The Amazing Power of Liquify for Portrait Retouching in Photoshop

hi there this is animation today we can learn how to use liquify to correct the shape and form when it comes to portrait retouching in Photoshop all so along the way I'm gonna be giving you some tips and tricks that will make your workflow so much more faster and efficient this video is divided into sections if you are go ahead and skip to any section that you like you can use these time stamps so without any further ado let's get started so hey everyone Photoshop and if you ever go ahead and download any photo used in the video make sure to check the links in the description below this for I was separate by heather Yaeger she is an awesome photographer go ahead and check out her work right here now as you might see let's zoom in a little bit this is our first example it looks all right doesn't have a lot of things to correct however little things make a big difference first of all make a copy of this background layer press ctrl or command J convert this into a smart object so that we can change the values later how do we do that go to filter and then convert for Smart Filters hit OK then simply apply liquify filter then liquify now inside of liquify there are a lot of tools and we're gonna go over them one by one so first one is the forward warp tool let's zoom in quite a bit by pressing ctrl + command + if you're using a Mac okay now once you're zoomed in here we have the forward warp tool the shortcut to which is W ok press W or select the - what does the forward warp tool do think of it like this once you enter liquify your image converts into a thick liquid just like a thick liquid paste and that's why the name liquify as you can move around so when you select the forward warp tool just as the symbol suggests what is the symbol it is a hand smudging that's what it is so you can move around that thick liquid so right now your image is just like a thick liquid make the brush bigger you can just simply move around do whatever you want just like a thick liquid you can go back right here on the right hand sides we have the brush tool options as the name suggests size controls the size of the brush density controls the density how dense is the brush rate pressure controls the pressure nothing of it like this if you were moving something through the same distance if you applied less pressure it will move less if you apply more pressure it will move more as simple as that if the pressure is 100 even if I make just a little bit of adjustment it totally moves with it right just moves with it let's go back however if the pressure is low I will have to move a couple times it doesn't give that kind of force and that's what it is pressure so next is rate it won't work with this tool however it will work for the blow tool and we'll go through that later when it comes to the forward walk to the rate doesn't work now the density simply controls the density have a look if the value is at hundred it will move everything inside of that brush if the value is at say four percent C it moves just the center so you will get the idea of what each slider does by simply playing with it okay Photoshop is a playing software the more you play the more you learn now let's reconstruct it now one more thing important thing if you want to restore everything let's scroll down and there is this brush reconstruct options choose reconstruct or just click on it and it will be fine now the next tool here is reconstruct to just the thing that we did right now on an overall basis for example using the forward warp tool or any other tool you did some changes just like this or let's go ahead and increase the pressure a little bit to increase the pressure holds the alt the right mouse button drag it down as you drag it down it increases the pressure drag it up it decreases the pressure with Mac that would be option and control so let's say we did some changes just like this with the brush a little bigger we will increase the density 200 and we did some changes just like that and you don't want that change right over there but you like the change that you did over here so you just want to revert this change what to do use this tool called the reconstruct to now just paint over this and it will slowly and gradually bring it back to normal now it's very slow wise it's slow because the pressure is low increase the pressure it will do it all at once so that's what the reconstruct brush is the next one is the smooth tool it's an amazing tool but it's often ignored let me show you what it does so let's go ahead and zoom in suppose we were adjusting the eye making it a little smaller so using the forward warp tool we made it a little smaller we pushed it in a little bit just like that and we liked the small I okay I'm doing it all wrong just to show you what it does this is okay I kind of like it but it's not smooth have a look at this the size of the eye is something which I like but it's not smooth at all so how do we make it smooth using the smooth to the shortcut is II use it and just simply slowly and gradually paint around the edges which is not smooth decrease the pressure this is too much and slowly and gradually do it see it makes it smooth watch amazing now you have a smooth edge just like that as simple as that then you can go ahead and adjust see it also makes the eyeball smoother then you can use this forward warp tool and make it more circle and you get the idea how this works okay again this is not smooth again use the smooth tool to make it Smit okay now if you have a keen eye you might have noticed that the brush tool options have the rate activated when the smooth tool is selected it just controls the rate so if you decrease the rate it does it slowly if you increase the