Retouch4all: December 2009

How to Digitally Paint Lipp gloss with a tablet

Post Teaser Image

This tutorial demonstrates how to use digital painting with a drawing tablet to create the illusion of lip gloss on bare lips. I use this technique frequently for retouching, and it’s a great digital painting exercise too!

Final Image Preview

Assets

This photo is from nokomai on stock.xchng. If you’d like to work with the original file, it’s located here. For this tutorial, I’ll be zooming in on the lips to show you the process.

Plumping the Lips

The sheen of lip gloss often gives the impression of plumper lips. To support this illusion, we’ll start by using the Liquify tool (Filter » Liquify). I set my brush size to 195px and select the Bloat tool from the left-hand menu in the dialog window. Then I single-click appoximately five times along the horizontal center of her her lower lip:

The result:

Colorizing the Lips

Colorizing the lips will help them appear moist and as if she is wearing a tinted gloss. I turn on size jitter (refer to my post on digital painting pressure settings if you’re not sure how), select a 30px brush, and pick a light red color (#c83a3a). I create a new layer and roughly paint over the lips.

To blend the color in, I set the Blend Mode for that layer to Soft Light. I also set the layer opacity to 50%.

Finally, I clean up the rough edges with a 100px eraser on 0% hardness. Since the eraser is so large, the edges are very soft—great for subtle blending. I carefully use the soft edge to erase the hard edges of the color. Notice the difference on the far left, far right, and bottom areas of the lips.

Adding Shine

This is the trickiest part!

Before I do anything else, I look at the lips and judge where my light source is. In this case, it appears to be coming from the top left, so I will paint my shine accordingly. If you’re unsure, it’s useful to have reference images.

When light hits a thin coat of lip gloss, it will catch all the little lines in the lips. Our first step is to highlight the more obvious of these lines.

To do so, I set my brush to 5px, white, with size jitter on. I use a series of short, up-and-down strokes to achieve a ‘tapered’ effect. So, for the below stroke, I brush up and down a few times until the middle is the desired thickness, then ‘flick’ my stylus upward so that it will taper on top. I repeat this to taper it on the bottom, too.

With one stroke complete, I proceed to add more strokes. Look for obvious creases in the lips, then place a stroke on the side of it that’s opposite that of your light source.

Next, I begin adding blocks of shine. These will be largest where the light is hitting, then become less obvious as you move away from the light source. I use a consistent up-and-down motion with a light touch to paint these blocks.

As you move away from the light source, the lighting will be less defined. To create a more scattered effect, I just began ‘dotting’ the color instead of painting in strokes.

Here I add some additional sheen on the upper lip. Again, the detail comes from simply ‘dotting’ color and using small, up-and-down strokes.

I reduce the opacity of my shine layer to 80%.

To add an additional reflection from non-direct light, I increase my brush size to 9px and keep the size jitter on. I create a new layer and reduce the opacity to 40%.

In the above image, you can see the natural grooves of the lips as they meet the area where her lips part. These will guide the shape you form.

Using small, circular strokes, I create a shape that is much more general than our first shine. The circular strokes should be most obvious near the grooves in the lips, where small Vs are formed atop the grooves and in-between your circle-strokes. (See image below.) The shape should generally cover any area that you included light, and taper off as it approaches the left and right sides of the mouth.

I use the same technique to add sheen to the top lip.

I reduce the opacity of the layer to 20%.

Final Image

Here’s our final image:

Applying Tattoos in 5 seconds

Step 1

Open a photo which you need to apply tattoo in photoshop as well as an open tattoo image too. The select tattoo image and drag it on a photo , So you will get a tattoo image on photo file .Place it properly.

Step 2

Under layer panel change blend mode .change it > normal to color.

Step 3

Right click on selected tattoo layer .Select blending options…> Go to color overlay.

Step 4

Under color overlay > change color red to black > change blend mode > Normal to Overlay > then click ok .

Step 5

Then Go to layer panel > change opacity 100% to 60 % . and change Fill 100 % to 85 %.

Achieve HDR Style Effects Using Photoshop and the Lucis Art Filter

Hey everybody! In this tutorial, I'll show you some great techniques to achieve HDR effects. There are a lot of different techniques out there, but I prefer to use this specific filter called LucisArt. Soon there will be a new and better release called Lucis Pro. Till then we'll use this one. You can buy it from their website or take the 30 days trial to test and see if you like it. Also, the filter is only available for Windows. The new Lucis Pro will also be available for MAC though.

Author: Constantin Potorac

I am a freelance designer living in Romania. I discovered the beauty of design a few years ago. Since then I have dedicated my time to becoming a great designer (work in progress)!

Part I - Applying HDR Styling to a Portrait Image

This tutorial has three parts. We'll review adding HDR styling to multiple types of images using the LucisArt filter. In this first part, we'll work on adding more interest with HDR styling to a portrait photo.

Final Image Preview for Part I

Before we get started with Part I, let's take a look at the image we'll be creating. Click the screenshot below to view the full-size image. As always, the layered Photoshop file is available via our PSDTUTS Plus membership.

Step 1

Open up your image in Photoshop. I'll start with a portrait image I shot.

Step 2

First thing you need to do is to duplicate the layer (J). Then go to Filter > Lucis > LucisArt. Here you will need to select the Sculpture option and set it to something like 30.

Step 3

Create a Layer Mask for this layer and fill it with black. This will hide all the effect. Then, take the brush (set to white) and draw over the man and the products he was selling. Leave the trees untouched.

Step 4

Next I will add a new adjustment layer. Select the curves from the drop-down menu.

Step 5

Now using a black brush, simply draw over the eyes. But do this into the mask that was automatically created. In a portrait it is important that the eyes are not covered by the shadow. They need to be visible.

Step 6

Next press Command + A to make a selection, go to Edit > Copy Merged, and again go to Edit > Paste. Then go to Filter > Lucis > LucisArt and this time select Exposure and set it to 60. Then set the Opacity to 50%.

Step 7

Press Command + A to make a selection over the entire image. Then again go to Edit > Copy Merged and Edit > Paste.

Step 8

Now that you have all the layers copied go to Image > Adjustments > Black And White and play with the settings there.

Step 9

Set the layer to Multiply and the Opacity to 40%.

Step 10

Now make a Layer Mask for this layer and erase some of this effect from the eyes using the Brush Tool (B), just as we did in Step 5.

Step 11

Next you need to press Command + A to make a selection. Then go to Edit > Copy Merged and Edit > Paste. Then go to Filter > Lucis > LucisArt and this time use Sculpture set to 20.

Step 12

Mask the layer and fill it with black. Now using a white brush, you'll need to make visible only a few parts of the image. You'll also need to decrease the opacity of the brush to create the effect gradually. I will try not to draw with the brush over the old man's skin.

Step 13

Next I want to make the image more detailed. Select the Levels setting from the Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer and set the right slider to left at 192.

Step 14

Fill the mask that was created automatically with black. Then with a small white brush set to a lower Opacity, draw over the beard, clothes, and some parts of the wood to lighten them up.

Conclusion of Part I

For this particular image you can maybe use some filters that help you smooth the skin, but I personally like it as it is. The final image is below and you can view the larger image here.

Part II - Applying HDR Styling to a Close-Up Image

Next we'll do another personal photograph that I actually love very much. This is macro photography. The image isn't perfect because I shot it very fast, as the ladybug was flying away.

Final Image Preview for Part II

Before we get started with Part II, let's take a look at the image we'll be creating. Click the screenshot below to view the full-size image. As always, the layered Photoshop file is available via our PSDTUTS Plus membership.