The Amazing Power of Frequency Separation Retouching in Photoshop

today I'm going to show you the amazing power of frequency separation retouching in Photoshop hey guys and welcome to phlearn my name is Aaron NACE and you can find me on phlearn comm where we make learning photoshop & photography fun we had a really amazing episode for you guys this is a retouching episode and we're showing you a special trick it's called frequency separation and if you're big in Photoshop you probably heard about this recently and people are like oh frequency separation show me show me show me it's a really cool technique basically the whole idea behind frequency is separation it's a big fancy word but what it does is it's basically a way of taking the textures that are on an image and in this case we're using a face this is a lot of time this technique can be done for retouching so it's going to take your textures and it's going to put those on one layer and then it's going to take like the tone and the shadows and the colors and things like that and it's going to put those on a different layer so when you're retouching you can just work on the textures or you can just work on the stuff underneath now it's really nice because if you need to get rid of like blotchiness or skin redness or like light and dark areas things like that that's when you work on the underneath area if you need to get rid of like little like wrinkles and fine lines things like that that's when you work on the texture area so I'm going to show you guys how to make this in Photoshop and it's going to get a little bit complicated but don't worry if it's too much for you we've actually created a free action it's available on Florin com you guys can just go download it hit the play button and then you'll be rocking some frequency separation retouching in Photoshop alright let's get into our image so the image we're working on today I photographed a couple of years ago this was part of a bird series that I did and we're just going to zoom in so you guys can kind of see what we're working with alright this is what we're working with we've got skin texture in this image so you can see all these little dimples and pores and things like that and a lot of people when they think of retouching they think of oh I got to get rid of all this stuff well that's actually not true you don't want to get rid of your skin texture because that's what makes the images interesting and it makes them look a lot more realistic so what we're going to do is try to work under that on the blotchiness and like the inconsistency with colors and highlights and shadows things like that and that's where frequency separation comes into play so here's what we're doing this is a really cool technique basically what you want to do is start on your background layer and create a couple different copies of it so I'm gonna hit command J twice alright we've got this layer we're going to make invisible and then this layer we're going to put a blur on it so we're going to we're basically creating the base layer and then this top layer is going to have our texture so this base layer we're going to go ahead and put a blur so I'm going to go to filter blur and Gaussian blur and here what you want to do is you want to give it just enough blur to actually get rid of whatever you want it wanting to keep and in this case that's like our little bits of skin texture so like this is way too much of a blur because it's kind of just blurring everything so what we want to do is just just about go to the point where you can't see the skin texture right about there looks pretty good and then that's where you're going to want to stop so we're going to hit okay so there's our blur now the next thing we're going to do is we're going to take this layer we're to go ahead and make that visible and then I need to run a filter on it that basically takes the information what's on this layer and subtracts out the information from the other layer to leave us the difference all right so that's where we're getting creates texture layer and to do that we're going to go to image and then down here to apply image okay so we've got apply image and you guys have seen this used on phlearn before when I like creating like highlights and stuff like that and I want to blend them into the image we're using apply image for that but we're going to be using it for something a little bit different here so usually these are the settings that I would suggest if you guys are trying to like blend in a highlight or something like that but now what we're going to do is I'm going to change my layer here we're going to go to layer 0 copy so this is going to be this layer that has the blur applied to it ok so we're going to go to layer 0 copy you could name your layers like blur and texture if you'd like to do that I'm just going to keep it as just a couple copies all right so we've got layer 0 copy now here are blending I want us to I want to select subtract alright so there we can see we want to select subtract and the reason is because we want to take whatever's on this layer and subtract out whatever's on this layer so we're left with just the difference which is again the texture now the other options here scale is going to be 2 and offsets going to be 128 these are just mathematical terms figuring out how much of a difference is actually going to take and I didn't figure these out these are just like someone else figured them out and this is just the numbers that you use so two and 128 it's going to be those same numbers every single time all right so if you're looking at this you're going to think that's it okay you're going to think this looks a lot like a high-pass filter layer and it basically is this is pretty much exactly what a high-pass filter layer is but instead of having to choose your radius for you it chooses the radius or chooses the high-pass filter based on the information on the underlying layer because it subtracts that out so it's a perfect duplicate now if I want to add the texture back what we do is we change our blending mode alright so normal we're going to change this down to linear light okay so if you did this correctly what we should have is you should have your background image okay let's just zoom in here so you can see we should have a blurred copy on top of that and then we should have this layer which adds the texture back now if I go ahead and shift-click I'm going to group those two layers if I make this invisible we should actually see no change at all and you're like wow how did that happen well it happened because we took this layer and then a normal layer and then we took the difference of them and then we blended these back together using a linear light blend mode so I know that was really complicated and if you guys aren't super Photoshop dorks like I am they're not a lot of people who are as big of Photoshop dork as me but anyway that's probably all way too much that's why we've created an action that does all this for you so this was how we create the frequency separation and now I'm going to show you guys how we actually use frequency separation to retouch an image and it's actually it's super super simple so again if this was too complicated download the action hit play and then follow along from right now so here's how we actually use this to retouch skin what we're going to do we're going to start off in the underlying layer and I'm just going to quickly point out kind of like what we're talking about here when I'm talking about blotchiness and things like that blotchiness is like you know a little bit like areas here it's like a little bit darker here and it's lighter here and like blending wise and things like that and we've got little red areas and stuff like that that's not texture that's differences in like color and light and dark things like that so that's what