Ray it does it super fast so right now it's completely smooth as you can see it's totally smooth but if it if it was not smooth using the forward warp tool if I make it just like that and let's choose the smooth to 100% rate it does it all at once so if I decrease the rate it does it gradually got it okay let's choose restore all next one is the twelve o'clock wise tool the shortcut is si simply it does what it says it's just twelve sit clockwise just like that let's restore this is an important tool called the pucker tool now why do we use the pakka tool to make things smaller sometimes what happens is the angle of camera is such that the nose appears big so using the pucker tool we can make the nose smaller just select the pucker tool decrease the rate the rate is very high pressure is disabled see in this case the rate is active make it a little bigger and just click once twice depending upon how small you want the nose to this is fine let's have a look at the before and after before after you can check the before and after by checking on and off the preview the next tool is the opposite of pakka tool and that is the bloat - it does just the opposite of what the pucker tool does it makes things bigger just like that we don't want that to happen push left just you have to just play with these to see what each of them do now the next tool is very important and this is something which can be used often and that is the freeze mask - what does that do is that it freezes some areas from being liquefied again thick liquid image if you use the freeze mask tool and paint on some areas that freezes that particular area you cannot move it so for an example we wanted to adjust the eye or say the face and we don't affect the hair so you would choose the freeze mask - and simply paint on this hair and the area that you don't want to touch or affect like this and then no matter what you do with the forward warp tool or any other tool it just will not affect anything which is inside the mask evelope it just won't affect that now you can also erase the mask using the top mask tool I don't know how to pronounce that and it's just like this let's restore all ok let's erase the mask okay all right next is the face - now Photoshop did not detect any face in this image as you can see if I go up face aware liquify no faces detected sometimes it just doesn't detect face there is a face but it didn't detect so it won't work and - to simply move and the magnifying glass - to zoom to actually to zoom in like that okay and you get the idea of how the tools for it let's go ahead and now correct the image let's zoom into the image and let's have a look at it I think the eyes are a little bigger so you can use the forward warp tool let's decrease the density and I will decrease the pressure as well to 30% that's fine let's zoom in quite a bit I will decrease the pressure even more like that and slowly and gradually push it in now here's an important tip make the brush of the size of the thing that you want to affect I'm gonna say that again for you make the brush of the size of the thing that you want to move make sense for example in this case this thing you want to push the eye in right so you wanna make the brush of the size of that exactly just like that and then slowly nudge it in this is the second tip don't do it all at once slowly and gradually nudge it in and that is why have a low pressure like that nudge it in slowly make it a little smaller we don't want to make huge differences small differences make a big difference at the end now let's do it with the other eye this is bulged out I get it's the angle of the camera which does it or the subject but we're gonna take care of that make the brush a little smaller and bring out that curve there's a flat line over there we need to make it a little round like that okay make it a little bigger you can also use the smooth tool here but that's fine okay that's looking great have a look at it before and after and after that I'm gonna show you the most important tip before after before after makes a huge difference now here is the most important tip when it comes to liquify most important and I was struggling with this for months so once you're looking at the before and after okay so you looked at the before and after that was fine and you're zoomed in and you want to move so how do we move we hold the spacebar and then move but it just will not work because if you press the spacebar it just checks in and checks the preview so how to let go of this cycle I would earlier click here there it just wouldn't work I would be frustrated I would then move the size then it would go so it's very frustrating so here's a quick way to let go of it is bring your cursor to the image and simply it is as simple as ABC ready for it right click that's all you need to do right click and it will let go of that selection of the preview so if you're doing this and you want to move in you want to press spacebar it just won't go off from this just simply check this because you want to see the after and then bring the cursor to the image right click boom gone okay now let's zoom into the lips and we need to push it a little inside I think like that now I know I'm being very picky but let's do it let's push it in bring it out let's zoom out a little bit now that's fine now let's adjust the nose make the brush a little bigger nudge it slowly again make the brush of the size of the thing that you want to move in this case that is the nose take it a little bit to the left that looks good now as you can see the angle of the camera is such that the head is a little coming out so we'll just push it in just a little bit not much take care of this okay that's fine it'll push it out a bit this area make it a little round