Live Retouching with Taylor Brumfield
Taylor will use intermediate level techniques to retouch and refine one of her own beauty photos. Her workflow is as follows: Open the photo in Photoshop. Usually she will have imported it from Lightroom where she does all of her culling and basic white balancing. She then will have drag-and-dropped the color grading from the rest of the set onto this photo so that the entire set can be cohesive. This is where she will begin her video after having done those steps. She addresses any areas that require use of the “liquify” tool. She evens out any lip lines, shadows, and hairlines as well as minor adjustments to the overall form and shape of the model. She will then create “Frequency Separation” layers to begin her retouching. Although she expedites her workflow with the ‘Ultimate Retouch Panel” to create her layers , any Frequency Separation technique will suffice for her work. Within these Frequency Separation layers she will use clone stamp and mixer brush to refine the textures and colors within the photo. She will also use the paintbrush to color on blank layers and define the makeup on the model. As well as “Dodge and Burn” layers to add contrast and definition in the highlights and shadows of the photo. Of course her workflow is fluid and adaptive, so if she feels the need, she may utilize other tools depending on the requirements of the individual photo. She will explain why it is better to address textures and color with individual tools as opposed to “blurring techniques” such as lassoing combined with Gaussian Blur or Median, which can often muddle colors and destroy the natural textures in the skin. After having refined the skin, she will demonstrate how she prefers to sharpen her photos and use layer masks to add definition.
Takeaways :
- How to Use Frequency Separation in a Way Which Maintains Textures and Color Definition
- Mixer Brush and Clone Stamp Techniques
- Dodge and Burn for Detail Correction and Overall Contrast
- Smart Sharpen and the Use of Layer Masks
Your Instructor
Taylor Brumfield is a photographer and retoucher based out of Central Virginia. After beginning her photography career after graduating from Florida State University, and then moving to Maryland and finally landing in Virginia, Taylor realized her passion lay in beauty photography. Her goal while shooting and retouching is to maintain texture and to allow the true natural beauty of her models skin tones to shine through even after post production has been conducted. She has a firm belief that a natural and clean retouch includes the natural textures, gradients and depths of the models skin. She is a staunch and steadfast advocate for photographers and models of color as well as LGBTQIA+ individuals in the fashion and beauty industries and spends much of her time actively working to make these spaces more inclusive and inviting as well as teaching methods of shooting and retouching that cater specifically to these communities.