Plastic looking portrait shots

5 years 1 month ago #630403 by elektrobank
Can anyone explain or point me to a tutorial on how to take portraits like this that make the subject looks very detailed and almost like a plastic doll? I see these all over and can't figure out how to do it. Is it more to do with lighting, makeup, etc. or post editing? 

Thanks




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5 years 1 month ago #630417 by Nikon Shooter
Look for butterfly lighting. G'day! :P

Light is free… capturing it is not!
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The following user(s) said Thank You: traveling-scooter-pics19
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5 years 1 month ago - 5 years 1 month ago #630419 by Nikon Shooter
… where no soft light but a small soft box was
used as in the first headshot!

Light is free… capturing it is not!
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5 years 1 month ago #630452 by garyrhook
The lighting is irrelevant. This is about retouching: lots and lots of retouching. Portrait Pro might be able to produce over-done perfection, or you can use frequency separation and do a lot of work.

There might be other techniques, but you're essentially creating a consistent, obvious texture.

So not a fan.


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5 years 1 month ago - 5 years 1 month ago #630458 by Nikon Shooter

garyrhook wrote: The lighting is irrelevant. This is about retouching: lots and lots of retouching. Portrait Pro might be able to produce over-done perfection, or you can use frequency separation and do a lot of work. There might be other techniques, but you're essentially creating a consistent, obvious texture. So not a fan.


Lighting.
This very strong statement alone demonstrates — I am sorry to say —  
a lack of experience in studio work and techniques.

Retouching.
This other statement is just wrong. The first talent is young, has a very
beautiful complexion, and, as any trained eye can see, went through no
editing of significance.

I am a fan of the first shot exactly because it is straight forward, clean,
and darn well executed. I would not have approach the talent in the same
way but it takes nothing away from what it is.

… and I love freckles! :P

Light is free… capturing it is not!
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5 years 1 month ago #630557 by garyrhook

Nikon Shooter wrote: Lighting.
This very strong statement alone demonstrates — I am sorry to say —  
a lack of experience in studio work and techniques.


I don't pretend to overestimate my skills in either camera work or post-processing. I believe that the lighting has nothing to do with the clarity of the skin, the obvious uniformity of the texture, and the lack of imperfection.

Her complexion is not real. Period. And there's no makeup there to smooth it out. It's been retouched.

Retouching.
This other statement is just wrong. The first talent is young, has a very
beautiful complexion, and, as any trained eye can see, went through no
editing of significance.


I disagree. Unfortunately, since the OP posted photos with no attribution

OP: please don't do that

we don't know where they came from. But if they are commercial fashion shots you can bet the rent on heavy retouching, including skin.

Here's an idea: don't tell people they are wrong without actual data. Express your perspective and ideas and opinions.

And by the way? I believe that the eyes are a dead giveaway. I believe that real eyes don't look like that. I believe that they've been enhanced. I would have thought that was pretty obvious to anyone with any experience.

Note to self: start prefacing remarks with "I believe that" since it's not clear that's what I mean.


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5 years 1 month ago - 5 years 1 month ago #630561 by Nikon Shooter

garyrhook wrote: … the eyes are a dead giveaway. I believe that real eyes don't look like that. I believe that they've been enhanced. I would have thought that was pretty obvious to anyone with any experience. Note to self: start prefacing remarks with "I believe that" since it's not clear that's what I mean.


The eyes, yes! Enhanced for sure and the chin a tad
with frequency separation..

The lighting is revealed by the shape of the specular
highlights on her forehead: a small soft box.

Light is free… capturing it is not!
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5 years 1 month ago #630564 by Stefan-Olsson
hahahaha.




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5 years 1 month ago #630587 by elektrobank
Thanks for all the comments so far, very helpful! 

It does look like frequency separation is the main technique used, probably further enhanced by proper lighting, makeup, and maybe even oil on the skin to create that extra shine too (just my inexperienced guess). I looked at PortraitPro and it looks like that does a lot of the heavy lifting in creating these kinds of photos, so I'm gonna give that a shot. Thanks garyrhook for pointing that out!

As far as the comment about attribution, the photographer is:  www.tamarawilliams.net . Their IG handle is watermarked on the photo. I personally think this style has its place and can be very beautiful, but also overdone like HDR at times. I hope to be able to replicate this effect on some of my own photos though.

(No need to argue about these points, we're all here to help each other learn!)

Thanks!
 


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4 years 7 months ago #654618 by fmw
It is all about lighting.  I rather like the lighting on both images.  Since my portraits are all environmental, I rarely use soft lighting.  The photographer has not used soft lighting here and it produces an interesting effect that draws the eye better than soft lighting would have.


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4 years 7 months ago #654621 by Nikon Shooter
… but the eyes are so grey in both cases!

Light is free… capturing it is not!
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4 years 6 months ago #660007 by ebyelyakov
- Find Lee Varis's book "Skln"
- Ignore the anatomy of human head and leverage Model Mayhem as the source in inspiration
- Have a powerful enough PC or patience since Surface Blur is quite CPU intensive


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4 years 2 months ago #672699 by robertsmith19
This perfectness didn't come with photography. There needs a lot of retouching work to make like this.
I will not exactly point you to any tutorial. But you will find thousands of videos on youtube about complex portrait retouching tutorial. 
 One thing i should tell you that. There need a lot of hard works to gain the perfect result


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