Post Processing For Makeup Photos

Lets be honest here, filters, facetune and photoshop are not new in any industry revolving around photography. Are they controversial to a lot of people? Sure. Me? No. Being a photoshop wizard and a photographer, I enjoy photoshop a lot. I feel it enhances photos. You may disagree and that is fine, if anyone is here to learn some basic photoshop skills please stay with me!

So from camera to upload I always do some type of post processing depending on what my vision is. My makeup skills are not at an expert level but I can hold my own. What I do not like is when people have no makeup or minimal and photoshop it all on. Now, color bumping, skin smoothing, background blurring, adjusting parts of the face (my damn square jaw), to me are perfectly good starting points.

So lets break down my step my steps that I do to get my final image results.

Lets start with the before image. While I like the photo and everything looks great, a lot of the actual detail was lost by the window light I use to take my photos. So lets jump right in with all the steps (only 6) on how I bring back, color, vibrancy, and my highlight.

[SHORT CUTS FOR WINDOWS USERS]

All the keyboard shortcuts you will need for this post processing lesson, very helpful tools to know.

*Duplicate Layer: ctrl + j

*Flatten Image: ctrl+ e

*Adjust brush sizes: bigger ] & smaller [

Totally Rad! Retouch Action: https://gettotallyrad.com/pro-retouch/

Step One

Duplicate layer (ctrl +j)

Pretty simple, right? No worries. I got you all! I wanted it to be as simple as possible.

Step Two

Next go to the filter tab, select blur from the drop down menu, and then lens blur. From there play around with the settings and familiarize yourself with them. I go for a heavy blur for my backgrounds. If this doesn't interest you it can be skipped.

Step Three

I linked the action I use, but for some reason mine seems different (I have had mine for many years and cannot remember if it is the same one?) It is pricey but it comes with A LOT, which I do not have installed right now because I stopped doing photography, but I own them as well.

I flatten my blurred background (ctrl +e) and then do a duplicate again (ctrl+j). From there I run the action.

IF YOU CANNOT PURCHASE THIS, READ ONTO STEP 4.

Step Four

If you do purchase the action pack, install the action into photoshop (tutorial here) After you install the action pack, and you select it and run it, make sure your brush color is set to white, and then you can adjust the opacity. Smooth over all areas you wish to have the skin affect take place on your image and then flatten your image (ctrl+e).

If you do not or cannot afford the action pack no worries. Make a duplicate layer (ctrl+j) and go to filter, back to blur and select surface blur. From there Drag the radius and threshold tabs to whatever looks good to you. Hit okay, then grab your eraser brush and erase all areas you do not want smoothed. Once happy, flatten image (ctrl+e) and duplicate another image (ctrl+j) and go back to filter and select other and highpass, drag the slider until you start seeing details hit okay, and change the layer to hard light, then flatten again. Now onto step number five! :)

Step Five

Next go to image, adjustment, vibrance and drag the slider. I usually up mine to around 100 or 50% depending on how drained of color my image ended up getting washed out a lot so I did 100% for this one. Once done, flatten image (ctrl+e).

Step Six

Next make another duplicate layer, and select the dodge tool, I use highlight and make sure opacity is set low! Go over all areas that need highlighted. For example my nose highlight got washed out, and so did the glitter/chromes on my lids. So I bumped those all up again. And voila. You are finished!

Final Product

Hope this simple little tutorial helps you all! Remember photoshop is also an art just like makeup , and photography, what you may not like doesn't mean you should shame others for their art. Spread love!

With All My Love

xoxo Megan

#photoshop #retouching #tutorial #makeup #beautyguru #beautyblog