affinity photo I made the wife younger

[Scott Williams]

I wanted to do a little project to start to get the hang of Affinity Photo. So my long suffering wife of 30 years 'Deb' agreed to be the guinea pig for my first effort at making someone younger.

So this is a woman of 50+ made to look 40+.

 

 

I think it came out pretty good for a first attempt. The aim was to try to just take a few years off rather than do a beauty touch up.

 

I took the photo with my trusty little a6000 with the 16-50 kit lens.

 

Features of Affinity Photo used were..

 

Frequency separation.

In-Painting brush.

Patch tool.

Blur brush.

Smudge brush.

 

I'm really impressed with how Affinity Photo performed. I had no real problems apart from my lack of knowledge. And the fact that I had never done anything like this before.

 

Cheers -Scott.

[dayspringph]

Well done.  

[Kodiak]

•

 

 

Good start Scott!

 

One great feature of youth is a rather regular

complexion. I think your next step could possi-

bly be to tackle the skin tones.

 

From my experience, AP can do that pretty well

though the best skin tones results I got in the RAW

converter and do what you did in AP afterwards.

 

Keep rocking!

[Scott Williams]

Hey Kodiak. Thank you very much for the comments.

I think you are correct about the skin tones. I will use the excellent Capture One skin tools next time.

Reproducing that fresh younger skin look is a challenge, especially as my wife is a very fair skinned ginger.

 

It's a difficult job to erase years of laughing and drinking red wine :)

 

- Scott.

[Kodiak]

Hey Kodiak. Thank you very much for the comments.

 

Honestly, I didn't know should I or not do that comment

as I didn't know how it would be received… by you or the

forum. I am new here and, in a world of designers, I feared

to be out of place. Your reaction tells me I was wrong…

so thank you and welcome

 

I think you are correct about the skin tones. I will use the excellent Capture One skin tools next time.

Reproducing that fresh younger skin look is a challenge, especially as my wife is a very fair skinned ginger.- Scott.

 

Yes, C1 is my favourite tool as well but, as I suggested, AP

has a "uniformity" feature that is worth exploring, I think!

 

It's a difficult job to erase years of laughing and drinking red wine  :)

 

Which gives you the way to go:

• take care of the skin tones but
• don't dare touch the happiness!

:) :) ;)

[Aeros4]

A good effort and result.

[The Fine Art Place]

Just bought Affinity, and this is the first forum post I looked at.

 

And I must say you did a perfect job.  Some have a tendency to overdo things.  You didn't.  Job well done.

 

- Dan

[Richard S.]

The key to making skin smoothening / rejuvenation effects look realistic and professional, is to not become over-zealous.

A lot of people when doing these kind of edits remove every single blemish, wrinkle, mole, pimple etc. and the end result usually looks like the person has had their skin pinned to the back of their head with an industrial sized G clamp :)

 

Less is more - especially when doing this kind of edit.

 

You did a good job, well done.

[Scott Williams]

Thanks guys.

 

I would like to be doing flattering portraits. It would be nice to make people look as good as possible without anyone realising it is processed.

 

-scott

[Richard S.]

Been doing these kind of touchups for many years, so here are a couple more tips (if you're interested):

 

Whitening the sclera (white parts) of the eyes, and also the teeth, can often improve a portrait. Masking those 2 areas and then desaturating them is a good basic way of achieving that.

Once again, not too much though. Having eyes which look like 2 cue balls, and teeth which look like piano keys, can look edited :)

 

Shiny skin can also often be improved by either:

 

A. Burning (with low opacity) the area containing the specular highlights (shiny parts) - this is ok for small areas where burning will match the tone of the surrounding areas of skin.

B. Creating a luminosity mask, and then darkening that area (the more professional way of achieving this).

 

Hope this helps.

[Scott Williams]

Been doing these kind of touchups for many years, so here are a couple more tips (if you're interested):

 

Whitening the sclera (white parts) of the eyes, and also the teeth, can often improve a portrait. Masking those 2 areas and then desaturating them is a good basic way of achieving that.

Once again, not too much though. Having eyes which look like 2 cue balls, and teeth which look like piano keys, can look edited :)

 

Shiny skin can also often be improved by either burning with low opacity the area containing the specular highlights (shiny parts), or, by creating a luminosity mask, and then darkening that area.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you very much for the tips. I will use them on my next attempt.

 

To me the burn brush in Affinity Photo is broken. Or not very well implemented. It is impossible to burn the shadows without bringing down the highlights too. I tried it against Photoshop and even Gimp. it is not right.

 

Cheers. Scott.

[ORJ]

Wonderful, in my opinion!

 

Örjan