Frequency Separation – Skin Retouching Photoshop Tutorial

In today’s video, I’m going to give you a Look into my frequency separation process and show you how I separate texture and color so that I can manipulate them separately, In Photoshop. Frequency Separation is widely used for skin retouching in photoshop. Frequency separation, skin retouching photoshop tutorial.

In today’s video, I’m gonna give you a look into my frequency separation process and show you how to separate texture and color so that I can manipulate them separately in Photoshop. So here we are in Photoshop and we’re gonna start off with this image. And this image was the ending point of the video on blemish removal. So we’re gonna start here in our frequency separation. In the link in the description, I’m going to provide you with a free action for frequency separation, the original image that I first started out with, and this image here, which is what we’re gonna start today, that has blemish removal layers in it. So I encourage you to download the action.

How to Install Frequency Separation Action – Skin Retouching Photoshop

Just in case you want to know how to install it, I’m gonna come up here to Actions, and right here on this menu I’m gonna click and come down here to Load Actions. I’m going to go to where my action is on my file system, say Open and there it is.

How to Run The Frequency Separation Action

And we’re gonna start off, because this is a 16-bit file. You know that because up here, it will tell you in the file name. And also, if you come up here to Image, Mode, it’ll say 16 Bits Per Channel. So we’re gonna select the frequency separation 16 bit and press Play Selection, and I’m going to blur here. This is the Gaussian Blur prompt here, but you can see there’s still some skin texture here. So what you want, you want to increase the radius until you don’t see any skin texture. And I’m gonna go to 30, let’s say and say OK. Here are the frequency separation layers that the action created. So we have your high frequency, which is made up of the textures of your image. And the low-frequency layer here is made up of your colors of your image. So frequency separation works by separating those frequencies out. It allows us to smooth out the skin transitions. We can also work on texture as far as blemishes, but the main aim is to work on the smoothing of the skin, the actual blending of the areas of the skin, where there’s lighter spots and darker spots together, and you want to smooth those transitions. Skin Retouching Photoshop.

How to Zoom in Zoom Out

So for frequency separation, you’re gonna wanna work zoomed out a little bit. Whereas when we were working on blemishes, we would zoom in, but you’re gonna wanna zoom out. So again, if you press your Command or Control and hit the Spacebar and you drag, that is one way to zoom in and zoom out. You can hit Command + Plus and Command + Minus to zoom out that way, but you’re gonna wanna work a little bit more zoomed out, so when you’re smoothing out the skin, you’re not changing the shape of the face, you have an overview of how it’s looking. Skin Retouching Photoshop.

Plan your Work – Skin Retouching Photoshop

First, you wanna get an idea of the areas we’re gonna work on. We’re gonna work on areas where there’s a transition, like here, there’s darker spots right here. Just areas where you can see where you need to smooth out the transition between light and dark spots on the skin. So these are the areas that you might focus on. I just made a little demonstration layer here that I’m drawing on just to give me an idea of how I might want to plan, just gives me a general idea of where I need to smooth out things. I need to work on this area here. So that’s the first thing, get a plan. So that’s what we’re gonna do first, we’re going to work on the transitions. Skin Retouching Photoshop.

Using The Brush Tool To Smooth The Skin

And we can do that with the Brush tool. First, I’m going to make a new layer in between the high frequency and low-frequency layers. This is the layer that I will be working on using the Brush tool to smooth out the skin and those transitions. Now you can make as many of these layers as you want. You can make a layer for the nose, just for the cheeks, and separate it out that way so it’s easier to go back and make corrections or redo things you may need to do. We’re gonna use the Brush tool. We want a soft round brush and we want it very soft actually. And we want our opacity to be 100, but our Flow is gonna be the key here. We want to build up the effect, so we should use a very low Flow when we’re working with smoothing out the skin. In our case, we might want to have our Flow really low, maybe between 3, 4, 5% just to start off with. We can change it anytime, but I recommend starting at say, 3% and then building up the effect slow. So I’m gonna change my Flow 3%. So again, B for the Brush tool, I’m gonna use my left and right arrow bracket to make my brush bigger or smaller. You can also hold down Control + Alt or Option, drag right or left to make your brush larger and smaller, and drag up and down, which will make your brush harder or softer. So I kinda wanna work on this area right here, make your brush large enough that it covers a good area. Hold Alt or Option to sample and you brush and alternate into different areas. So see, I’m clicking above right here, clicking into the darker spot, clicking above, clicking in. So I’m sampling areas in and around the spot to try and blend it in. And here, you could see, it’s slowly doing it. There’s before and there’s after. And you want to zoom out a little bit so you can see it better. There’s before and there’s the after, so it’s a buildup. You wanna do it all at once and you want to stay zoomed out ’cause you wanna see how the image has been changed. And again, you can move around, make my brush a little bit bigger and we are trying to blend in these tones so that there’s not as much transition between say, here, this darker spot and this lighter spot. So the technique is to sample and paint, Alt or Option to sample, paint with a low Flow, and just keep on working on it and moving around. And for these big areas, make sure that you try and resize your brush, trying to blend as you go. So this is the first technique we’re using. You can even go in areas where there’s not too much of a transition. You just wanna use this technique to kind of smooth the skin just by sampling and painting.