we're going to taken care of so here on our background this layer right here what we're going to do is we're going to highlight some of those areas and we're just going to apply a little bit more of a blur to those areas but the texture is going to remain because the texture is on a different layer so here on my layer 0 copy or your background copy whatever it's called we're going to choose our lasso tool now I'm going to go ahead and draw a lasso selection there I want a nice feathering on my edge so I'm going to hit Q to bring up a quick mask now Q just gives you a brief visual preview of what your actual selection looks like that doesn't have enough feathering I want it to be a softer edge so I'm going to bring my feathering up let's try right about 27 we'll make another selection and hit Q and there we can see it's a little bit better let's try 32 and there we go it's nice and soft for the edge because we are going to be doing a blur and I want it to blend in so that's where the feathering comes into play okay now you're going to see it's pretty easy all we have to do is select an area that we want to like blend together and in this case it's pretty much going to be most of her face all right so we're just selecting our area hit Q you can see it's got a nice feathered edge all right and then we're going to just add a blur so I'm gonna go to filter blur and then down here to Gaussian blur and now my job is to choose a blur we're going to go a little bit higher on this we're going to choose a blur that starts to make all the little like areas in your skin the blotchiness whatever start to disappear so we can see as I bring this up those blotchy areas disappear the texture remains because it's on a different layer but we're just blurring these areas and that's what allows the blotchiness to disappear so we're going to hit OK there all right and we're going to keep going with it so now I'm going to select an area like this I generally like selecting relatively large areas but not too large to where you're covering the entire face like like like areas I generally do together like this I'm going to select basically add entire highlight run a Gaussian blur and then see what kind of detail I'd like on there there we go let's select that area now I've set up a keyboard shortcut for my Gaussian blur there we go so it's really quick for me I would suggest doing the same thing if you guys do any kind of any kind of action you're going to be running over and over again or any kind of tool you're going to using you can set up your own keyboard shortcuts really quickly just by going to edit and then down to keyboard shortcuts alright there we go we're going to select that out as well give this a little bit of a blur so you can see I'm basically just selecting areas of our skin that we want to blend together a little bit better I'm staying away from her eyes and things like that there we go all right generally we want to stay away from hair but because we have texture on a different layer even if we did include some of the hair in this it's not a huge deal because the hair because it's registered basically as like a texture is going to stay intact as well all right there we go and that looks pretty good we'll just go ahead and get her arm while we're at it because if you like it why not now I'm using a little bit more of a blur than I would probably generally use the reason is I would just wanted to show you guys what a difference this actually does make in an image all right let's get a couple more areas here just where we're seeing a little bit of the blotchiness there we go all right so with this you would probably want to use a little bit less of a blur and kind of change the blur each and every time all right so now what we've done is we've taken those areas and we've blurred them together which gives us a lot more of a just a generally nice fluid image all right let's look at this before and after so there's our before and the after really really nice and again I kind of overdid it a little bit but I just wanted to make sure on YouTube that you guys can see what we're doing usually you do a little less of a blur but the great thing is because this layer contains our texture right this layer is the blur layer and this layer contains the texture so even though we've gone and we've completely smooth out the skin although the skin texture remains down here you can see it up here on the forehead you can see it as well all the skin texture remains now let's say there are some other areas that you want to say like I want to take care of the texture in this area I'm going to show you guys how to take care of just a texture because it's on a completely separate layer so to take care of the texture what we want to do now we're going to select our texture layer and you'll see what it is because it's just a gray layer offer on it'll show you exactly that that's the texture layer so what we're going to do is I'm going to use the clone stamp tool on this layer because if I change this layer back to a normal blending mode this is what the layer actually looks like it's just mostly gray with some flecks of light and dark on it so if I change this back to linear light what we're going to do is we can edit using the clone stamp tool on this layer but there's one thing that I want you to make sure you do and that's go up here and select here current layer okay this is not a time to use current layer or all light sorry not a time for current and below or all layers you have to use current layer here because you want to sample other textures from the layer you're on and replace them with these textures okay so I'll show you like let this little dimple there that guy right there let's just sample from right here and I'm going to paint right over top of it all right we're going to do this a couple more times because what we're doing is we're sampling different areas of texture and applying them over top so again this is completely different from all the color and the tone and everything like that on this image so you don't have to worry about selecting like I could color sample over here and paint over here you can see it's just copying the texture I don't have to worry at all about color because this layer only contains texture so it's a really great way to just go in and clean up couple textures there we go that's a texture Bank done and not have to worry at all about affecting all your colors or your highlights or shadows or anything like that because they're on completely separate layers and that is the beauty of frequency separation all right there we go really really cool image so there's our before and our after and as you can see all the skin detail remains and we have a nice clean image and if you think you can well maybe let's see I want a little bit of the underlying layer because I did say that I overdid this a little bit let's just lower our opacity just a little bit of this entire group and there we can see a little bit of the underlying layer comes through that's going to make it look a little bit more realistic all right really really cool so there you go guys the cool power of frequency separation retouching here on phlearn comm if you liked this episode be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and be download that action on phlearn comm so you guys don't have to go through all the beginning steps you can just pick up right there and just select some areas hit blur and that's retouching for you be sure to comment down below if you have any ideas for things you'd like to watch on Fleur as well as share this with your friends and your family because learning is fun and sharing is caring that was dumb anyway i'll phlearn you guys later bye everyone welcome it's phlearn hey I'm gonna phlearn you're the one who teach the Photoshop hello you s you MTV I'm my computer screen hello you you

