Video Demo: Retouching Portrait Photography Using a Photoshop Quick Action

Video Demo: Retouching Portrait Photography Using a Photoshop Quick Action

This video is a recording of our live Photoshop demo with photo retoucher Kristina Sherk of SharkPixel.com. Kristina walks us through her time-saving Photoshop action that creates the adjustment layers and edits she uses for high-end portrait retouching. The material covered is meant for intermediate Photoshop users who are looking to streamline and bring consistency to their retouching workflow.

Note: This video is best viewed in full screen (click the arrows in the bottom right corner of the video) and after an introduction, Kristina starts her demo at the 6:35 mark.

Kristina has made this quick action for Photoshop available for download!

Instructions to download the action

Please use these instructions to download and install the action. If you have any questions, please contact Kristina.

Mac users

1. Right click on this link.

2. Select “Save Link As”.

3. Find the .zip file in your Downloads folder.

4. Double click the file to unzip it, and save the correct version (CS5 or CS6) somewhere you’ll remember.

5. Open Photoshop and click on the little arrow button on the top right corner of the Actions palette and select “Load action”.

6. Look for the .atn file you just saved when the pop up file browser comes up.

7. Once you’ve found the file, select “Open”.

PC users

1. Press the “Control” key on your keyboard and then click this link.

2. Select “download linked file”.

3. Find the .zip file in your Downloads folder.

4. Double click the file to unzip it, and save the correct version (CS5 or CS6) somewhere you’ll remember.

5. Open Photoshop and click on the little arrow button on the top right corner of the Actions palette and select “Load action”.

6. Look for the .atn file you just saved when the pop up file browser comes up.

7. Once you’ve found the file, select “Load”.

Using the action

In Photoshop CS6, the action should select the Skin Tones automatically. After you run the action, edit each of the new layers as Kristina outlines in the video. The Photoshop CS5 is slightly different. Since the Skin Tones options doesn’t exist in the Select -> Color Range menu, Kristina chose to select “highlights” from the Select -> Color Range menu. This might not work as well for subjects with darker skin – if this is the case, simply use the  Eye Dropper tool to select the color range that works for your subject.

Check out Kristina’s Fashion Retouching DVD for more tips!

In this intensive video training, you’ll discover the techniques that Kristina uses in post production for fashion and advertising photography. The video contains over 5 hours of brand new sharp video.

Use the promo code “sheltercafe” and save 20%!

Get the DVD here: www.photoshopcafe.com/video/products/Fashion_Retouching.htm

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There are 17 comments for this article
  1. Pingback: Retouching Portraits in Photoshop
  2. Stuey at 9:24 am

    Really good workflow. Have downloaded the Actions and had a go on a fashion shoot image. The technique works really well and is very flexible. Thanks soooo much Kristina, this will save me a lot of retouch time.

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  4. Ray Hocker at 3:47 pm

    Thanks Kristina! Really helpful tool. I’ve been doing most of these steps for several years but never thought to build an action to automate and prepare the image this way.

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  6. Cathy at 9:03 pm

    The action itself is quite good, thanks. But the video is… amateurish… You should really have a plan and manuscript, now the IT part of it. Speak clearly and much faster and much less! One hour with nothing really said. What I would have like to know more is how to use the action in real life, how to do the masking wisely etc.

    This was a real anti-commercial to Sherk’s DVD, I would never buy it after suffering with this one hour badly done video. Sorry, but that is how I felt. But as said, I will use the action, thanks for that!

  7. Pingback: Professional Development – Retouching with Kristina Sherk
  8. Photoshop Freebies at 4:54 pm

    Excellent tutorial on retouching and thanks for the free actions Kristina! This was a great in depth tutorial chock-full of tips on both portrait retouching as well as creating actions. I thought you might want to know that your tutorial was featured on the front page of downloadphotoshop.ca today.

  9. Pingback: Time Saving Photo Retouching Actions • Download Photoshop Freebies
  10. Pingback: Retouching portraits - webinar - Photography for improvers
  11. Manaj Bisht at 6:20 am

    To improve retouching workflow designer have to consider background color, brightness and path. I am 10 year experienced graphic designer and worked for image retouching, masking and clipping path. A great art skill is required for natural photo editing. Designer should keep mind eyebrow, hair style and face color. You should add some related object to decorate photo environment.

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  13. jon loomer at 2:43 am

    Kristina, Thanks for your excellent post. Thanks for sharing photo retouching tutorial. I have some confusion before watching this video. Now all confusion has been gone.

  14. Mark Williams at 7:43 am

    Kristina, Nice content but don’t you agree with me that in this age people mostly like visualization more than reading text. I visited many blogs and good images always attract me. As a professional photographer of the clipping world – a professional clipping path service provider company in the USA.

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