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Boudoir & Portrait Retouching Workflow for Photographers

Marko Smiljanic

Retouching adds personal touch and breathes life into photos, and it doesn't have to be a slow and tedious grind. This course aims to save you time, spark your passion, and help you create outstanding portraits, by showing you an entire retouching workflow, perfected over 10 years of active work both as a professional boudoir photographer and retoucher.

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Retouching adds personal touch and breathes life into photos, and it doesn't have to be a slow and tedious grind. This course aims to save you time, spark your passion, and help you create outstanding portraits, by showing you an entire retouching workflow, perfected over 10 years of active work both as a professional boudoir photographer and retoucher.

Complete start-to-finish retouching guide will teach you:

  • RAW Photo Editing - Color Stylisation & Grading, Color Contrast

  • Efficient Skin Retouch Basics & Tools - Smooth Skin and Preserve Detail

  • Advanced Frequency Separation & Mixer Brush Made Simple.

  • Thinking Outside the Box and Creative Ways of Using Tools and Techniques

  • Finding the Most Time Efficient Methods

  • Adding Depth and Dimension using 3 Types of Dodge and Burn

  • Master Subject Separation, Guiding Attention, Boosting Detail

  • Create Atmosphere and Ambience in Your Photos.

  • Learn to Analyze Photos, and Squeeze the Last Drop of Color Contrast

  • Sharpen and Optimize Your Photo for Publishing.

Having spent most of my recent years offering private education, I've noticed a growing trend of photographers reaching out to me with some basic knowledge, that's more often than not, a confusing mess of 'half baked' information, techniques and advice picked up from various Youtube channels. All this in most cases causes total confusion, stress, wasted time, poorly retouched photos, eventually leading to loss of passion and love for this beautiful art and craft.

This course is my best effort to date, to demystify retouching, bring clarity, simplicity and fun into the process many photographers struggle with, allowing you to explore what truly matters - your creativity, efficiently and stress free.

By the end of this course, you will understand where color harmonies are being created, how to post process your RAW file and pull the most out of the RAW data, how to retouch skin for any kind of professional publication or commercial work, how to add depth and dimension to your photos, making the color pop, and creating the sought after subject separation, famously known as the ''3D effect''

Contents and Overview

3 hours of study content and follow along material, covering the way from the initial color stylisation and Lightroom/Camera RAW setup, to a high end professionally retouched photo that could be printed or published. For your convenience, the course is divided into 7 chapters, all starting with a discussion and analysis of our goals, followed by the in depth explanation of the tools we're going to be usingThe course is going to be focusing on non destructive retouching techniques, that are the high end industry standard, explained in a simple, beginner friendly way, A significant portion of the course focuses on color work, that is besides skin work, another key factor that makes a photo stand out. The 7 chapters of the course are: 

Chapter I — Color Correction and GradingChapter II — Basic Skin WorkChapter III — Advanced Skin RetouchChapter IV — Dodge and Burn Chapter V — Detail Enhancement Chapter VI — Plugins and AtmosphereChapter VII — Final Color Correction

You will also receivea RAW file used in the lesson, for practice, or if you wish to follow alongTwo Action Packs, there to help you save tremendous amount of timePhotoshop Workspace Presets to help organize your workspacePortrait Retouching Checklist - with everything you need to look at and analyze Dodge and Burn guides and examples

I would add that the methods and techniques you will find here are universal and you can apply them to all kinds of portrait photography (high end beauty, newborn, elopement, studio, neon, outdoor, family, boudoir, lifestyle, glamour, nightlife, commercial, couple, fine art, business…)

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What's inside

Learning objectives

  • Boudoir photo retouching
  • Portrait photo retouching
  • Color grading and color correction
  • Advanced skin retouching techniques
  • Dodging and burning
  • Light shaping
  • Skin retouching
  • Adding depth and dimension to photos
  • Adding atmosphere to photos

Syllabus

Hello everyone! Check this video to see what I can teach you about and what will you be able to do once you complete the course!
Introduction
You will be able to analyze the color present in your shot, find color harmonies and create subject separation with nothing but color! I will show you how to correctly setup your programs as well!
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Full start-to-finish walkthrough of the coloring and stylization process of an indoor portrait shot via Lightroom/Camera RAW, with complete explanation on Lightroom setup and panels and how we can use them to create subject separation with color.

This will also serve as the analysis of colors present in a raw file and a discussion on finding color harmonies that we can implement. Also included is a quick start to finish edit of an outdoor shot with before and after comparisons.

You will learn how to save time by working efficiently with various tools and layer masks. We'll cover patch tool and fade technique, transparent layer, clone stamp, history brush, body shaping etc.

