Before & After

Here's a Before & After shot from a session I did last week. I thought some of you might be interested in the steps I take when processing most portrait photographs. I picked a very basic close-up image and mostly did face retouching.

I always shoot in Raw, sort through images in Bridge (some prefer Lightroom), and then do all my editing in Camera Raw and Photoshop.

So here's what I did to this image:

Brighten skin tones - duplicate layer, select soft light in drop down, reduce opacity
Smooth skin - Create a layer mask then use surface and smart blur to brush over skin (start small)
Remove fine lines - cloning tool at very low opacity
Remove blemishes - patch tool
Whiten teeth - Create layer mask and then brush over teeth with soft white brush
Make eyes pop - select eye area and sharpen

Hope this helps!