GET THE BEST OUT OF YOUR RAW FILES

ACCELERATE YOUR RETOUCHING WORKFLOW WITH BEAUT Y RETOUCH

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B e t t e r
BEAUTY
RETOUCHING
Checklist
B Y J U L I A K U Z M E N K O M C K I M

For beauty, portrait & fashion photographers

 THE MAIN ELEMENTS
of Beauty Retouching
Success in Beauty Photography begins in the pre-capture stage with the correct
choice of model with appropriate skin condition and skillful makeup and lighting.

If you shoot and retouch your own images just like me, focus on developing your
photography and lighting skills first, and your post-production stage will become an
enjoyable artistic activity that elevates your images.

When it comes to Beauty Retouching, the following are the most important
elements that can make or break your retouching results:

BEFORE PHOTOSHOP®
Professional Setup .............................................................................................................. 3
Degree of Perfection.......................................................................................................... 4
Studying Vs Practicing ....................................................................................................... 6
Preparing Raw Files for Retouching ..................................................................................7

IN PHOTOSHOP®
Main Steps of Beauty Retouching in Photoshop®.......................................................... 8
Beauty Retouch v3.0 Panel to Accelerate Your Retouching Workflow........................ 9
Preparing Your Images for Output .................................................................................10

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 BEFORE PHOTOSHOP
Professional Setup
If your goal is to produce professional looking images, make sure your workspace
is professionally equipped. You cannot go far in retouching if you use a mouse
instead of a graphics tablet and don’t color-calibrate your monitor.

If you have seriously decided to take your retouching to

the next level, regardless of what computer and monitor
you choose to work on, you will increase your chances
at succeeding by replacing your mouse with a stylus and
ensuring your monitor is always color-calibrated.
Yes, a graphics tablet and a stylus - the real retouching tool
that you hold in your hand - are necessary if you want to
do it right.
Wacom® is the leading manufacturer of top-quality
devices for digital art and retouching since 1983. Even if
Retouching a closeup beauty shot
you are on a tight budget, you can begin with their entry
captured on Canon 5Ds on Cintiq®
level Intuos® Photo and upgrade to Intuos® Pro as 27QHD, by Julia Kuzmenko Mckim
soon as you begin charging for your photography and/or
retouching.

“The computer mouse was invented over

Color-calibrating your monitor is also absolutely necessary
as well. “As a Retoucher your monitor is your entryway
into a world of color and digital data. What you see on
your display is the only link that you have to what you’re
creating,” - read more: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Getting
Accurate Color on Your Monitor by Stephen Vosloo:
i1Display Pro by X-Rite® – best bang for your buck as
colorimeters go. You’ll be able to use this for many years
to come and its full feature set and accuracy makes it a
3 solid investment.
fifty years ago, and it has its limitations for
fast and precise artistic work. Think how
quickly and naturally you can sign your name
on paper with a pen and imagine doing the
same with a mouse. Click, drag, click, drag,
and in the end I’d be willing to bet in most
cases the result won’t be a flowing script, no
matter how beautiful your handwriting may
be...” Read more: So Do You Really Need A
Wacom Tablet For Retouching? by Daniel
Meadows.
 DEGREE
of Perfection
So, how do you know what to retouch and how much time to invest into
retouching an image? First, you need to identify the purpose of the image you’re
working on.

Invisible Retouching
BEAUTY PORTRAIT
According to Wikipedia: A  portrait is a
painting,  photograph  or other artistic
representation of a person, in which the face
and its expression is predominant. The intent
is to display the likeness,  personality, and
even the mood of the person. 
This means that your retouching should
be as natural as possible. You may soften
and minimize some aging signs and skin
imperfections, but the goal isn’t to make the
face flawless, rather to keep the subject’s
appearance as natural-looking and realistic as
possible.

COMMERCIAL & EDITORIAL BEAUTY

Commercial Beauty images are used to
advertise and sell a product or a service, such
as skin care products, cosmetics, beauty
supplies, hair styling products, perfumes,
jewelry and etc.  Oralia Cortes, Los Angeles-based commercial model and TV
actress. Makeup & Hair by Lupe Moreno, photographed at the
Beauty retouching for commercial purposes
one-on-one Photography and Retouching training for Jennifer
is about creating a perfect face, pristine skin, McIntyre. Lighting & retouching by Julia Kuzmenko McKim.
flawless makeup.

