Lots to learn from this. Thanks!

Thanks!

wow!!!great!

Hate to say it, but crap like this is totally unethical. The only thing that is slightly interesting is the changing the hair color. And WHY are all of these images of women in pseudo sexual poses? Way to re-enforce stereotypes and marginalize women.

Niki Brown Link [nikibrown.com]

Great compilation of PS tuts… So much to learn, so little time.

;)

very nice tutorials

Absoulute must-have bookmark form all artists…
Gg guys!

lol there all women

OMG, this is the best selection ever.
Well know tricks, and some new ones. You guys rock.
Put a DONATION button NOW!!!

Thank you Smashing!

I have wanted to get my hands on tutorials for some of this stuff for AAAGGGGGEEESSS now! Especially the really heavy stuff like the beauty retouching and the liquify tool!

Amazing!! I’ve never seen a more comprehensive list! Thanks so much. I’ve been looking for tutorials like these for ages. It couldn’t have come at a better time. I had installed Photoshop CS3 Extended just yesterday.

Wow! This is amazing! Thanks!

Be careful or you’ll be here: Link [photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com]

very nice collection

@ Niki Brown: aw, why you got to spoil this, this is just a collection of “tuts”, go and voice your mind-set to the rest of the world! …ads sell, imagine if Bacardi showed a add with FAT ppl drinking rum on a sofa infront of a telly! … it just wont work! ….besides u are most prob more than 150Kg. Get a life!

wow! very nice tuts to learn! thanks for the great list

Hey! better photoshop than dangerous plastic surgery. thank you for the collection {:

One thing that I didn’t find in here (at least not directly), that I had to scrounge up tutorials for…is for skin reflections. The flash picked up some oils on the skin and was a big pain to try to fix.

Still this is a great round up of tutorials.

again…mine is not in the list …sigh ~

Not a fan of this collection. Smashing usually puts really inspirational pages together.
This is rubbish … there’s no beauty in this use of photoshop. It’s not inspirational. Faking the real world isn’t cool.

@Jak - why do you think Nikki Brown’s comment ’spoils this’? She’s just stating her opinion. And it’s a very valid one. My opinion, for what it’s worth is that you write like a child :)

this is the WORST smashing article i have ever seen.

What a collection !
Thanks ;)

I have to agree with other people’s comments — I found this article to be very offensive and encouraging stereotypes. I realize that people do this stuff for a living, but I’ve always looked to Smashing for inspiration, and this is not it.

I’d like to submit my retouching portfolio too:

Link [portfolio.arthursoares.com.br]

Thank you very much. nice tutorial collections

i’ll agree that most of these tutorials are used for unethical purposes (creating an unrealistic standard of attractiveness or physique) however I would be a poor designer if I didn’t take away at least some measure of inspiration or photoshop knowledge, whether it be unethical or not. So in terms of this articles ability to impart ideas for projects upon the reader it it successful, at least on me.

How disgusting. This goes beyond removing some pimples from a wedding picture. This is changing the physical anatomy of a woman so she is barely recognizable.

@Jak, do you really believe that those models are fat in real life? They’re actually really skinny. Photoshop morphs them into physically impossible waifs.

What is ugly about having some freckles? Why should we “brighten” a black woman’s skin?

There are some things that photoshop is useful for. Moving obstructions, changing the lightening, cleaning up red eye. We DON’T need photoshop to beautify people who are already models. I wonder why they even hire models for magazine shoots anymore, you won’t recognize them in the ad

To all those complaining: whether or not it is unethical is irrelevant. Photo manipulation is an essential skill for graphic designers. Moreover, the market demands beauty-retouching. If any one designer stops retouching in protest, another designer will gladly do it. Take your activism elsewhere.

I’ve got only one word coming into my mind to describe this SM article:
WOWWWWWW!

Brilliant selection, well done.

How come all of the women in the before photos look better than the after ones? Especially the main photo from the front page

I agree with many of the comments above that POSTS LIKE THESE MARGINALIZE WOMEN and make pigs out of men.

