Skin retouching plays an important part in the editing process of portrait photography. It enhances the subject’s look and gets rid of any imperfections, such as blemishes or uneven skin tone. There are different retouching techniques we can use and they often vary among photographers, as each has its unique style and approach.
In this tutorial, we will focus on one of the techniques, frequency separation, using Photoshop. This method allows us to separate the image into high and low frequency layers so that we can retouch any imperfections while still preserving the natural texture and tone of the skin. It’s a great tool; however, it should be used cautiously. One common mistake is to overdo the retouching and smooth the skin out too much, which results in an unnatural, almost plastic-like appearance. Finding that sweet spot can be a challenge but with practice, it becomes intuitive. Our main goal is to preserve a natural appearance, so we’ll begin our tutorial by learning how to set up frequency separation layers and then carry out skin retouching using different tools.
