Retouching Academy My Library

Professional Skin Retouching

Advanced skin retouching workflow and methods for professionals.

This course is a hands-on guide for photographers and retouchers who want to take their skin retouching to a professional level.

Created by Julia Kuzmenko McKim and Michael Woloszynowicz, professional beauty and fashion photographers, retouchers, and educators. Every lesson distills decades of combined industry experience into the refined retouching methods we use in commercial work.

 

Who is this course for?

Photographers and retouchers who are already familiar with Adobe Photoshop and basic retouching.

Skin retouching is the post-production skill that professional beauty, fashion, and portrait photography depend on, and the one clients judge your portfolio on first.

The course takes you from the fundamentals through to advanced work: proper skin retouching methods, a lean-PSD and non-destructive workflow, and the judgment to keep skin clean and natural.

We then go deeper into the common skin retouching challenges you will inevitably face in client work sooner or later: oily skin, mature and aging skin, dark skin, under-eye circles, chapped lips, peach fuzz, spray-tan blotchiness, plus hands, nails, and forearm hair. Each with more than one solution, so you always have a way to deal with these issues in various circumstances.

 

🌟 Check out our students' Testimonials!

 

Once internalized through deliberate practice, these skills open a range of career paths:

  • offering retouching services to paid, commercial clients along with your photography;
  • in-house retouching roles;
  • creative agency opportunities;
  • or remote freelance retouching work for top brands from anywhere in the world.

Bonus: Downloadable custom actions, brushes, and beauty and non-beauty practice images are included.

 

▶︎ This course is included in the All-in-One Beauty Retouch bundle: 4 courses, over 21 hours of video lessons, individual courses at $569, bundle price - $287.

 

 

📲 Continue learning anywhere via the Kajabi app on mobile devices.

By purchasing our products, you agree to our Terms & Conditions.

Skin Retouching

  1. Introduction & Downloads

    4 lessons
    1. Welcome to the Course
    2. Additional Materials & Downloads
    3. [Download] ▶︎ Brand Work Guide & Vocabulary
    4. Legal Notice

  2. Module 1: Skin Retouching Fundamentals

    9 lessons
    1. Lesson 1.1 Quality Skin Retouching (10:23)
    2. Lesson 1.2.1 Understanding Lighting & Skin Texture Variations, Part 1 (5:50)
    3. Lesson 1.2.2 Understanding Lighting & Skin Texture Variations, Part 2 (7:09)

    1. Photoshop Tools for Skin Retouching

      1. Lesson 1.3 Photoshop Tools for Skin Retouching (6:04)
      2. Lesson 1.4 Healing Brushes (13:54)
      3. Lesson 1.5 Brush Tool (7:58)
      4. Lesson 1.6 Working With Layers (11:07)

    2. Masking & Selections

      1. Lesson 1.7 Working with Layer Masks (9:01)
      2. Lesson 1.8 Selections (12:41)

  3. Module 2: Essential Skin Retouching Techniques

    16 lessons
    1. Lesson 2.1.1 Raw File Processing: Capture One & Camera Raw (16:46)
    2. Lesson 2.1.2 Raw File Processing: Bit Depth (3:20)
    3. Lesson 2.2 Basic Cleanup (17:24)

    1. Lesson 2.3 Frequency Separation

      1. Lesson 2.3.1 Frequency Separation, Part 1 (8:59)
      2. Lesson 2.3.2 Frequency Separation, Part 2 (11:42)
      3. Lesson 2.3.3 Frequency Separation, Part 3 (10:21)
      4. Lesson 2.3.4 Clone Stamp Tool in Practice (9:38)

    2. Lesson 2.4 Dodging & Burning

      1. Lesson 2.4.1 Dodging & Burning, Part 1 (7:56)
      2. Lesson 2.4.2 Dodging & Burning, Part 2 (14:32)
      3. Lesson 2.4.3 Dodging & Burning, Part 3 (4:57)
      4. Lesson 2.4.4 Dodging & Burning, Part 4: Micro D&B (10:44)
      5. Lesson 2.4.5 Dodging & Burning, Part 5: Contouring (11:34)

    3. Lesson 2.5 Color Corrections

      1. Lesson 2.5.1 Color Corrections, Part 1 (15:57)
      2. Lesson 2.5.2 Color Corrections, Part 2 (15:09)
      3. Lesson 2.5.3 Color Corrections, Part 3 (12:45)

    4. Assignment: Putting It All Together

      1. Assignment: Putting It All Together (6:18)

  4. Module 3: Common Skin Retouching Issues

    10 lessons
    1. Lesson 3.1 Tackling Difficult Skin with FS (14:44)
    2. Lesson 3.2 Oily Skin (13:19)
    3. Lesson 3.3.1 Dark Skin, Part 1 (23:09)
    4. Lesson 3.3.2 Dark Skin, Part 2 (22:09)
    5. Lesson 3.4 Under-Eye Dark Cricles (8:23)
    6. Lesson 3.5 Working with Mature or Aging Skin (13:42)
    7. Lesson 3.6 Fixing Dry & Chapped Lips (19:04)
    8. Lesson 3.7 Fixing "Peach Fuzz" (11:18)
    9. Lesson 3.8 Eye Area Texture (8:31)
    10. Lesson 3.9 Spray Tan (13:37)

  5. Module 4: Other Common Challenges

    4 lessons
    1. Lesson 4.1 Forearm Hair (13:35)
    2. Lesson 4.2 Nails (10:08)
    3. Lesson 4.3.1 Hands, Part 1 (7:38)
    4. Lesson 4.3.2 Hands, Part 2 (5:52)

  6. What's Next?

    4 lessons
    1. Code Of Ethics & Professional Practice
    2. Professional Development
    3. ♥️ Please Share Your Thoughts!
    4. ▶︎ Make 25-30% commissions as an RA Affiliate

What you will find inside:

Theory & Practice

Over 7 hours of video lessons.

We’ve distilled the most impactful information so that you can learn and apply your new retouching skills as efficiently as possible.

Practice Files

Beauty images, shot by the authors.

Each module includes practice beauty and other images, bonus materials, and practice assignments to help you quickly internalize what you are learning.

Real-World Pro Approach

Our custom Actions & Brushes.

A professional workflow perfected through a decade of commercial work by Julia Kuzmenko McKim and Michael Woloszynowicz.

Here's what our students are saying:

Ethan

Freelance Retoucher

“I bought all the courses from Retouching Academy, and they never disappointed me! I learned so much and improved my retouching skills from these courses over the last 2 years, and now I have my own clients, and I also work with some well-known brands such as ELLE, Gucci, LV, L'Officiel, etc. "

Valentina Duran

Freelance Retoucher

“Thanks to RA courses and RA panels, I was able to take my retouching skills to a new level and understand how to make it a business that prospers. I learned new approaches to the techniques that I already knew, and my workflow became much faster and leaner."

Margarita Ptitsyna

Freelance Retoucher

“Retouching Academy courses are really the best! They teach you the professional way of retouching: how to make your pictures look perfect, but still natural; how to speed up your workflow and how to organize your PSD files so you will always be able to make any corrections at any stage of your retouching process."

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