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 However, the more natural the resulting image
looks the higher quality of retouching it is
considered to be. Our job is to make the face,
skin and makeup look flawless while keeping
the retouching itself invisible.
These are general guidelines, but how
much you should retouch in each specific
job will depend on:
1. Your artistic style

The difference between Advertising and 2. Your client’s expectations

Editorial Beauty images is typically in their sole 3. The quality of the source material
purpose - while in Advertising Beauty the goal
4. Common viewer’s expectations as to
is simply to sell a product, Editorial imagery is
how perfect the details should be in a
all about an artistic expression and exploration
specific type of image in your country or
of beauty, makeup and cosmetics by creative
region
professionals, so the results do not have to be
as polished as in Advertising. 5. The output media
6. Your compensation for retouching work
Stay observant and take mental notes on what - per hour, per image, or included in your
degree of perfection is considered adequate photo shoot fee.
and is expected in types of photography you
are interested in.
Same as previous image
We often see absolutely flawless faces
in Celebrity and Advertising Beauty
photography, so retouching would be the
most time-consuming for these types of
images.

Fashion imagery is usually focused on

garments, accessories and styling. Often
faces in them are further away from the
camera and take up a smaller part of
the frame, thus they require less time
for retouching skin and makeup, given
everything was captured right in camera.

Read more in Retouching Guidelines &

Consideration by Brock McFadzean.

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 Studying Vs Practicing
Shift your focus from learning more new material
to actually practicing more. Practice is what
will make you a better retoucher, not knowing
dozens of tricky techniques that you may use
once in a blue moon.

Remember that most of retouching tasks in

beauty and portrait photography can be tackled
with the simple retouching tools and Dodge &
Burn technique alone.

There is no magic recipe.

Studying
Practicing

When you are starting out After you have learned the software and
the main retouching tools & techniques

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 PREPARING
Raw Files
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adjusting your image in a Raw Converter.

Regardless of what Raw Converter you
choose to work in, make sure you explore
its functions and possibilities.
The goal is to take a file (or a set of virtual
copies of the file) with perfectly defined
highlights, midtones and shadows as well
as pre-corrected colors to Photoshop®
for further retouching.
So, if you happened to slightly under-
or overexpose your shot, try to fix that
by using the Basic sliders in your Raw
Converter.
Export a few variations of your shot from
which you will be able to mask out the
“good” parts and combine them into one
perfect PSD base for your retouching.

ORIGINAL RAW CONVERSION FOR SKIN RAW CONVERSION FOR EYE MAKEUP

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 MAIN STEPS
of Beauty Retouching
1 BASIC CLEAN UP
Add a new layer and work with the Healing Brush and Clone Stamp tool removing
all of the smallest skin and makeup issues, as well as flyaway and stray hairs crossing
the face. Don’t rush, zoom in very close and work with very small brushes.

2 DODGE & BURN + COLOR CORRECTIONS

This is the main retouching technique that you need to master in order to
perform great skin retouching. At this stage, my recommendation will be the
opposite - don’t zoom in too close and too often, use middle size brushes as much
as possible and work while zoomed out more.
Train your eye to recognize correct skin tones, so you are able to adjust colors
in your images without having to rely on numbers. Keep an eye out for our
new Beauty Retouching video course where, among other things, we will cover
working with colors.

3 MAKEUP & HAIR RETOUCHING

Add new layers for each facial feature and hair that you need to correct and work
with very small brushes while zoomed in very close.
Check out our Beauty Retouch v3.0 panel and its Beauty: Face, Makeup & Hair
sections, which will streamline this part of your retouching workflow.
If all details are taken care of by your creative team before the images are
captured, this part of your post-production will be effortless and very quick.

