SCOTTVALENTINE
> Photoshop Proving Ground
SYNTHETIC SKIN, PART 1 Skin is a beautiful thing. It’s stretchy and flexible, and exists in complex textures and shades. The same things that make skin beautiful also make it incredibly challenging to re-create in Photoshop. If you use frequency separation for skin retouching, you’ve probably encountered a situation where in order to deal with certain blemishes, you end up losing the essential texture of the surrounding skin. Because there are so many variations, even on the same body, it can be daunting trying to find a solution, and tempting to fall back on simply using noise or similar textures. This issue, let’s take a look at a somewhat involved technique for synthesizing and applying facial skin textures. First, we need to break down the problem into approachable pieces.
direction of movement and elasticity: fine lines and cell structures. These tend to look more like tiny, irregular triangles as in this macro shot.
Macro of skin
We can develop these two elements independently, then combine them in our photo as desired. Keeping them distinct gives us a lot more flexibility for repairing textures in many different areas of the body.
> PHOTOSHOP USER > AUG U ST 202 0
BUILDING THE TEXTURE Let’s start with the lines. So, fire up Photoshop and create a new document (File>New) that’s 4,000x4,000 px, 8-bit, and RGB. Fill the background layer with 50% gray (go to Edit>Fill, select 50% Gray in the Contents drop-down menu, and click OK). In the interest of saving space, I’ll give you the bullet list of steps for creating the texture, then describe the choices and options. The letters at the end of various steps correspond to the letters in the images at the top of the next page.
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Two skin samples
In both of these samples, the skin on the forehead seems dominated by tiny bumps randomly scattered around. This is why most techniques rely on using noise or fine textures like sandstone; but these tend to be overly sharp and they don’t flow with the tension and direction of the skin. There’s also a secondary texture that implies
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uplicate the background layer (Command-J D [PC: Ctrl-J]).
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Name the duplicate layer “Fibers.”
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P ress D to load the default black and white for the Foreground/Background colors.
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o to Filter>Render>Fibers and set both Variance G and Strength to 30. (A)
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o to Edit>Transform>Rotate 90° Clockwise so G the fibers are horizontal. (B)
