Skin Retouching – Frequency Separation Technique
Level: Intermediate
Here`s a simple skin retouching technique called Frequency Separation, which I use in Beauty, Fashion & Portrait photography retouching. It’s relatively quick and easy to grasp. Start with a softer Healing Brush on the Low Frequency layer to fix deep wrinkles and uneven, bumpy skin, and use a harder Healing Brush to fix skin texture imperfections on the High Frequency layer.
DOWNLOAD my FREE Frequency Separation technique Action here.
To manually add the High & Low Frequency layers follow these steps:
1. Make sure your image is in 16 bit/channel mode.
2. Create two copies of your working layer.
3. Group them and name the top layer High Frequency (this layer will only contain texture) and the bottom layer Low Frequency (this layer will only contain colors & tones).
4. Turn the High Frequency layer visibility off and apply Gaussian Blur filter to the Low Frequency layer (Radius: 4.0-5.0 pixels, only colors and tones are visible, no details).
5. Now select the High Frequency layer and turn its visibility back on.
6. Go to Image > Apply Image and choose the following settings:
Source – the name of the file you are working on,
Layer – Low Frequency,
Invert – check,
Blending Mode – Add,
Opacity – 100%,
Scale – 2,
Offset – 0.
Click Ok to move on.
7. Change the High Frequency layer Blending Mode to Linear Light.
8. Pick up the Healing Brush Tool and set it to Sample from Current Layer.
9. Start with Low Frequency layer to even out skin tones, and then move on to the High Frequency layer to finish up the stubborn blemishes on the texture layer. Make sure your Healing Brush is set to Sample from Current Layer when working on either of these layers.
Frequency Separation Technique in action:
Check out my blog post Experimenting With Skin Retouching Techniques: Frequency Separation in 25 minutes on how quick and efficient the Frequency Separation technique is (+ retouching time lapse video).
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- A Little Experiment With Skin Retouching Techniques: Frequency Separation | Omaha Image Productions - [...] and see all pros and cons of both.Today I am sharing a short video of a quick beauty retouch ...
- Useful Blogs From The Past – Beauty Retouching & Photography | Omaha Image Productions Blog - [...] & Retouching - I am giving away my Beauty & Portrait photography Essential actions in here!Skin Retouching – Frequency Separation ...
- Experimenting With Skin Retouching Techniques: Frequency Separation in 25 minutes | Omaha Image Productions Blog - [...] and figure out advantages and disadvantages of both techniques.You can find a step-by-step Frequency Separation technique tutorial here, or download the set ...
- Free Action Download – Frequency Separation Skin Retouching Technique | Omaha Image Productions Blog - [...] Separation technique Photoshop Action here.Read more about the Frequency Separation technique here.Watch a retouching video Frequency Separation in 25 minutes ...
- How to Retouch Portraits Without Losing Skin Texture with Frequency Separation | Slade Knowledge Base - [...] Kuzmenko McKim has a great text-based tutorial as well, titled, “Skin Retouching – Frequency Separation Technique.” Her page also ...
- How to Retouch Portraits Without Losing Skin Texture with Frequency Separation « talkvisual - [...] retouching while maintaining most of the natural skin texture! read the entire article @ omahaimageproductions.com Share → [...]
- Skin Retouching – Frequency Separation Technique | Khaled Noor Photography Blog - [...] Kuzmenko McKim has a great tutorial as well, “Skin Retouching – Frequency Separation Technique” there you can see the ...
- Smoothing Skin and Surfaces with the Frequency Separation Technique | Learning DSLR - [...] going any further, have a look at some interactive before and after images posted by Julia Kuzmenko McKim. Once ...
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Thank you for sharing this! Can’t explain how happy I am to learn this. Thanks for improving my retouching!
My pleasure Keith! I will be sharing much more stuff that I know – feel free to sign up for the newsletter (on the right hand side at the top of the page), so you don’t miss the goodies
Ahh… just did.
Definitely looking forward to your next blog posts!
Well done!
Stay tuned!
I’m prepping for a photo shoot and video tutorial that we’re filming and shooting today
You are amazinggg! thanks for sharing your knowledge, i’m from Venezuela. So you have a fan here. haha
kisses!
Thank you Natascha! That means so much to me
Simply timeless technique and magical results, love your sense of artistic eye
Thank you Amr
Thanks for sharing! Amazing!
this is amazing and thanks for sharing!…but at the same time this is kinda scary, do you usually change a person’s appearance this much? it just seems so..deceiving and unrealistic. reminds me of what magazines to to celebrities to give people false ideas about what they look like :/
I know Olivia, and yes, I do a lot of retouching when needed. Not always, of course. I know about this constant debate, but I also know how cruel camera is and how it (even with flawless lighting) can make someone very pretty in reality look not so pretty in 2-dimensional still images. And you’d be surprised how many clients come to me exactly because of what I do in post-production. And if my clients are happy about what I do with their pictures (and I make sure they always are) – I am happy with what I do too
can you teach us 3 layers of separation technique ??
Sorry, Ahsan, I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no such thing as “3 layers of separation technique” or I am just not aware of it.