Warm Key Beauty Modelling

Beauty retouching

A low-key portrait with a full afro against dark brown gets its shape back: modelling rebuilt by hand and the background warmed to separate the hair.

Dodge and burn
Low key
Separation

Service: Beauty Retouching

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Retouched close-up with even skin tone, freckles and pore texture kept, and the eyes and lips lifted slightly — Drag anywhere on the image, or focus the handle and use the arrow keys, to compare before and after.

Original beauty close-up of a face framed by white flowers, with uneven redness across the cheeks and nose — Drag anywhere on the image, or focus the handle and use the arrow keys, to compare before and after.

Project overview

The hair, the shoulders and the background sit close in value, so the outline of the afro and the shoulder line disappear. Adding a rim light that was never shot is the obvious fix and the wrong one, because it would not match the key already on the face.

Transformation details

Separation was built with dodge and burn along the existing highlights, extending what the key light was already doing rather than inventing a second source.
The background was lifted to a warmer, lighter brown, which pulls the dark hair and the shoulders away from it.
Frequency separation evened the skin, and the warm specular on the shoulder was kept.
The outline of the hair was cleaned without thinning its volume.