Channel: PHLEARN

Views: 3,084,021

Rating: 4.9502163 out of 5

Keywords: Photoshop, Photography, Education, Phlearn, Aaron Nace, Frequency Separation, Split Frequency in Photoshop, How to use Frequency Separation in photoshop, How to use Frequency Separation for Retouching in Photoshop, retouch, photo retouching, class, course, photoshop tutorial, tutorial, skin texture, image, skin, high, low, color, portrait, photos, Learn, How-To, Easy, boho, interesting, gauges, piercings, woman, feathers, quality

Id: ldhG9fmgC7o

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 18 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/krrc]

Anyone else notice this tune in the intro?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4txVqr1eNwc

ITS COOL GUY!

[u/Arctorkovich]

Here's one for GIMP for those of you like me who don't have Photoshop.

https://youtu.be/wiWBYIr8-Kc

I just tried it. Very cool techniques.

[u/DrCytokinesis]

Finally I can make myself look attractive. Can't wait to see the face of disappointment on women I've arranged to meet with on the internet.

[u/kingbane]

man at the start when he started editing the photo i was like what's he talking about? what blotchiness, that chick's skin looks fantastic. then he starts editing it and i'm like dude i don't see any difference! then he showed the before and afters and it jumped out at me. i was like holy shit that's amazing! how did he make that girl's original skin seem flawless to making it seem hideous! it's crazy that once you see perfection the imperfections suddenly leap out at you. i think i understand a bit now of why models and people in the fashion industry keep degrading themselves, or claiming they're not beautiful enough. i guess seeing manufactured perfection all day everyday really makes your eyes keen on seeing imperfection.

[u/Callofdutyfruity]

Very clever stuff

[u/cameronrad]

I'm gonna say this, frequency separation is great but it's just a tool and can EASILY be overused. I made a frequency separation tutorial video a few years ago and was an overuser of the technique for a very long time! Retouching isn't about removing everything and making everything super smooth. It's about knowing what to remove and making it look natural. You may notice more and more that "photoshopped" images are being rejected by society. There are sites for mocking overly retouched photos. "Unretouched" is becoming a trend amongst PR. Just something to keep in mind when retouching images and using this technique. I suggest mastering Dodging/Burning instead rather. If you combine frequency separation with good dodge/burn techniques, you'll have some great looking images.

I made a post processing megathread a few months ago also that has some good tutorials in it. A couple more frequency separation tutorials as well as color grading and dodge/burn, etc: http://www.reddit.com/r/postprocessing/comments/21kom1/postprocessing_megathread/

[u/Khromulabobulation]

I kept wishing he would get rid of that one white nose hair, then I realized it was just the back of her piercing.

[u/chris-handsome]

thanks for posting this. I like that he explain small things for us newbies who dont know a lot about photoshop. Very informative!

[u/jdsamford]

Nice! I gave it a quick go. Sloppy results, but I wanted to practice the general technique.

Before and after.