Having an e-commerce website means lots of responsibility regarding sales, customers and the most important regarding product photography. Photographing a product is the most challenging task as the photos are the only source for customers to view the product. The most trendy and best option is to go for product photography through models that superiorly enhance your customers and product sales by making your site look professional. But for photographing a product with the help of models you have to be very particular about retouching techniques especially skin retouching to be used on models to make them look perfect. The simple fundamental which is followed is the more natural the better. ECommerce Product Photo Editing is a very important step towards success.
The idea behind this topic discussion is that retouching can make the product look attractive and appealing to the customer by removing their distraction. Be careful while using it as if you overdo it, it will have a negative effect on the product image. To guide you in the right direction let’s begin with the step by step process of retouching using adobe photoshop as your ideal software. These steps will help you in balancing the skin tone, removing skin marking that can distract the customers, and also make sure that your product fits the model. This keeps your images look consistent and distraction free. Let begin with the steps.
BALANCE SKIN TONE
Firstly we will guide you regarding the skin tone which needs to be balanced to make the product look best on the model. It is possible that your skin tone does not match with your entire body or sometimes your arms and legs are not matching with your upper body so to make the photos look consistent it is necessary that you use the tool to balance the skin tone. By doing this you can successively enhance your product customers as it ensures to give distraction free look of the product to your customers. You can give best look to your models only when you will match the entire body parts with the right skin tone which not only ensures consistency but also eliminate all the distractions. To give this uniform skin tone to your model, just have a look on these steps:
Steps are listed with the best tools to do this.
HUE AND SATURATION
This is the tool which you use to adjust the hue of the skin selected. Follow the steps given below
Roughly select the area where you want to change the skin tone.
Now add the adjustment hue/saturation layer to adjust the color.
Repeat this to the entire body to make the skin tone balanced. You can add as many adjustment layers as according to the body parts which needed work. Check all body parts like face, neck, legs, feet etc. and give them the uniform look.
CURVES TOOL
Second tool to make the skin tone balanced is curve tool. It helps you by adjusting the darkness and brightness of the body. The steps are:
Firstly you have to make overall selection of your model and the background on masked out curves layer. This will also help you to link overall adjustments to it.
Now select the body parts which need brightening. Refine the edges and then select the curves adjustment that will create new adjustment layer. Make your adjustments and shift to another area.
The last step is to link the masked adjustment to your original mask.
REMOVAL OF SKIN MARKINGS
It is very mandatory to remove all the skin marking of the model through editing. It must give natural look so keep in mind that you must remove all the bruises, cuts, blemishes that are quite distracting for the customer. The best tools that are in use are:
1. Dodge and burn This is the tool that helps you to reduce the blotchiness and blackness from the skin of the model.
The steps are:
Start with making and filling the empty layer with grey.
Now turn this layer to soft light.
Use brush/burn around the area you need to darken. You have to do this on the top of the grey layer. You can lighten the grey layer which is need of brightening by using the option key.
Push back and forth to dodge and burn as you work. You can see your adjustments by turning on and off your grey layer. Remember your aim of getting desired look and continue to work until you get that.
2. Healing brush The second tool that you can use for removing skin marking is healing brush. This tool will remove your blemishes, cuts, bumps and wrinkles on the hair and fabrics. Steps for using it are:
Start with working on the duplicate layer.
Now select the area you want to work on and hold the option on it. You can select that by clicking down.
When it gets blended into the surrounding area, then stop holding option and brush.
Continue working on the skin repeating the same that is selecting and brushing.
3. PRODUCT FITS THE MODEL
The most important thing that you have to consider is that your product must fit the model so that it looks nice in the picture. Doesn’t worry if the product is not of proper fit of the model then you can do it with the help of editing. I will mention you the best tools for it and with proper steps.
- liquify tool: the steps you for using this tool are:
Duplicate your image background
Now select the body and liquify tool.
Take the help of brush to dodge the parts of the body and adjusts the brush size accordingly.
Make sure that you do not move any parts of the image after you accomplish your job. To bring back your original image hold the command and brushing over the area.
Click ok and you can see the results.
Conclusion
So these are the three retouching requirements that you need to perform. Just make sure to follow wisely the mentioned steps.
