shift+ctrl+b. In the drop-down menu, you can leave everything as it is, or you can move the sliders through different color channels to your taste. Then lower the layer's opacity to about 70%.

Option 2: you can put this layer in the overlay mode “screen” (screen) and also reduce the opacity, but up to 50%.

Option 1 Result when overlaying in the "normal" mode

Option 2 Result when overlaying in the "screen" mode

Step 7

Create a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and increase the Brightness values: in our case by 24, Contrast by 12.

Create a "Brightness/Contrast" layer

cAt step 7, you can stop, or you can continue and achieve a result similar to what gets on the covers of Esquire.

Step 8

Create another adjustment layer, this time - "Black and White". Depending on the photo, we change the settings by channel, and then we set the opacity value to 60-70%.

Create a "Black and White" layer and change the opacity value

Step 9

Create a Color Adjustment Layer and enter the color #9990f6. After that, reduce the opacity to about 20% and change the blending mode from "Normal" to "Subtract".

The Subtract blending method works in the opposite way to the Normal blending method, it removes the selected color and thus toning with blue in the Subtract blending mode we get a yellowish tint.

Create a "Color" layer with an opacity of ~20% and a "subtract" blending method

Choosing a color for toning

Step 10

You may have problems saving the photo and Photoshop saves it in .psd format. Let me remind you that then you should select File / Save As / JPEG.

Finally - one more piece of advice: if you didn't have enough free time to process the whole photo - don't despair and save the photo in .psd and continue when it suits you. In this format, Photoshop saves all layers and data that have been changed during processing.

Save the photo

Conclusion

Let me remind you that most of the settings given in this lesson are suitable specifically for this shot. In your workflow, you can skip or replace any of the steps, because photo editing is a creative process! Create and success to you!

Retouching photographs is of great importance, not because the original image is poorly executed, but in order to hide minor defects and correct color balance. Retouching a male photo differs from a female one in that one should not hide wrinkles and make the skin perfectly smooth, but at the same time it has its own characteristics.

Create a Black and White Adjustment Layer. We increase the brightness of some individual areas where the dominant color is red, yellow tones by moving the cursor in the direction of their thickening.

Change the Blending Mode of this layer to Soft Light.

Create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and lower the saturation.

Create a Photo Filter adjustment layer and give the image some warmth, but not too much, so yellow will do. You can set the density of the filter.

In order to give the image brutality, you can create a "Color Search" adjustment layer and select the desired color solution.

If the skin has become too warm tones or has acquired red tones, then you can cool it with a Blue Photo Filter adjustment layer.

Curves adjustment layer can lighten and darken certain areas of the image.

Merge the adjustment layers into a group: select the necessary layers in the layers folder and press the key combination Ctrl + G. Reduce the opacity of the group to 72%.

Create a copy of the layer with the image and on it, using the Spot Healing Brush tool, smooth out the wrinkles on the forehead, cheeks and under the eyes. Nasolabial folds can not be touched. The tool is used as follows: hold down the Alt key and click on the area of ​​the skin that is a template for the area that should be changed. We brush over the area that needs to be corrected.