4 SHAPES & FORMS

I try to avoid using the Liquify tool as much as possible. But when I absolutely
have to, I do it at the very end of my retouching, keep the changes very subtle
and compare the before and after stages very carefully.
If you are new to beauty retouching and visual arts in general, make sure to first
study human anatomy before you begin using the Liquify tool or global Dodging
& Burning to re-shape faces or bodies in your images.
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 SPEED UP
Your Retouching
Workflow
Whether you are a beginner Beauty retoucher or a seasoned
Portrait photographer - or anywhere in between - you will find
our Beauty Retouch v3.0 panel super helpful when it comes to
retouching human faces and bodies.
The reason why thousands of our users around the world are
raving about it is because we - the creators of these panels, being
successful retouchers ourselves - know exactly how to make
the lives of working retouchers and photographers easier by
developing and improving our useful scripts and techniques.

CONVENIENCE IN STYLE

Speed up your Beauty, Fashion & Portrait retouching workflow

& declutter your workspace by closing out all unnecessary
Photoshop® panels.

REPEATABLE
TOP-QUALITY RESULTS

Achieve accurate, repeatable, top-quality retouching results.

Increase the quality of your finished product. Impress your clients
and have them come back for more.

SUPPORT & ADDITIONAL

MATERIALS

Learn how to properly use the Panel scripts from our video tutorials
and the 24-page User Manual.

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 PREPARING
Your Images for Output

ALWAYS ASK YOUR CLIENT IF A SPECIFIC FILE FORMAT,

SIZE AND RESOLUTION ARE REQUIRED FOR THE FILES
YOU WILL SUBMIT. ASK BEFORE YOU BEGIN WORKING ON
THE IMAGES!

IF YOUR IMAGES ARE DESTINED FOR PRINT MAKE SURE

YOU WORK IN A BIGGER COLOR SPACE AND IN THE
COLOR MODE THAT IS REQUIRED BY THE PRINTING LAB
(OR MAGAZINE).

WHEN SAVING IMAGES FOR WEB, USE THE “SAVE FOR

WEB” OPTION ON BEAUTY RETOUCH V3.0 PANEL AND
SELECT FILE SIZES REQUIRED BY SPECIFIC SOCIAL MEDIA
FOR BEST VIEWING.

DOUBLE CHECK ACCEPTABLE FILE DIMENSIONS OF

THE IMAGES YOU ARE SUBMITTING (FOR EXAMPLE, PAGE
SIZE IN A MAGAZINE OR IMAGE DIMENSIONS OF A POST
ON INSTAGRAM) SO YOU HAVE FULL CONTROL OVER
THE CROP.

WHEN IN DOUBT REGARDING RESOLUTION, COLOR

MODES, IMAGE DIMENSIONS, ETC. ALWAYS ASK YOUR
CLIENT OR DOCTOR GOOGLE!

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 MASTERING BEAUTY RETOUCHING REALLY IS A LIFE-LONG
JOURNEY, JUST LIKE MASTERING PAINTING, DRAWING
AND PHOTOGRAPHY. EACH DAY AND WEEK THROUGH
REGULAR PRACTICE YOU WILL BECOME BETTER AT IT. AND
WITH GOOD MENTORING YOU WON’T HAVE TO WAIT TOO
LONG TILL YOU ARE HAPPY WITH YOUR OWN SKILLS.

KEEP THIS CHECKLIST HANDY AND PEEK AT IT EVERY NOW

AND THEN TO REGAIN YOUR PERSPECTIVE AND UNLOCK
YOUR CREATIVE RETOUCHING POTENTIAL.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BEAUTY PHOTOGRAPHY

AND RETOUCHING, JOIN OUR MASTER BEAUTY
PHOTOGRAPHY FACEBOOK GROUP AND KEEP AN EYE
OUT FOR UPCOMING ARTICLES AND VIDEOS ON THE
MASTER BEAUTY PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG.

YOURS TRULY,
JULIA KUZMENKO MCKIM

masterbeautyphotography.com instagram.com/juliakuzmenko

facebook.com/groups/MasterBeautyPhotography

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 DISCLAIMER & NOTICE OF RIGHTS

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By reading this checklist, you agree that we are not responsible for the successful or unsuccessful implementation
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Published by Paragonia West LLC, California

Copyright ©2016 Paragonia West LLC.

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