: How to mimic the glittery look of makeup in photoshop Sometimes I'll use a basic dodge and burn in photoshop over my subjects face to contour her features. I'm no makeup expert, but I learned

@Hamaas979

The result of your edit looks a bit too plasticky - like a mannequin. You really want to retain the skin texture for realism.

There are ways to do a blur to smooth out the skin, but then replace the skin texture using a masked out high pass filter of the original set to overlay mode.

Here's an example of a retouch using a blurred layer which has been masked. The result is rather plastic-like. You may have to click on these examples to see them in closer detail.



Enabling the visibility on the High Pass layer I made (which also has the same layer mask) - set to overlay mode, brings back the skin texture to the retouched image. If you still think it could do with more texture, simply duplicate the high pass layer.



Once you have an edit like this, you could then create a new layer from the composite image (CTRL+Alt+Shift+E), and then do your dodging/burning on that.

Here's a before and after using the above techniques, plus some extra dodging of the highlights. I also added a duplicated High Pass layer. These kind of edits are best kept subtle because subtle = more realistic. Not that she needed much work anyway! If you zoom in you'll see the glittery effect on her skin.

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@Sarah814

You can alter the shading by adding a layer with blending mode Hard Light. Very slowly with a soft and low opacity brush spray black and white. The needed opacity is only few percent. Be sure that you have an unprocessed version visible or you easily lose the focus. That way you can create very plausible bumps and remove others. I used it to take back some of your edits.



You probably knew this. so no new here. But after enoughly flattening your work I could add that glitter. Its simply a grainy pattern in hard light mode. In addition there's light and shadow for general shaping.

Here's one applied to your image:



NOTES: 1) the star pattern has been warped for the pespective. Without it the stars seem to fly in the air.

2) The layer mask is used to fade the stars in the shadow

Here's another. Only light is added. The light is grainy to compensate the smooth skin. Grainy light was originally flat grey, added noise, embossed and adjusted the levels. The layer mask was at first black, sprayed into it white with a smooth brush.

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@Caterina889

Dodge tool, Surface Blur, Soft Light mode on top of the original.. reduce opacity to your liking.


You may need to mask non-face areas
Sometimes other blend modes may work better, such as Lighter Color


Very quick and dirty.....



It's really about popping the hot spots and smoothing surfaces.

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