The editors of Smashing seem to spew these stereotypes on women a lot, but I agree with another of the comments above that this is the worst smashing article yet.

Now that is brilliant. I was just about to look for some professional retouch articles and there You are :)

I find nothing wrong with doing the kind of retouching that you would do any any situation regardless of subject. For example some skin retouching, hair/eye colour change or say a stray hair or dirt. The whole removing natural lines from faces, complete body modification or removal of depth (shine/shadow) freaks me out. It’s A un-ethical and B plain weird.

Like I said I have no problem with general fix and finish. Hell I’d remove the telegraph polls from a lovely landscape or mud from a car advert. However are we one step away from composite models? with the legs of one attached to the body of another and so on?

Wow, at least half of these tutorials deserves a post at photoshopdisasters. Could do with some more work put into actually looking at the outcome of these before posting them.

Some of these are ok…only two I can say are really great retouchers on here. If you want to check some amazing retouching you should look up Bianca Carosio’s work. I believe one of her links is Link [www.modelmayhem.com]

cool posts, thanks!

too many tutorials, but i’m too lazy to learn :D i have to bookmark this and use it till my laziness will vanish… hehe :)

I am so glad that I don’t have to work for a shiny magazine or stuff where I would have to do this job.

Here’s some food for thought for those people saying this type of touch-up work degrades women and is unethical.

I do some photography, and some digital touch-up work. In all instances, the requests for touch-ups have come from the female subject in the photograph.

Gracias por la tremenda colección, por supuesto he agregado un enlace para difundirla….

Thank you for the tremendous collection, of course I have added a link to disseminate ….

[Link [www.editando.cl], Si lo que querías era Tutoriales para Photoshop…]

Salu2

I agree with some other comments that this is the worst article especially many of them just disgusting. Another articles is really worth but this..

To the activists whining about this article: GMAFB.

This does not marginalize, trivialize, or objectify women in any way. Get a life.

My issue with this article is that many of the tutorials are of very low quality, which can only encourage/result in more grotesque retouched photos out there.

The theme to this article is certainly catering to an acceptable and established part of the Design industry, I have no issue with that … but stick to quality links, SM, don’t drop quality for the sake of quantity.

TQVM - this is almost the ultimate, just below Worth1000.

Wowwwwwwwww………..amazing tuts. was searching for this all over the net.

simply amazing

Awesome… thanks :)

GREAT ….tutorials there..nice!!!

Excellent article, very useful ! (and don’t loose your time with useless comments, they surely must be some students wich have not been working yet…)

Now thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat’s some thing
keep smashing the web guys
love u ;)

This is amazing !
you ROCK !

again a fantastic collection! thanks 1000 times!
flo

priceless

worst article, unethical.

Smashing Job!

Very helpfull for me. Thank’s…

Wow dude. Photoshop totally ROCKS. Excellent Tutorial indeed.

You must be ugly… Niki

I just have to recite what has already been stated: “Moreover, the market demands beauty-retouching. If any one designer stops retouching in protest, another designer will gladly do it. Take your activism elsewhere.”

So please people, do something about it, don’t just talk. If you want to start something about this, go ahead, but do it elsewhere.

Also, I must agree that some (not all, many were quite good and efficient) of the links in this post were not of the kind of standard I would have expected coming from this site. There are literally billions of tutorials for photomanipulation in PS, so finding someplace that has some better tutorials than the other site wouldn’t be that much of a hard issue I guess.

Are these tips intended to be used in Photoshop Elements, CS3 or both/either?

Thanks very much for these tutorials.

Whether or not you may think these tutorials are unethical, the fact remains sometimes photos aren’t very flattering. Some people don’t take good photos. If they request something in a photo removed (like red eye) or downplayed (like shine), then I find nothing wrong with that.

way to sell out

I don’t think anyone’s complaining that photo retouching is a bad thing, but when women are taken for granted as they are in many of these tutorials, that’s wrong.

crap tutorials on how to make real people look fake as hell. this is the number one problem facing the world of digital photography.

hmm…to be honest, most of the “before” portraits look better. particularly, the feature example.

