Glossy Beauty Highlight Control

Beauty retouching

A deliberately glossy beauty look with the specular highlights brought under control rather than removed.

Highlight control
Skin
Colour

Service: Beauty Retouching

The same portrait with recovered and deliberately placed highlights, texture intact — Drag anywhere on the image, or focus the handle and use the arrow keys, to compare before and after.

Glossy beauty portrait with blown highlights on the forehead and nose — Drag anywhere on the image, or focus the handle and use the arrow keys, to compare before and after.

Project overview

The gloss is the look. Killing the highlights would kill the picture, but as shot they blow out on the forehead and the nose bridge and take the detail with them.

Transformation details

The blown areas were recovered first, then re-lit by hand so the shine sits where it was intended rather than where the light happened to hit.
Skin was evened underneath the gloss with frequency separation, keeping the texture that makes the shine read as wet skin rather than as plastic.
The deep green foliage was pushed away from the skin's warmth so the two do not share a hue.
Eye and lip detail were sharpened selectively at the end.