Before covering the select few skin retouching tools, I will also show you some tips on working efficiently within Photoshop. We will cover the retouching actions I use every day to save time, the many functions of layer masks, the right way to use clone stamp tool, the combination of patch tool and fade technique, the transparent layer and how I use it to fix color, body shaping using liquify, and how you can creatively use the history brush.

You will finally master Frequency Separation the correct way! I will teach you how to use Mixer Brush and Fade technique to compiment your FS Retouch, smoothing skin and leaving ample texture!

Frequency Separation, the holy grail of skin retouch — the technique many speak of, yet so few master.

If it’s bad retouch, there is a 90% chance someone didn’t understand how actually retouching using this technique should be done. This lessons chapter aims to alleviate the stress and show you a correct, professional and, trust me, the easiest way to do it! Most YT teachers never mention the Mixer Brush or Patch Tool Fade techniques when working with Frequency Separation. I will tell you all about it and how you will preserve all that skin detail while giving your image a high end polished look. All of the photos I’ve ever retouched were done this way!

You will be able to add depth and dimension to your photos using 3 Dodge and Burn Methods. I will show you how to contour face and body and enhance body features with nothing but light!

This tutorial breaks down 3 types of Dodge and Burn techniques in a beginner-friendly manner:

the Global D & B, Local D & B and Micro D & B. All 3 are used to add depth and dimension to your image, creating the famous subject separation, commonly known as the ''3D effect''. I will teach you how to contour the body and face like the makeup artists do, shaping light to enhance certain features of the people on your photos.

The techniques taught can be applied to any portrait shot (daytime / nighttime / neon / indoor, outdoor, etc.) even to your landscape photos!

You will be able to guide attention within your frame, enhance the color, boost the detail clarity, whiten eyes and teeth, correct redness, draw color and light, using the non destructive methods.

This chapter deals with a variety of techniques I use to deliberately guide attention within the frame. This is also going to be a part in which we’ll be covering various adjustment layers and various non destructive methods. We’ll take a deeper dive into time saving actions I’ve provided you with, learning how to enhance color, boost the detail clarity, whiten eyes and teeth, correct redness, draw color and light where needed etc.

You will learn about some Plugins used to create atmosphere and draw your viewers and clients into your shots. This is where you personalize your photos and separate yourself from the competition.

Although this is not a chapter that deals with skin retouching, I’ve decided to include it as a bonus, for those of you wishing to add another dimension to your photos — the ambience!

We will cover a select list of plugins that I frequently use to give my photos the extra ''spice''.

You will be able to squeeze that last drop of color contrast, and finish your color stylisation process. You will learn to analyze your photo using the Checklist, sharpen it and prepare for export!

The final chapter aims to help you, squeezing that last drop of color contrast out of your photo using two methods. This will give an image the final look, enhance the retouch applied and color contrast we’ve been working hard on. We will also take a look at the Retouching Checklist I’ve provided you with, analyzing and looking for all the places we can improve our retouch upon. In the end I will teach you a quick way to sharpen your photos and prepare it for export.

Good to know

Know what's good
, what to watch for
, and possible dealbreakers
Teaches skills and knowledge that are used every day across a diverse range of professions in the visual arts and commercial photography fields, making this course highly relevant to the industry
Taught by Marko Smiljanic, a professional boudoir photographer and retoucher, recognized for his work in the visual arts
Offers a complete end-to-end course studying the core skills, techniques, and tools used in the field of portrait retouching across a multitude of specializations and genres
Covers a diverse range of essential topics in the field of photo editting and photo manipulation used in many industries
Offers unique perspectives on familiar techniques used in portrait retouching, which may add color to professional photographer's understanding of the field
Aimed at experienced photographers, as the course explicitly requires a working knowledge of essential digital photo editing techniques

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Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in Boudoir & Portrait Retouching Workflow for Photographers with these activities:
Review skin anatomy
Understanding the structure and function of the skin will help you better understand how to retouch it.
Show steps
  • Read a book or article about skin anatomy.
  • Watch a video about skin anatomy.
  • Take a quiz about skin anatomy.
Practice by applying Frequency Separation to photos
Practice Frequency Separation, an essential skin retouching technique, to improve your sharpening skills and ensure your photos look their best.
Show steps
  • Select a photo with skin that requires retouching.
  • Open the photo and create a Frequency Separation layer.
  • Refine the mask using the Frequency Separation tool.
  • Adjust the settings of the Frequency Separation layer to smooth the skin while preserving details.
  • Save the retouched photo.
Show all two activities

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