You really need to know the work of this guy: Link [bressane.com]. Rodrigo Bressane is a brazilian photographer who knows more than anyone to retouch digital photos.

Take a look at his portfolio and some videos that he have at youtube.

Wow! Another great compilation.

Good, good, good job!

cool
thanx very much for the tutorial compilation
i’m not a potoshop newbie anymore…

Some of these retouchers are really awful, but a few of the tutorials give a good sampling of the basics. But I definitely agree with the other commenters that a few of them could earn a spot on PhotoshopDisasters…

Thank u so much for this post!!

Fantastic - I’ll get some good use from this page. Thank you!
A great resource.

Great tutorials.

But. Seriously. If you’re going to have a career doing this kind of retouching then I’d think seriously about what a messed up world it can contribute too.

As imperfect human beings do we need to see impossibly perfect stereotypes everywhere we look?

Are you guys serious? This isn’t the forum to discuss social issues. The techniques here are great. I’d be just as amazed if the artists were making beautiful people look ugly.

At least its not another wallpaper post.

I saw the post mentioned with another retoucher’s work…Bianca Carosio…does she have online tutorials available??? I wonder why her samples weren’t shown here.

Next up, how to make your Facebook profile stand out from the rest!

just stunning!!!!!!!

Your da man, thanks buddy

good job!

oh!! My god… Photoshop can do soooo much I just loved this whole article and specially the way you have listed down each thing… good one… thanks for sharing… I have bookmarked this page and m passing this on to our design department m sure this will be interesting for them

Good stuff! Will illustrator be next? :)

Greg…
I’ve never seen tutorials by Bianca..but I can imagine all the people asking her for advice..I check her updates often though!

While it might seem unethical to change the look of people, you simply can’t blame the retoucher. Last time I had a guy who wanted to make his face look better for a dating site. Who am I to tell this 24 year old guy not to do it? He has the request, I provide him with a solution. Next time it’s a model or a musician and you expect me to tell them it’s unethical? Most professionals would be without a job and tons of people would complain that they are unable to find a better retoucher other then some 15 year old wannabe photoretoucher in a basement.
Geesh, in that case it’s unethical to sell guns, prescription drugs, to be a soldier or run MacDonalds… Oh wait, I guess it’s also unethical to talk about it like Smashing Magazine does, right?
Get real guys…don’t act like a saint….sigh

This post couldn’t have come at a better time - I have recently wanted to expand my photoshop knowledge to include the art of beauty retouching and the like; this set of tutorials is absolutely perfect.

A very thorough post and I thank you greatly! Now.. where do I start! :)

Oh dear, another bunch of lefties claiming that this marginalises women. Well, I’m here to learn how to re-touch men too so - I’m helping re-balance the ‘marginalisation’.

What this does is play on everyones aspirations and issues - that’s what marketing does. And the main (pretty much only) use of the stuff in smashing magazine is for marketing; whose sole purpose is to convince someone to buy something they didn’t think they needed.

SMashing does a great job of linking and displaying some of the great tips and techniques; it’s not a place for discussing societys ills.

Great article guys, keep ‘em coming.

Its awesome, fantastic very useful please be continue. Weldone Smashing :)

That one turning the African American lady white is just evil. Just Sad. I suppose its meant to make better right?

Just because you can DIY eugenics using Photoshop doesn’t make it okay. Horrible article.

Ew. Most of the models looked better before the re-touching. They look far too plastic afterwards. I have “fixed” photos before but I would never smooth EVERY “blemish” out and make the person look like a Bratz doll. Remove pimples etc, soften some areas just a little, pop some highlights, and you get a realistic but still beautiful result. If you’re going for a very fantasy look, make it obvious. I think a lot of consumers are getting tired of the overly-photoshopped model.

And just because a lot of women themselves ask for their photos to be retouched doesn’t make it OK to pretend that this doesn’t have an impact in our society. Sure, this is a design blog not a political or social issues blog, but what we participate in as professionals still contributes to the whole problem.

