Retouching Skin Using Photoshop or After Effects

Whether or not you're using Beauty Box, our plugin for skin retouching, there are some important things to consider when doing any retouching of someone's face, particularly women. Here are 5 Tips to help you get better results:

Tip 1: Why Use Makeup?

Learn how and why makeup is used! For women retouchers they may seem obvious, but for guys, at least those who didn't steal their sister's Seventeen and Cosmo magazines, it's _really_ important to understand makeup if you're going to be a good retoucher. For video, it's a bit less important, but for retouching still photography it helps to become a makeup artist. Need help? Here are some resources:

Software Cinema has a great training DVD on digital makeup and skin retouching by Jane Conner-ziser. For Photoshop artists I would start here, it goes over makeup basics and how to apply it in Photoshop. Really awesome, focused training.

Katrin Eismann's book Restoration & Retouching is an excellent book on the subject. However, it doesn't talk too much about makeup.

Sign up for our 3 part PDF article on the basics of Beauty Makeup. It's free and will give you a basic understanding of Makeup written by a Makeup artist that works on video and photography!. The x indicates a REQUIRED field.

Makeup Makeovers book by Robert Jones

For the art of real makeup, there's a few books that may lend some insights: Making Faces by Kevyn Aucion, Makeup Makeovers by Robert Jones, and the Bobbi Brown Makeup Manual. While all of these books are focused on techniques for applying makeup (so you might not read them cover to cover unless you're an aspiring drag queen), they offer insights into the how and why makeup is used. They are also helpful in knowing how to apply makeup in a natural way vs. turning someone into a fashionista.

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