Digital Retouching

Correcting Skin Blemishes

The saying that 'the camera never lies' is overstated because it very often does lie.  However if anyone has even a slight blemish it is almost guaranteed that the camera will emphasize it, particularly if the subject is a woman.  There are several good techniques for removing blemishes or even the signs of ageing. For something as simple as a mole or a pimple, the airbrush tool will suffice - with or without a judicious use of copy and paste to maintain skin texture.  For freckles and the signs of ageing the technique will involve a little more consideration but sometimes merely 'softening' the image will often achieve worthwhile results and for most skin blemishes the 'median' filter and gentle use of the 'airbrush' will work well. 

However some images are rather more of a challenge and are sometimes best left as they are if only because of the character - or maybe not!  In this shot, judicous and selective use of the 'median' filter helped to smooth some of the wrinkles without losing detail in the hair but the eyes could still benefit from some extra work if you have the patience.  A few touches with the 'clone' airbrush tidied up some of the contrast left by the median filter then overall 'smoothing' to flatten off the whole picture.  Inevitably  some detail is lost but all retouching work is compromise since it cannot be true to the original.                 

Softening is not the same as blurring which is usually attributable to movement or improper focusing but rather it removes 'noise' or slightly reduces definition although there are many ways of using it and some graphics tools will allow more control than others.  Merely softening the whole picture might be satisfactory for some purposes but it is more useful to have the choice of which bits to soften.

There is another tool which 'de-speckles' images or parts of images is a useful means of removing 'noise' from pictures.  Noise can take many forms but is most noticeable in digital photos as pixels or groups of pixels that are unevenly coloured - white or black or any shade in between - and if not dealt with can be annoyingly distracting.

You might find the 'median' tool useful too but do make sure you make a safe copy of your photo and read about it before you commit yourself to its effects.  Depending on your software you might have lots of choices and combinations to choose from but whatever the problem, there are no rules so if you find a technique that works - use it...

It would be impossible to cover all the techniques or aspects of corrective techniques and I strongly recommend you to read your documentation to discover what your software can or can't do.  Meanwhile a few typical examples and how they were corrected (or not) should give you the general idea...  The main thing to remember is that there are no miracles and some things can't be completely eliminated but few retouching tasks are as challenging as the one above.

    

The two shots above show how simple blemishes can be quickly and easily removed.  The method used for this shot was to individually select the areas to be corrected using the 'freehand' selection tool, then apply an appropriate level of 'median' filter to eliminate the spots.  Notice also that the slight red-eye effect has also been eliminated.  A slight blotchiness of the skin was reduced very slightly by using a filter that retains the overall texture but smoothes out non-textured areas such as skin.  Do be aware that filters generally work better of photographs with higher resolutions - 800 x 600 or better, but they still work with lower resolution if you don't overstate the effect. It just means you might not get quite the same results.

The two shots below required a similar approach using the same filters and close examination will show that the blemishes were satisfactorily removed.  There is much to recommend these techniques, especially when the subject is going through the afflictions of youth - acne in particular.  The overall softening of the skin helps with the skin texture whilst leaving the texture of the clothing almost unaffected.

    

All things considered the tools works remarkably well and helps to make the retouching of photographs almost routine.  The art is in knowing exactly what is right for the subject and achieving that to a satisfactory level.

Red Eye Phenomenon

This is caused when the intense light from a flash gun reflects from the blood vessels at the back of the eye.  It is unsightly and can make a subject look rather ghoulish.  However there are ways to avoid it and most common cameras offer a facility to reduce it significantly.  The approach is to fire off a series of preliminary flashes to which the iris of the subjects eye responds by closing.  Then when the 'real' flash arrives the iris should be sufficiently small to prevent any reflections from the retina. This works if your subject is static and is co-operating.  Unfortunately if your subject is moving or not expecting to have a photograph taken, the time taken by preliminary flashes will destroy any chance of spontaneity or even allow the subject to take evasive action, so much of the time you will be obliged to use the single flash and deal with the problem of red-eye later. Similarly the effects of alcohol or other drugs can cause the eyes to dilate and not respond to the pre-flash so the problem sometimes remains regardless.  Fortunately digital photography lends itself perfectly to this kind of correction and modern software provides the necessary solutions - or if not, there are several stand-alone utilities that do.

My software, Paintshop Pro 8, has a sophisticated way of dealing with the problem quickly and efficiently.  You can let it take care of things automatically or you can take control over eye colour, the size of the glint, the 'feather' pattern around the iris and a few other variables. The examples below give some idea of how well it works.

       

The effect of flash red-eye is clearly visible here and does not flatter the subject so the first thing to do is load the picture into your graphics program having first made sure that there is an original safely stored somewhere.  Now you invoke the appropriate tool for the job.  The next and possibly most difficult part is to remember what colour your subjects eyes are so if you intend to use this technique you should become observant on such matters.

Next you need to decide how to deal with it. The software will take care of it automatically once you have set up the basic parameters but there is no reason why you can't take control and experiment with different setting of the feather or the eye colour.  Try different sizes and intensities of glint and don't ignore the dramatic effect of moving the position of the eye slightly. It helps if you set the software to auto-proof so you can see the changes immediately.

Another consideration is that regardless of the red-eye phenomenon, this technique enables you to change the colour of a subject's eyes to create an effect. There are occasions when someone might want to change their appearance in a photograph - for example a brunette who goes blonde might wish for blue eyes instead of green or brown.  Well why not? We are artists and we can do whatever we want if it gets results so let your imagination and creativity lead you.  There are no hard & fast rules and you are in control...

Not least of all you should take the opportunity to see if there are any other blemishes that would benefit from some judicial use of the many corrective tools available - things like minor spots or smudged mascara or even birthmarks.  It's up to you and your subject how far you go down the road of corrective editing but however you choose to proceed, do try to keep it to the barest minimum required to achieve a pleasing result. Older ladies always appreciate seeing a clearer skin and less wrinkles so if you want to impress you should bear this in mind and take a look at the section on correcting blemishes.

And the finished product... A happy photo of three gorgeous girls having a great night out and looking their best... Wow!

All things considered the tool works remarkably well and helps to make the retouching of photographs almost routine.  So unless you intend to let someone else process your photos, there is little advantage in using the 'red-eye' flash function on your camera since it will probably lose you more good shots than it is worth and as you can see, it is entirely fixable.  The art is in knowing exactly what is right for the subject and achieving that to a satisfactory level.  Another consideration is that regardless of the red-eye phenomenon, this technique enables you to change the colour of a subject's eyes to create an effect.  There are occasions when someone might want to change their appearance in a photograph - for example a brunette who goes blonde might wish for blue eyes instead of green or brown.  Well why not?  We are artists and we can do whatever we want if it gets results so let your imagination and creativity lead you.  There are no hard & fast rules...