Oh, I can`t wait to come back home from work and try all of these excellent tutorials, I know it will take all night to me, hihihihi :) :D

Great collection of tutorials….Photoshop really makes wonder in our photos…

Great set of tutorials, these are pretty basic but are in one place for those that want to get better at retouching photos.

You need to realize that photo’s need to be retouched, weather Glamour, Mens Health, Car and Track, and even Playboy pictures get retouched on a daily basis and it is done to sell the product weather it be a car, clothing, makeup or even the magazine itself. In my opinion there is nothing erotic with any of the pictures and tutorials you provided although all but one are of women, some are very nice models that you can see in any womans magazine, Glamour, Oprah, redbook, etc.

The problem is not with pictures getting retouched, or of women, the problem is that the first thought being off the subject of retouching. Why is making a beautiful woman more beautiful wrong, a woman in a bathing suite is just that, a woman in a bathing suite. A pictue of a women enjoying hereself is just that, a woman enjoying herself.

Stop sitting in judgement people, great tutorials SM

These tutorials are sooo american ^-^

I see that you have featured my website - retouchme
The best retouching is the kind where you keep it realistic. No horrible blurring of skin and making people look totally fake. The high end images that I work on are photographed on medium format cameras that are around 22 megapixels. These pick up every hair and every blemish. If you looked at a person normally you would not see these fine details, therefore when the images come out of camera they are raw and do need refining. The main thing to remember is keep it looking realistic. Take it to the level of how the model would have looked to the eye on the day.

please !! leave humans be just humans
with all their beauties AND imperfections
why must everything be so perfect ???

this is great… a one stop shop

wow, this article teaches impressionable Photoshop pirates how to perpetuate ideals of impossible beauty. very useful! let’s all contribute to corporate mindf*ck by creating ads that make life seem better than it really is.

“Moreover, the market demands beauty-retouching.”

the market demands all sort of disgusting things.

really good

For those who think that retouching is no big deal, it does have a cumulative effect: go here and watch both clips on the page for some examples
Link [jezebel.com]

For those saying “keep your debates to yourself” - who should we debate retouching with if not the people who actually do retouching? People who aren’t in design, imaging or photo manipulation at all? Or do you just mean that you want to make money without having to think about what contribution you may be making to something some people consider an insidious problem?

Thank you “Excelent Work”
regards

This was awesome! it was pretty sweet to be able to look through the pretty wide variation of tutorials. Thanks! =D

well.. for those who are against the photo retouching… i just want to say… please be more.. open minded.. being a designer.. it’s one of the skilled required for most of our projects.. yeah understood they are models.. but models have flaws too… skin.. teeth.. hair.. lips.. flabs.. and the likes.. we designers only remove those for different reasons.. by request, for art purposes.. for beautification.. for the sake of the concept and the likes.. and for the plastic thingy look that i read above.. it happens for a reason.. and depends on the retoucher how he/she would like her model to look.. for me thats fine.. but i find it kinda ugly.. i would just let some humanity look into it if i were to do it.. hey.. but it’s not me that is doing the photo… as i said earlier it depends on the retoucher how he/she would do it.. and about the women models are most preferred… well i do most of the time men retouching… cause you know.. men are more rough than women.. meaning.. they don’t actually care for their looks.. so they tend to have more flaws than women.. maybe that’s why women are always considered as models… easy to fix… ^__^.. just keepin’ it real men…

Gah, everyone whines so much! Wah wah wah wah wah!! Who freakin cares? What..? You guys gunna make the entire industry dissapear from coming on here and bitching and whining about it to people who think youre all wasting their time? Hate to break it to ya that isnt the way the world works. You hoping to guilt some photo retouchers into quitting their jobs? Giving up their career because you say that its “unethical”? Thats a word thats been thrown around a lot but really whats “unethical” about it? Who is it hurting? The models are all willing participants. Very confused about how this practice is considered so wrong :S

Screw it. Good tuts anyway.

so very……………………good & nice

Execellent collection from photoshop masters, applicable to any type of photographic industry. Very important body of work.

Thank you.

fantastic
i link this page in my Link [forum.boomobar.com]