I’m gonna make another layer, another blank layer, and I’m going to call this Cheek so that I know I’m working right here. So you just keep going at it. This is where you get your music going, you relax, have fun at it. Hey, if you’re getting value out of this so far hit that like button. And you just sample and paint, all of this smoothing the skin. And by having your own layer over here, say, I’m on the cheek layer. I can go back to it if I need to use the Eraser tool to refine something and you get the idea of the technique. And you would go to other parts of the body too. You can go into the hands, the rest of the face and just keep working at it. And yes, it’s a slow process, but I say it’s relaxing. The fun part of retouching. Keep your Flow low. Some people like to change it a lot. I like to keep it low and it’s starting to blend in those transitions and just keep working at it. When you turn these layers on and off, you could see how this is working. Just keep on sampling to blend. So I’m gonna keep on working here with the Brush tool, trying to even everything out. Just keep sampling on both sides of the transitions. Like I say, you can make as many layers as you want in between the high frequency and low frequency, changing your brush size, sampling and painting, and you get the idea of this. And it’s really good to try and maintain the shape or the highlights that are already in the image. Unless you want a lot of work, I wouldn’t get rid of all of these spots or these highlights and reconstruct everything. Just follow the highlights and shadows as they were photographed if possible, unless somebody else is telling you to work on it a different way. So I’m gonna work on this a little bit more and come back.

So some of the things to keep in mind when you’re using the Brush tool: Keep your, up here, your eyedropper. Make sure that the sample size is something like 11 by 11. B for the Brush tool, make sure you’re using a soft round brush. Use your opacity at 100. Your Flow, keep it low, say 3%. You’re always painting on a layer in between the high frequency and low frequency. You can add as many layers as you want, name them so that you have certain areas that you’re working on. And you can go back and make any changes, use the Eraser tool to remove some of the areas and then paint over it. Work zoomed out so that you can see any of the differences in technique. Use Alt or Option to sample. Have your brush size big enough for the area and paint and sample as you go. And just work slowly and keep on blending. Let me know in the comments if you use frequency separation.

Use Clone Stamp On HF Layer – Skin Retouching Photoshop

Now to refine texture, you can use the Clone Stamp tool on the high frequency layer. So high frequency layer is where all the textures at, and just like for removing blemishes before. S for the Clone Stamp tool. Make sure that your sample is on current layer, and use your Flow accordingly. So there are some areas here I might want to try and use the Clone Stamp to take care of some of this texture. So again, I’m on the high frequency layer. My sample is current. So Alt or Option to sample and I’m taking care of some of these areas where I didn’t quite like how the texture was working. So again, I’m sampling near the area where I want the texture, and taking care of some of these areas where I feel they could benefit from some clone stamping. So you can still go back and make those changes to refine any of the areas where blemishes or skin texture isn’t quite how you want it. There’s this area up here where I might just want to take some of those lines out, a little bit anyway. So I’m gonna take my Flow down, sample and just see how it looks. Just smooth them out a little bit, and I don’t wanna take them out completely. So something like that. I’d have my Flow in about 34 to take care of these areas. So again, pan around, see if there’s any areas that you want to refine, the texture, whether it be blemishes, or areas of color that needs to be blended in. You can actually use the Clone Stamp to do that. Because remember, the Clone Stamp makes a exact copy. So I don’t see any other areas that I want to do any refining with the Clone Stamp, but you can go back and refine those areas where you feel like the texture needs to be changed or you see a blemish that you didn’t quite get to before. Up until now, we’ve used the Brush tool to smooth the skin with a blank layer in between the high frequency and low frequency layers. And we’ve also used the Clone Stamp on the high frequency layer to get any textures that we want to take care of any blending of textures and color, any blemishes.

How to use the Blur Method – Skin Retouching Photoshop

And now we’re gonna use another method and it’s a blurring method, and that is to further smooth transitions. So in order to use this method, click on the low-frequency layer and we’re going to use the Lasso tool. So that’s L for the Lasso tool. And one thing, what you’d wanna check is to make sure that this selection is feathered enough. So if I say Q, you can see that this selection here is feathered. Up here at the top, the feather is at 18.6. So you wanna make sure that it’s not a hard edge. Press Q to undo that. So now we have our selection feathered and we’re on the low-frequency layer. Hit Command + J to make a copy of that selection. And now come up here to Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur, and I’m gonna make this blur something like 40, say OK. So again, the technique for blurring is your Lasso tool. Make a selection around an area that you wanna blend. Hit Q just to make sure that it looks like it’s nice and feathered. If not, you can adjust the feather for the Lasso tool. Then, copy that layer, Command + J, come up here to Filter, Blur, Gaussian Blur, and just say OK, and merge that back together, Command + E. So that is the process for blurring. And as I say, you can go to the image, you can use Shift + Command + F to redo the Gaussian blur that you already set, and just go through the image and blend everything that you want back into the low frequency. So I’m gonna zoom out a little bit, and I’m gonna show you the before and the after. Skin Retouching Photoshop.

See my photography website here 👉 https://www.charlescabreraphotography.com

Previous article on blemish removal here 👉 https://charlescabrera.com/skin-retouching-photoshop-tutorial/