A well-thought out strategy for any given retouching
task is always preferable to a lot of fiddling and mess-
Not all screen views are good for retouching. 100% is al-
ways the best judging view, as it is the only true view of the
pixels. But 100% may not always be the most practical work-
ing view, and you may work at 50%, 200%, 400% etc. Notice
that theres a pattern to these views, and that views like 600%
or 66.7% are not mentioned. This is because the odd cached
proxy views tend to scramble the view of the pixels on screen.
Start with getting the colours as clean and correct as pos-
sible, but leave the creative colour work for later. This really
sharpens the image and will reveal all the flaws, so they wont
come as a surprise later. Clean up any dust and scratches, so
you can get on with the creative work without having to in-
terrupt the flow with general cleaning. If the subject is quite
bright, make a (removable) contrasty adjustment layer, which
will reveal any flaws in the image, and more importantly, any
flaws introduced in the retouching.
Over-retouching is the most common mistake, and the art of
retouching is to make it seem perfect but natural. Its the many
small things that come together to make an image great. Its
not necessarily the big dramatic move that makes perfection.
Make a retouching plan on a separate blank layer, and stick to
it. Retouching on a duplicate layer lets you turn it off to view
the original below. Of course, it also gives you a safety net.
Work editably and give yourself a safety-net in every situa-
tion. Use Snapshots, Layers, History Brush and use Layer-Masks
instead of Eraser. If you have many small layers that together
form a compositional element (e.g. an eye or a building) con-
sider joining them together in a Group. A Layer Group can also
be masked off, so that youre in effect masking off several lay-
ers together. Its easy to generate too many Layers, and to lose
track of them. It also helps to name the Layers. Whatever you
do, always bear in mind that each element should be revers-
ible without too much trouble.
Even if you work with Layers, the History Brush can provide
an additional safety net when embarking on some tricky work
with the Clone Stamp tool and Healing Brush. Mark the His-
tory Source box of the present history state before you start
cloning, and use the History Brush tool to reverse it exactly
where it went wrong, or to reduce its effect in areas. Snap-
shots are a good way of marking the progression of a retouch-
ing task, and can be referred to as History Sources. Click on
gry garness 2007 www.grygarness.com All rights reserved. No unauthorized copying or reproduction of this tutorial or its content.
ing about. Good retouching requires clever thinking and
planning, more than elbow grease. The more techniques
you know, the better you can choose between them,
and make decisions that will save time as well as giv-
ing a more optimal, even result. This is not a how-to
tutorial, but provides some essential ground rules for
retouching. For my eBook DIGITAL RETOUCHING FOR
FASHION, BEAUTY AND PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY on
www.grygarness.com/downloads.htm The book is priced
at 18.50 and is one of the most comprehensive re-
touching manuals on the market.
www.grygarness.com/photoshop/traininfo.htm
the Snapshot button in the History Palette at every significant
stage in the process (but dont go completely wild, as it takes
up memory). When using the History Brush, you have to make
sure youre on the right layer a layer that existed when you
took the Snapshot youre borrowing from. The History Brush
wont work if the Layer or image has been transformed or re-
sized.
Work in 16-bit at your peril for complex retouching tasks,
especially on big images. Yes, 16-bit may be ideal, but it actu-
ally matters most at the stage where you do the major colour
correction. In a complex retouching scenario, the file size will
often increase five-fold when you include all the Layers, Al-
phachannels and Layer-Masks. A normal file that starts out at
8-bit 50 mb will easily grow to 250 mb. In 16-bit the image
layers will be twice as heavy but its the Adjustment Layers
and their masks that make a huge difference in file size.
Large soft brushes are much softer and have a much bigger
fall-off than small brushes of the same (per se) softness. If you
have a soft brush and you want to mask into a pointy crevice
or corner, dont attempt to change the brush size to fit into it.
Instead, keep the same size brush, and paint over the crevice.
Then paint off the overspill with the opposite brush colour.
Use the Gradient Tool for masking in/out colour corrections,
creating smooth blends between comped layers, nothing can
beat it. It paints smoother than any user, and used cleverly, is a
great time-saver. The second Gradient which uses Foreground
to Transparency, will let you drag several times in different di-
rections without canceling out the previous ones.
Master the Pen Tool, and make Paths which can be used
as selections or to stroke or mask. For cutting out subjects that
cannot be extracted with plugins or masked because the colour
is too similar, nothing beats a clean well-defined Path. A Path
can also be Stroked with any of the painting tools. Great for
anything where you need an even coverage along a line and
your hand just isnt steady enough!
When comping, make sure that the sources for the differ-
ent elements are as similar as possible in quality, with similar
amounts of noise, resolution and sharpness. If its too dissimi-
lar, it can be hard to rectify later. You generally have to match
the inferior quality elements in noise and sharpness.
This is a PDF document. Its compatible with Adobe MORE FREE TUTORIALS
Reader 6 and newer versions, but will display best in Actions free tutorial
Adobe Reader 8. Get the latest Adobe Reader 8 (free) at Masking free tutorial
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/ This new reader Sharpening free tutorial
is hugely improved, with a nice clean interface. Did you Pen Tool Paths free tutorial
know that you can get the Adobe Reader to read the Black & White in RGB free tutorial
tutorials out loud while you work in Photoshop? Monochrome optimization free tutorial
Local Colour Correction free tutorial
You got this tutorial from Raw Workflow CS3 free tutorial
www.grygarness.com/downloads.htm Raw Workflow CS2 free tutorial
If you have a website, feel free to link to this page.

If you found this useful, you may also be interested in
the following, published by Eureka Imaging Publications:
Essential Color Management
A 50-page comprehensive resource full
of practical advice, for all of those who
cant take the mind-numbing science
but need to get their head around color
management. Price 6.50
10 tips on Beauty Retouching free tutorial
10 tips on PS Colour Optimization free tutorial
10 tips on Compositing free tutorial
10 tips on PS Efficiency free tutorial
10 tips on Sharpening free tutorial
10 tips on Layers free tutorial
10 tips on Selections free tutorial
10 tips on Retouching free tutorial
10 tips on Web Preparation free tutorial

http://www.grygarness.com/downloads/preview_
cm_fox.htm
Essential Color Optimization
If you have enjoyed the free tips and tutorials, please make it
known on online forums you participate in, and if you have
your own website or blog, feel free to link to the homepage
www.grygarness.com

A 110-page manual that explains all

the things you need to know about the
core Photoshop color commands. The
step-by-step tutorials follow a natural
progression, so you can advance your
skills gradually. Price 9.50

http://www.grygarness.com/downloads/preview_
c_opt_fox.htm

Digital Retouching for Fashion

Beauty and Portrait Photography

An inspiring 190-page retouching

book aimed at photo professionals.
The book can be read and used almost
like a cookbook, with a mix of in-depth
retouching concepts and step-by-step
tutorials. Price 18.50

http://www.grygarness.com/downloads/preview_
ret_fox.htm

Gry Garness reserves the right to withdraw any of the tutorials from the site at any time, and does not in any way guarantee their availability. All
rights reserved. By downloading you agree to honour the Copyright.