Skin retouching

[Thanh Duy]

I know there's a technique that can remove blemishes, nimbles, like using Midtone Details or Blur. But which technique you guys often use to soften the skin like reference? It's almost like removing all of the little flores, making the skin looks very soft but not losing details, shape of the face.

[Emily Haine]

Playing around with the different frequencies is very common, you can see Lee demonstrate it in the Beauty Retouching series. It's often a combination of tools that gives the best result and it's smart to learn a variety of beauty techniques. 

[Marc Wielage]

I would say try everything and see what happens. It's not so much a technique as it is a process: sometimes one thing works better than another. I find learning how to pull a soft key, a qualifier with little or no artifacts, is critical. Every situation is different, and sometimes it requires multiple masks and multiple keys. 

Once qualified, in Resolve you have the options of using soften tools like -Midtone Detail (minus), or Blur, or Mist, or Beauty, or Soften/Sharpen, or SNR, or Face Refinement. The latter is fastest and easiest if the face doesn't move too much; god help you if it does. It is possible to recreate all (or at least most) of what Face Refinement does manually, with about 10 nodes, but that requires ten sets of mask tracking... depending on what you're trying to do.

The trick really is to make sure you do as little damage as possible, and make sure the rest of the image retains some kind of natural sharpness. In situations where I'm dealing with some really difficult age issues, I'll throw Glow on top of it on the theory that that would be the classic "Hollywood Soft" filter approach.

But again, every situation is different and it's a question of developing good skills and good judgement over time. There is no single technique except time and good judgement (and sometimes luck).

[Thanh Duy]

On 12/22/2019 at 5:58 PM, Emily Haine said:

Playing around with the different frequencies is very common, you can see Lee demonstrate it in the Beauty Retouching series. It's often a combination of tools that gives the best result and it's smart to learn a variety of beauty techniques. 

Thank you, i will watch the series

 

23 hours ago, Marc Wielage said:

I would say try everything and see what happens. It's not so much a technique as it is a process: sometimes one thing works better than another. I find learning how to pull a soft key, a qualifier with little or no artifacts, is critical. Every situation is different, and sometimes it requires multiple masks and multiple keys. 

Once qualified, in Resolve you have the options of using soften tools like -Midtone Detail (minus), or Blur, or Mist, or Beauty, or Soften/Sharpen, or SNR, or Face Refinement. The latter is fastest and easiest if the face doesn't move too much; god help you if it does. It is possible to recreate all (or at least most) of what Face Refinement does manually, with about 10 nodes, but that requires ten sets of mask tracking... depending on what you're trying to do.

The trick really is to make sure you do as little damage as possible, and make sure the rest of the image retains some kind of natural sharpness. In situations where I'm dealing with some really difficult age issues, I'll throw Glow on top of it on the theory that that would be the classic "Hollywood Soft" filter approach.

But again, every situation is different and it's a question of developing good skills and good judgement over time. There is no single technique except time and good judgement (and sometimes luck).

Thank you for very detail explainations.