seems okay this seems okay yeah that seems all right have a look at the before and after so this is the before this is the after small adjustments make a huge difference now once you're done once you're ready before you hit okay here's one more very important tip before you hit okay there is another tool called reconstruct just click on that too sometimes when it comes to liquify we tend to go a little overboard click on reconstruct when the amount is at hundred it's everything that you just did for the image when the amount is zero the image returns to its original form it's just like an undo and overall undo on a slider so let's decrease the value because this is totally perfect if you want to decrease the perfection if you want that natural look you can decrease it sometimes just like this just a little bit but I'm gonna go ahead with hundred just to let you know that this is something which you can also do let's choose 92 hit OK and then hit OK now remember you can always change it later why because this is a smart object you can also revert it completely back to its original form if you double click on liquify right over there you can just change it back to normal if we again open up the liquify with all of the changes that you have made and if you still choose this tool the reconstruct tool and if you still paint it over here it will reconstruct it ok hit cancel we don't want to make the changes and that's it for the first example so here we on the second example and this photo was also submitted by Heather if you have a look I did a little bit of skin retouching so this is the before this is the after let's have a closer look at it so before after the texture is still intact it's a lot of skin sculpting going on you go ahead and check out that tutorial check that out right over there or links are in the description now you can apply liquify in the beginning as soon as you get your image inside of Photoshop because it's always best to set the structure right first however I personally sometimes apply liquify at the end why let me show you so for example you created a merged layer you have to do that ctrl alt shift E and changed that into a smart object by going to filter convert for Smart Filters hit OK and applied some liquify suppose at go to filter and then liquify and under ply some liquify so I'll move the shoes let's just let it load ok so I'll move the shoes a little bit like that using the forward warp tool that reconstruct - ok just like this I would make it something like this what am i doing today so just like this and hit ok now the changes are saved as Smart Filters now suppose I want to make some changes ok let's turn this off if I just open up the skin retouching group its wrongly pronounced spelled actually ok now if I want to turn off frequency separation 1 & 2 or inside of color Corrections I want to make some changes let's change the hue saturation of this for example I made it black and white you don't want to do this but suppose you want to do this suppose you are doing this now if you had done liquefied before it would have created a problem because you cannot revert back you cannot make some changes but if you have done liquefying at the end let me show you what it does you can again create create a new left then press ctrl alt shift e this creates a merged layer again you can then convert this into a smart filter and copy the same smart filter to that layer and delete this one isn't that interesting so you can hold the alt or option drag the smart filter to that one and have a look that will be replicated it's processing right now see it will replicate now as you can see it has done the same thing and you can make changes you can now go ahead and delete this old merged layer and you're pretty much good to go you cannot do this if you apply liquify in the beginning again it's a personal preference sometimes I do at the beginning okay now let's apply some liquify if you don't want that to happen let's go back okay we don't want that now let's turn this layer on and let's go back to liquify and I'm gonna show you something interesting how to correct the form that comes to images let's zoom in and let's reconstruct all we don't want that restore so as you can see the hand is pretty manly over here it's very thick let's adjust it how do we adjust it simple use of the forward warp tool make the brush of the size of the thing that you want to move zoom out a little bit and nudge it very slowly just like that now as you do in the side there will be some gaps we will learn how to fill those in this example let's make it a little thin beautiful like that now that looks better gentle sometimes the angle in which her hand s also plays a role in her hand looking like that okay that's pretty much okay let's have a look at the before and after before after before after we need to make this small as well the hand overall hand so we can use what to the pucker to use the pucker to make it big enough just once twice thrice this makes the hand small have a look before after before after isn't that interesting now don't worry about the gaps there are two ways of filling it let's zoom in one way is simply using right click on the image to let go of this one one way is using the forward warp tool and stretch it all out let's move this side and it's the simple forward warp tool make it small enough let's increase the pressure a little bit and move it to the left just like this that's one way and it gets a little problematic sometimes let me show you one other way which is also good hit okay as simple as that now what you have to do as you can see there are other layers which are filling it let's turn all of them let's just make this one visible now you have this how do we fill it number one you can