All language subtitles for 8. Final touches - Liquifying, Sharpening, Film grain

Okay.

Now I will show you the final steps I take

in editing a photo to ensure

it has excellent quality and looks great when viewed.

Sometimes there is a need

for subtle adjustments to the model's silhouette or clothing,

and especially in photos taken from a distance

where we can see the entire pose of our model.

This is not as common with portraits, but it's still worth

knowing how we can enhance our photos subtly.

For this we will use the liquify filter.

To do this, we need a layer

with our entire edited photo flattened.

So we will use the shortcut.

Command and control it again.

This will create a stamped layer with our photo

and us convert this layer

into a smart object.

Right over here with the right click

so that our

edits will be in the form of a filter, allowing us to change it

and improve the settings at any time.

Okay. We have our smart object.

Now we go to the liquify filter

right up here,

or we can use the shortcut shift command X

to access it.

This opens a window with all the tools for editing the shape of the face,

eyes, nose, the silhouette, and more.

I suggest not

using the options under the face aware liquify tab, which recognize the face

and allow us to make adjustments to the eyes,

nose, lips or face shape

using sliders like that.

This method can easily overly change

the model's face and make things worse instead of better.

So it's much better to use

the basic tools in this case and trust your hand.

Remembering to only edit what

you truly consider necessary and making very subtle movements.

Be careful not to artificially distort

the eyes nose or other facial elements.

It's easy to go overboard at this stage, so I will show you

only one or two tools that I use if I really need to.

My main tool is the push left tool,

which is located under the O Key.

First and foremost, we start by adjusting the density,

a setting to a level below ten.

Six, for example, is fine, the pressure setting to no more than ten.

Two We can control the brush size just like a normal brush

with the shortcut command out and dragging the stylus left or right.

This tool works in such a way that when we move it in a certain

direction, the edge along which we draw moves to the left or right, up or down.

Take a look at here.

I'm drawing upward and gently, pushing the hairline

to decrease its volume.

Drawing downward

increases it

like so.

This way we can subtly adjust the shape of the face

from this side.

Drawing downwards will

move the edge to the right.

Or we can slightly evened out the hairline

with subtle movements like that.

We can also gently pull in the nostril

here with few movements like that

to reduce the size of the nose.

And the second tool

is a bit more precise and can have a stronger impact.

So you need to be careful with it even more.

It's called forward Warp Tool Shortcut W

And with this tool we simply move

pixels in a way like smudging them

so we can use it, for example,

to elongate the model snake by gently

moving downward like so

here.

Also, the density and pressure and rates should be very low,

not to not to overdo things like that.

I can push this down.

This, this tool works by pushing pixels in the direction

you move it like that.

We can check the before and after states of our edits

using the slider under the reconstruct button.

So we can

check before and after.

Okay.

If we notice that we've gone too far, somewhere

we can use the reconstruct tool which is over here

under the shortcut, our.

This tool selectively restores

the pre edit state in that particular area.

Like maybe right here. Okay.

We can click okay and confirm our edit.

And now you can see that

our liquify edits are in the form of smart filters.

By double clicking on the label,

we can revisit and further added them.

All the edits are

reversible and we can preview them

using the reconstruct button.

Okay.

All right.

So we have a before and after.

Now let's add sharpening layer to our photo.

Again, we will need a flattened layer

on top of all other layers.

Press the command alt shift e shortcut to create it.

We can also convert it to a smart object

so that our settings

are reversible and editable.

We go to the filter tab, choose other

and help us.

Here we can zoom in

to 100% with comment one.

We aim for low ranges here to avoid oversharpening.

The photo, which never looks good around

two pixels, is usually fine.

The goal is to have the detail as we care about

up here

in our preview like here, and we will control the strength

of this effect using the layers, blending mode and opacity.

So let's leave it at 1.6 click okay

and we can change the blending mode to,

let's say overlay and let's see the before

and after.

Zoom out a bit and have a look again.

If we feel it's too sharp and the photo looks unnatural,

we can change the blending mode to soft light

or decrease the layers.

Opacity.

Okay.

See, the hair around the model's face are a bit sharper.

We have some details in the eye

and on the lips as well.

I think this level is okay

and the last step in

our work will be adding a subtle grain

to make the photo more visually pleasing,

less digital looking, and further enhance tonal transitions.

I recommend this as a final touch to elevate the visual value of your work.

We can

create the grain using the noise filter,

which is over here,

but we have to add it to a gray

layer above all of the other layers.

Create the layer in the same way we created the dudgeon burn layer.

So while holding the alt key, we create a new layer,

change its mode to soft light

and fill it with 50% gray.

Click okay.

Now let's add the noise filter.

We go to the filter tab,

select noise and add noise.

Here I recommend

using Gaussian and monochromatic.

Let's zoom in to 100% see our noise.

Choose a value that is not too high to avoid

overdoing it like that.

We just want to simulate a subtle film grain

and around this range should be fine.

Click. Okay.

Our noise is obviously

currently very sharp and digital looking,

so we will want to blur it to make it softer.

We go to the Blur filters, select

Goshen Blur and set the radius to the minimum value

that still allows the grain to be visible, but not too pronounced.

So maybe around one pixel for

this example should be okay.

And now we have our grain.

See how nicely it blends

with the background in the face, creating a more cohesive look.

We can further play with the blending modes and opacity.

For example,

linear light will give us a very pronounced grain with a cool analog

like contrast, but it's obviously too, too harsh and too strong

so we can decrease the layers.

Opacity

like so,

and we will achieve a nice analog grain.

Let's see

before and after.

Yeah, I think this looks very cool.

And actually with this step we finished working on our photo.

Don't forget to save it.

Come on this and exported

to the desired format

using the save us function.

All right,

let's compare what we've done

with our base imported photo.

Hold the alt key and click the AI icon next to the background layer.

That's our before

and that's our after.

Well, I think it looks quite good.

And with just a few simple

tools, we've brought our photo to a level that could easily be

printed in a fashion magazine or used in an advertisements.

If at this point you notice something that doesn't appeal to

you still, such as the color grading or whatever,

you can still refine it from a fresh perspective.

I see that we have too much cyan in our photo, so I will remove it

with a color balance adjustment layer and let's see what happens.

So let's remove cyan and a bit red,

maybe add a bit of blue to

so it's not that green.

Yeah, that, that looks better to my eye at this point.

And I also feel that this photo can still benefit

from further brightening.

So I'll add a curves

adjustment layer and gently lighten it.

All right,

that's it.

The workflow I've shown you is reliable

in most cases and applicable to most photos you will work on.

I hope you've learned a lot and these lessons will be valuable in your work.

Making it fast and enjoyable without unnecessary complications

or fancy techniques.

As a professional retoucher who has worked on campaigns

for top brands and editorials for major magazines for many years,

I always stick to the steps

I've shown you and I've never been disappointed.

Thanks for watching. Bye.