John Hall Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 I have been using Affinity for just a couple of days, I would like to know how I can improve this picture. One is before the other is after. What method is best to use on the skin to make it stand out and be more professional? Please advise. Lily.afphoto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Callum Posted January 22, 2019 Staff Share Posted January 22, 2019 Hi John, Welcome to the forums I recommend watching our below video tutorial on Photo retouching. Thanks Callum Quote Please tag me using @ in your reply so I can be sure to respond ASAP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 22, 2019 Share Posted January 22, 2019 See: Nature Portrait Portrait Retouching Workflow - YouTube / Vimeo General overview the tutorials which show how certain tools, filters ... etc. can be used: Official Affinity Photo (Desktop) Video Tutorials Usually I would start and go this way ... Check and fine tune the image white balance, exposer (highlights, contrast etc.), if cropping maybe gives a better image section etc. Since the background is distracting here, either cutting here out and placing onto a better one, or fixing that available background (make all beige etc.) Then start concentrating on the face of the lady, using the healing tools to slightly remove reflective shine, little blemishes etc. Next I would slightly smooth her skin, just a little bit, so things look still natural and not porcelain doll like. (Frequency separation can help here) For portraits it's always good to give then some define on the eyes, the eyebrows and mouth, hair etc. so they look to be focused, especially the eyes here. (Finetuning) If needed apply some sharpening, to either certain areas or the whole. What ever needed to make it a better looking portrait ... Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hall Posted January 22, 2019 Author Share Posted January 22, 2019 Many thanks for your feed back this is very useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hall Posted January 22, 2019 Author Share Posted January 22, 2019 2 hours ago, Callum said: Hi John, Welcome to the forums I recommend watching our below video tutorial on Photo retouching. https://youtu.be/c9AiofPpKGw Thanks Callum Many thanks this video was very useful and is a great help. Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carl123 Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 This is what PortraitPro (a Photoshop plugin) does to your image. It has automated controls to modify everything from eye/hair colour, mouth/nose shaping, teeth whitening, total face shaping, skin smoothing, lighting, etc, etc, etc. By analysing what it thinks makes your image better you can try to find the individual techniques/videos to do the same manually in Affinity Photo Quote To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 Reminds me to Perfect365, which is FB/Instagram girls favorite and thus probably not what you want! Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff MEB Posted January 23, 2019 Staff Share Posted January 23, 2019 The problem of using plugins as these is they artificialise the images too much if not used carefully/properly. Not sure they provide the best reference for portrait retouching. hifred 1 Quote A Guide to Learning Affinity Software | Affinity Quick Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 A quick manual go in 4 minutes with some of the above named steps ... Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hifred Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 35 minutes ago, MEB said: The problem of using [facial retouching] plugins as these is they artificialise the images [...] Yup. There's likely no software genre on earth whose marketing works worse for me. It's exactly inverse – I always prefer the unprocessed version of their samples. I'd pay for not having to use their products. Quote [Poll] Do you need a DAM? And what should it be like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 I haven't seen any app which does perform a good and right balance here, they mostly all overdo things to an extreme, so that the final results look often highly faked. - Personally I always prefer to use some own macros for portrait works, which gives more control to what to apply where and to what degree. Further if the model has been styled (make up, hair etc.) and is well lit & shot, you don't need to manipulate much at all here. Just a little bit define and sharpness here and there and that's it. Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carl123 Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 As with anything in life you can pay top dollar for a professional to retouch your portrait photo for anything from £60 to £120 pounds. But when your clients have 150 portraits they need retouching most don't want to pay £9000 to £18000 to get the job done. So by using a plug-in with batch processing facilities and quoting £10 per image that's an easy £1500 for me for 10 minutes work. And a very happy client. If you plan on becoming one of the top 10% of professional retouchers then don't use plug-ins and learn the hard way but if you are someone that has a business to run and wants to make a very easy profit now and again don't dismiss using plug-ins to get the job done. Old school thinking on the "correct" way to do something will put a lot of people out of business due to the advances in today's technology and the incredibly cheap professional work you can get done via the Internet in places such as India. Embrace the future, embrace change, embrace profit. emmrecs01 1 Quote To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 You can do so much with plugins, but the one thing a plugin can't do is take a decent image, fixing the skin is one step but getting rid of that background is another step to fixing this image. Ultimately learn to take better images. Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hifred Posted January 23, 2019 Share Posted January 23, 2019 3 hours ago, carl123 said: So by using a plug-in with batch processing facilities and quoting £10 per image that's an easy £1500 for me for 10 minutes work There's no way one can make a good deal, when automated processing makes images worse than they were before :o) I don't want to offend you and your work but I usually find this the case (talking of showcase images of dedicated retouching programs/plugins). Quote [Poll] Do you need a DAM? And what should it be like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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