Professional Photo Retouching Bikini Model

Download Bikini Model Shoot from SXC.hu. Open up the image in Photoshop. We will be editing this photo at its original size.
 
 
First thing we have to do is to hide all the unwanted dots/pimples around the face. Using the Clone Stamp tool, pick an area near a dot/pimple and clone that part to cover itself. Next thing is to smoothen the face. Using the Eyedropper tool, pick color on the face. With Brush tool, set the mode to Soft Round 50px and Opacity to 20%.
 
 
Create a new layer and start painting the skin smooth.
 
 
Let’s move on the smoothen the body. Duplicate the original model layer and rename it to "Surface Blur". Instead of airbrushing the entire body parts, go to Filter > Blur > Surface Blur. Set the Radius to 5 and Threshold to 20.
 
 
When we apply Surface Blur, the bikini and background got smoothened as well, which is what we do not want. So select the "Surface Blur" layer and apply Layer Mask to it. Invert the mask to black. Using the Brush tool with #FFFFFF, paint only to reveal the smoothed skin.
 
 
Now let us make the model stands out more from the background. Duplicate the original model layer and rename it to "Lens Blur". Select the duplicated layer and go to Filter > Blur > Lens Blur. Key in the settings as shown in the diagram below.
 
 
As the entire image are affected, we need to create a mask so only the background is blurred. Apply a Layer Mask to "Lens Blur" layer, then using Brush tool with #000000 to hide the model.
 
 
Duplicate the original model layer again. Rename the duplicated layer to "Soft Light". Rearrange this layer to be above all the other layers. Set its Blend Mode to Soft Light.
 
 
Create a Levels Adjustment Layer and key in values 15, 1.00, 255.
 
 
Create Brightness / Contrast Adjustment Layer and set the contrast to 10.
 
 
Create the Hue / Saturation Adjustment Layer and set the saturation to -5.
 
 
Create a Curves Adjustment Layer and adjust the Blue and Green curves to look similar to the ones below.
 
 
And we are done! This is a simple yet effective photo retouching tutorial. Hope you guys will like it.
 
I am Johnson Koh, a graphic and web designer in Singapore. Founded 10Steps.SG in August 2008 with the purpose to share my experiments and interesting design news.

62 Comments | Write a Comment

  1. Erma Whit says:

    Hello everybody. This blog was fantastic! Lots of terrific information and inspiration. Keep ‘em coming… you all do such an ideal job at writing… cannot let you know how much I, for one respect all you do!

  2. great tutorial .. thanks for the post

  3. Miles Guzon says:

    I wish I had found your site sooner. Just adding you to my feed reader now.

  4. Sandip says:

    Hmmm work became very easy right:D

  5. Hi, I wounder how you mask the hair. Its quiet difficult to mask the hair as it got many fine details. Any shortcuts for this?

    • David says:

      Use a tablet and use the brackets keys([ and ]) to change the size of your brush. Also when you make a mistake press x to change between background and foreground colors.

  6. sriganesh says:

    Learned new technique today ;)

  7. Luis Horacio Echeverry Molina says:

    Bendigo su creatividad, Muy buen trabajo, muy didactico pero no entiendo lo de start painting the skin smooth

    • David says:

      Se refiere a que simplemente pintes la piel con una brocha de opasidad al 20% usando el droplet tool(shorcut Alt) para escojer colores similares a la parte en la cual estás trabajando.

  8. tan says:

    ‘Create a new layer and start painting the skin smooth.’

    How do you do this?

    • David says:

      Just use a brush with an opacity of around 20% and using the droplet tool(shorcut Alt) to pick similar colors to the part that you’re working on and paint on the face

  9. jhoslin says:

    amazing tutoral, thanks very much

  10. Burt says:

    ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh muito rox, massa mermoooo karacaaa fikei impressionado nunka tinha vistu una coiza dessaa…………………..uUuHGhUhHUuHhuUuhUu

  11. Pro Retoucher says:

    I can see the blur using this technique. Don’t try to pull this off as professional.

    • A valid point, if you can see the blur, it isn’t professional. Don’t forget that in print corner-cutting is many times more visible, in a web sized image it’s more difficult to pick up on. If it is easy to spot in a web sized image, you’ve gone way too far.

      Danny
      Retouching and Digital Art

  12. Johnson Koh says:

    Nice one Ravi! I like the way you put it :D

  13. ravi_18 says:

    o gos……… I though they shoot photo like that………

    now i know behind every successful model there is a photoshop behind……..

  14. ben says:

    thanks,very well

  15. Doesn’t she look gorgeous, excellent work.

  16. ephoto says:

    Thanks for an interesting lesson. After skin degradation, not bad to add noise for structure restoration. I on a site have many lessons on a retouch

  17. Dolphin says:

    Skin tone is pretty unnatural, to my mind. Pretty yellowish, I’d say.
    Kudos for the work on skin texture, though.

  18. Scarze says:

    Great tutorial. Will come in very handy

  19. robb says:

    nicely explained.
    this is awesome.
    kudos for sharing.

    btw i’ll give surface blur a try, cos i never thought of that before until i read this.

  20. awesome effects for our training through tutorials :)

  21. Johnson Koh says:

    Thanks Markus for the explanation! ;)

  22. Markus says:

    @anonymous mike: you extend the layer mask just a little bit more than the image, ie. you unmask parts of the picture so that the “halo” effect that lens blur does disappears. Does that make sense?

  23. bikini says:

    excellent tutorial. i love , detailed step. Thank for this lovely tutorial.

  24. Matt says:

    I didn’t know about the surface blur – that is a great technique. Also didn’t think of the blue/green curves channel adjustment – that’s very clever too. Some nice little tips I’ve not thought of before.
    Great tutorial

  25. Abdullah says:

    impressive tutorials…

  26. anonymous mike says:

    when you do the lens blur won’t part of the girl be “blurred” into the background, so when you mask the girl, there will be a halo from her on the background? you can’t see this in your tiny web images, but I’m sure it is there. any ideas on how to avoid this issue?

  27. mjr. tom says:

    NICE tutorial, many thanks!

  28. Raghu says:

    that’s a great way of touching the photos. thanks dude.

  29. Johnson Koh says:

    Thank you my friends!

  30. that was a great retouching. Nice work as always Johnson :)

  31. I admire your work – great! I don’t know about body, but face looks a lot better! :)

  32. T-Law says:

    Great tutorial, have to try, thanks.

  33. Johnson Koh says:

    @photostar73 and e11world: Thanks for the pointers guys!

    @Bombchell and Bariski: Looking forward to your work :)

    @sadhu: Hey! How r u? The model is edged out briefly using the Brush tool in a Layer Mask. Check out the images with Surface blur and Lens Blur layers.

  34. Bariski says:

    Thanks bro, good tutorial indeed. Will try it later today.

  35. e11world says:

    Good tutorial! However, if you want to take this a step further to make it more hollywood like, you should push her waste in using any tool that you’re comfortable with. Even using the bloat tool to make her breast look bigger. I know it’s not right but that’s how most magazines and other photo touch ups work. Am I wrong?

  36. yay thanks I just learn something new. I think I’m in love with tutorials. will try this after the gym.

  37. sadhu says:

    how did u edge out the model?
    din see you mention about path…

  38. Steele says:

    this is excellent tutorial and will appeal to many people because everyone needs a little retouching ;)

  39. photostar73 says:

    very good tutorial! I want to say anyway that painting with the brush on the skin is very much destructive… I think this an operation to do with very much attention, and eventually work also on the leve transparency.
    A good work with hue/saturation on red and yellow will be useful.
    Thanks for the good tutorial!

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