Skin retouching is the technique which can be done by dodging and burning tools as well as by frequency separation in photoshop. An well written tutorial can make it easy to do this retouching by following some easy guidelines.

1. Photoshop Tutorial- Skin Retouching Technique
Photo retouching tutorial with frequency separation, burn and dodge tools
in Photoshop:
Today we are going to learn how to do a basic skin retouching technique by
using dodging and burning tools, as well as frequency separation. You may find
that when you first try it, it does not look very impressive. Once you get some
practice in, you will find that you can use an image retouching technique to
retouch a face in just a few short minutes. Remember though, this is a basic
Photoshop tutorial, not an advanced one, which will come later. You want to
create a natural look, yet maintain a smooth, natural skin appearance and
texture.
The following sections will explain how to retouching portrait in
Photoshop.
Open the image and the background layer:
In this skin retouching tutorial, the first thing you will do, is the frequency
separation. In order to do that you will need to open the image and the
background layer.

2. Create 2 duplicate layers:
Next, you will need to create 2 duplicate layers of the background by right
clicking on the background layer. The 1st layer will need to be renamed, “to
color”. The 2nd layer will be called, “to texture”.

3. Isolating the color on one layer:
What you will be doing is isolating the color on one layer, and the texture is
isolated on the other layer. So then on the color layer you would go to
filter/blur/Gaussian and blur.

4. Now you want to increase the radius until you observe the colors mixing
together, I am selecting 15 for this image. Next hit “OK,” when you are finished.
Isolating the texture on the other layer:
Next, go to the texture layer, and go to image/apply image. Then you will need to
select your color layer, as you are simply adding the texture back, set your off
limit scale to 2, and offset to 128, and hit OK.

5. Then select your blending mode set it to linear light.
Applying clone stamp tool in the color layer:
Then in the next part of the Photoshop tutorial, you will begin with the color
layer. You would start with the clone stamp. Opacity and flow are set roughly
from 30-50%.

6. Select an area underneath the eyes, as that seems to make a huge difference, and
clone color from the upper part of the cheekbone as it seems to be lighter there,
and bring that up to just under the eyes. Lighten the skin there on both sides
under the eyes. It is often helpful if you make and extra copy of the background
layer and see the different of before and after image.
Then you would want to lighten a bit on the side of the nose to remove any dark
shadows there. Use the tool to lighten at the bottom of the nose, as many people
have redness there. So basically you would retouch different parts of the face to
remove lines, bumps, shadows and redness, and general lightening of the skin.

7. Applying clone stamp tool in the texture layer to remove spots:
Next you will move on to the texture layer. Here you want to use the same clone
stamp tool. Just simply go over the face, and find the obvious blemishes, selecting
the clear area and dragging them to the spots area of skin. If you find any redness
remaining, just go back to the color clone and remove it as before.

9. You can also use the clone stamp tool to clean up any stray hairs or eyebrow
hairs if you choose. I like to remove any fine lines around the mouth area, or
creases under the lips too.

10. Dodging and Burning:
This next area of the portrait retouching tutorial covers how to use the dodging
and burning tools.
Open a new layer, click on soft light and fill width, set at 50%.
You will need 2 of those layers. One named “dodge,” and other named “burn.”
Here you will be using the dodge tool and the burn tool.
Click on exposure of 50% for each one. With these you can paint with pretty
much any color, white, black, blue, or others.
Applying dodge tool in dodge layer:
Start out around the eye areas, or in the eyes like the iris, under the brows, by
the brow bone. You need to consider areas that a girl would use makeup for,
lightening uneven skin tones, remove blemishes, etc. Finish any areas that need
brightened, (nose, cheeks or eyes).

11. Applying burn tool in burn layer:
Use the burn tool to darken the eyebrows a bit. You can also darken the outer
corner of the eye, and give the impression that it is lifted just a bit. This can be
useful if you have someone who is squinting a bit, or has droopy eyes. The burn
tool can also be used to add definition to the cheekbones. You can also darken
the eyeliner a little.

12. Now you can do a new layer, set to soft light. Just use the black paintbrush and
create extra eyeliner if you wish. If you over do or smudge the lines, you can
always clean it up with the eraser tool. You can even add an eye shadow color, lip
and check color if you wish, some people really like that effect.
See the different in the bellow image.

13. So there you have it, how to do retouching portraits in Photoshop, using the
frequency separation, and the burn and dodge tools. You will find that these
work very well for portraits and photos of faces as well as other areas. Hope you
have enjoyed this portrait retouching tutorial and have a better understanding
of basic skin retouching in Photoshop.
This tutorial is published on
http://www.clippingpathindia.com/blog/2014/05/28/photoshop-tutorial-skin-
retouching-technique/
About the author:
Rokaiya Yeasmin Munni
Graphic Designer, SEO Specialist and Deputy Manager
(Marketing Division)
At Outsource Experts Ltd, which is the mother company of
Clipping Path India