crop it always so you can press C and he can just simply go ahead and crop it so let's bring the front image or the original image ratio like that and you can simply just crop it like that that's one thing but we don't want to crop it let's cancel the crop by clicking on the move tool and don't crop another is using the clone stamp tool so create a new layer using the clone stamp tool right over there make sure sample all layers is selected and then make it bigger blend mode is normal sample this area and simply just paint on the left out areas like that very simple to do now be careful a little bit and you can do it using the clone stamp tool as well one another way is using the content-aware fill but that would require you to convert this layer into a raster but you don't want that to happen but let me show you how that happens as well so if you right click over here if you rasterize this layer and then what you can do using the magic wand tool will make a selection of this area and then expand it a little bit select modify and then expand expand the selection by one or two pixels let's choose five pixels it ok it allows it to dig in to the skin and then simply go to edit fill content-aware make sure content aware selected normal opacity hundred color adaptation hit OK it also does an amazing job have a look it just filled in this brings us to the third example and I've already made a copy of the background layer and converted that into a smart object now let me show you something very very interesting so go to filter and then liquify if you're using anything beyond Photoshop CC 2015 point 5 you will have this amazing feature and the feature is face a ver liquify it's sometimes not all the time sometimes fails too but most of the times it detects the faces in your images and you can adjust the faces according to the sliders ok so here you have all those sliders I sighs I hide eye width so this one is for the left eye and this one is for the right eye if you want to move both of them simultaneously let's zoom in sometimes the eyes are not equal in size so that's why it's separate in Photoshop CC 2015 point 5 you had this but the sliders were just the same so for both the right and the left eye there was just one slider but with Photoshop CC 2017 this changed for both the eyes you have separate sliders right now I'm using Photoshop CC 2018 okay so I size of the left and the right eye if you click on this button link button it links both the sliders then both the eyes move simultaneously there is a height whatever you want to do with it for this particular image I want to change the face shape so inside of face shape it's very wide so I'll just go ahead and jawline I'll just decrease it just like this just a little bit not so much just a little bit have a look before after before after makes a lot of difference now in these images where the faces are detected you can also use the face to the shortcut is a let's reconstruct it by clicking on restore all but you cannot restore all when you move the sliders you cannot restore all it only restores brushes so all of these tools that you use here blow it forward whop these will be restored but not the sliders to reset the sliders simply just click on reset 10 it resets inside of the face aware liquify now choose the phase 2 and using the face tool you can do it right on the image you don't have to use the slider so you want to make it smaller make it smaller like that now this is linked let's close the link and you want to make it bigger just like this and you want to make this a little bigger you can also change the face shape like that right in from the image isn't that wonderful hit OK once you're satisfied and we are pretty much done with this example so here's the fourth and the final example I've already opened up liquify we can learn how to correct the eyes inside of liquify a lot of ways of doing it outside of liquify but let me show you something interesting let's zoom in now suppose the eyes were not equal in size now this happens most of the time not all of us have equal eyes most of us don't I don't have equalized so here's what you can do using this slider you can make the eyes bigger the left eye but as you make the left eye bigger and make it equal to the right eye the eyeball also becomes big so how do we make the eyeball small so first of all let's adjust the eyes we want to make this bigger as well a little bit a little more bigger and then using the pucker too you can just decrease the size of the pucker - you can just make the eyeball smaller just a little smaller and there you go that's how you do it so you can use both the things the sliders along with the brush have a look before after so that's pretty much all we had to do with liquify in Photoshop just as a recap I'm gonna give you this to learn liquefy play with all the sliders all the tools and it will be good to go just remember a couple of things number one convert the layer into a smart object before you apply liquify if you want to make it you know constructive number two to let go of that preview selection just right-click on the image and that will let go of it that's pretty much it I hope this video helped you if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and not just subscribe ring the bells that you my friend don't miss a thing I'll see you guys my next until then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music] [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 218,433

Keywords: liquify photoshop, portrait retouching, correcting portraits, symmetry, photography, fashion retouching, liquify tool, retouching, piximperfect, photoshop tutorial, unmesh dinda

Id: 2ThKFOaD86U

Length: 25min 24sec (1524 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 12 2018