Digital photography is big today. Many people love to go for face-retouching, which helps to correct minor imperfections and enhance facial features. However, when handled carelessly or overdone, retouched portraits can look quite unnatural. Your skin can look plastic. Also, you may end up looking cartoonish. That is not how it should be. The objective of retouching is not distortion but subtle enhancement.
Today, there is a rise of user-friendly editing apps like RetouchMe, Adobe Lightroom and Facetune. With these applications, almost anybody can try editing own photos. Here are some common mistakes that you should avoid during face-retouching, so that you can get natural looking results.
Avoid The Skin-Smoothing Trap
You will definitely like to have clear, radiant skin in your photos. However, excessive skin-smoothing can lead to unnatural results. When you push the sliders of apps like Lightroom or Facetune too far, you can get a flat, plastic-like skin finish. Anyone can say that you have edited your photos.
As a beginner, you might end up ignoring areas that have more texture naturally – such as the region around the mouth or the forehead. Also, if you blur out highlights and natural shadows, you can be at risk of changing the natural dimension of your face.
Thus, you should use skin-smoothing with moderation. Try to even out your skin tone and reduce blemishes, with no sacrifice of the skin texture. In Lightroom, you can apply localized adjustments whereas in Facetune, you can adjust the smoothing level and always compare with the actual image.
After you retouch, try to add back some skin texture using a “texture” brush or a soft grain brush. In this way, you can maintain your natural skin appearance – especially when you have to share your photographs on high-resolution platforms.
Avoid Disproportionate Facial Features
Try not to change your facial proportions so much, as to make them look unrealistic. You might like to look perfect with plump lips, slimmed down nose or bigger eyes. However, if you do that excessively, it can disrupt your facial harmony and make you look like an extra-terrestrial for sure.
You can use apps like RetouchMe and Facetune for sculpting your face. However, it is important to be subtle with the changes. You should only use liquify sliders or healing brush of Lightroom while correcting camera distortion or small asymmetries.
According to experts, it is best to stick to the “10% rule” while changing your features. Do not try to change any facial element by over 10% of its natural shape or size. This will make the final outcome look like yourself.
Do Not Ignore The Fine Details
If you ignore the finer details, you will not be successful with retouching – even with balanced features and perfect skin. Neglecting these details can lead to inconsistencies and unnatural transitions. For example, there could be lighting mismatches, skin tone variations, accessories standing out sharply in an otherwise clean photo, hard edges between unretouched and retouched areas and so on.
You can find adjustment brushes and advanced masking tools in apps like Lightroom, which can ensure consistent results throughout your photos. Do not forget to zoom in and out regularly, while editing. Before you finalize, always view your image on multiple screen sizes.
Expert Retouching Guide: A Step-by-Step Workflow
While editing faces, professional photographers usually follow a structured workflow. Take a look at how you can retouch yourself like an expert and emerge with the best results:
- Start with simple corrections. You can begin with any raw editor, such as Lightroom. For an overall polished image, adjust exposure, contrast and white balance.
- Next you should focus on removing blemishes. Try to remove temporary blemishes with a healing brush, without damaging your skin texture.
- Following this, you should even out your skin tone. Use localized adjustment brushes lightly, for balancing any discoloration or redness.
- Use subtle smoothing to reduce wrinkles or harsh lines sparingly. Take care not to erase every pore on your skin.
- Focus on enhancing your features. Define eyebrows, enhance the lashes and brighten your eyes a little, without overexaggeration.
- For a uniform appearance, apply a preset or cohesive tone. You can find customizable portrait presets in Lightroom for subtle enhancement of your skin tones. In this way, you have to finalize with your color grading.
All things done, you should review and compare the results. Toggle between before-and-after views to make sure that you look absolutely natural in the final outcome.
Final Thoughts
Whether you are a content creator, a photographer or just an individual who wants to polish a selfie, you should prioritize authenticity over perfection. Keep in mind that you should try to retouch subtly and try to enhance what is already beautiful in you, without sacrificing individuality. When you use face-editing apps and filters properly, you can actually get a fantastic portrait that looks great and most of all, genuine.
