Professional Video Retouching (hair, skin, etc)

[Chris Wright]

1. Basic 2.5 rig removal
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/larsen_carl/simple25d_rig_removal.php

2. Blemishes using track matte, smart blur free AE project file
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/50/857292

3. Basic roto masks
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/oconnell_pete/roto.php

4. animated masks-scroll halfway down to AE article
https://www.adobe.com/designcenter/cs4/articles/lrvid4107_xp.html

5. clone stamp tutorial for video
https://www.adobe.com/ap/tips/aft6clone/

https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/

[Robert Morris]

Thanks, Chris. Those are some decent tutorials… albeit quite old. And generally deal with basic techniques of tracking and rotoscoping. But personally, I don’t see much in there that would be useful for flyaways without a combination of techniques and extensive tracking/stabilization. I like how tutorials generally do rotoscoping or tracking on locked off shots or shots with an “almost” perfect scenario for what they are trying to teach. Hair flyaways are quite unruly and rarely can be tracked. Pete O’Connell’s tutorial touches on some key techniques, albeit quite old and somewhat outdated with newer software such as Mocha and AE’s native stabilization. But still a good tutorial nonetheless. I remember watching it years ago when it first came out. His more recent Creative Cow Master series DVDs are much more updated and go into a lot of great (proper) techniques for fast roto work. Good stuff indeed.

I wish there were more people who had techniques or suggestions here on the Cow.

Fine Art Drawings | Photography | Compositing | VFX | Titles | Keying | 3D

[Juan Olivares]

Hi robert
I have the same problem here… this is my first time doing hair on a commercial, it’s a L’oreal ad. And the agency is VERY annoying with the hair subject.
So… I first tried the same things as you describe on your first post, those was the first things i thought too. But after an hours of trial and error i came up with a “technique”(?)… It’s far from been perfect or ideal, but i think it could help in some cases, specially on the shots with a very blurred background (the typical HAIR SHOT).
What i did was duplicate my hair layer, to the one below i put a median effect ’till it make the little hairs go off. Then on the above layer i started to erase the little hairs mixing the eraser tool and in some cases masks. I know it’s a pain in the ass to do it, but the good thing is that you don’t have to be so much precise because it’s all so blurry that it doesn’t get noticed.
I’m still trying to make it look better, at this stage it still looks kinda blurry on the edges, but i think if i put a sharpen effect, or something like that, it may give some detail back.
hope it helps!!
PS: Sorry for my english (i’m Chilean) i can speak better than write.
saludos!

[Andrei Nazarov]

I “did a quick google” and spotted this Thread. For the topic.
1. I never saw serious post house who does beauty shots with clients behind on ae.
2. My opinion that best friend in this situation is good planar tracking with stabilization like mocha, an handjob with rotopaint.

But I have a question – what is best (except what I already described) to deal with woman cellulite in dynamic lightning conditions :-). ? Plastic skin is no option.

[Chris Wright]

Here is a skin plugin for AE
https://www.digitalanarchy.com/beautyVID/main.html

I have since moved on from AE to commotion because it natively supports b-spline(curves). Hope this helps.

https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/

[Robert Morris]

Exactly, Juan… I think the techniques you are using are the core of where a lot of the “Hollywood secrets” originate. But of course, certain other techniques have been refined and developed to be more effective, especially as footage becomes of higher and higher quality. I’m glad I started this thread, because I think it is something that hasn’t been touched on too much at these tutorial/discussion sites. There’s a lot of students trying to get help learning motion graphics, but some of these more high end real-world production techniques are kinda left as “secrets”.

I, too, worked on a Pantene commercial where the client was VERY picky about the hair and skin. Most of the backgrounds in the beauty shots were also blurry, so I was able to experiment with similar techniques to what you were describing, Juan. I only blur enough to remove the flyaways. And a lot of times, I would clone a clean background plate, then mask it back in around the hairline. I found that each shot would require addressing things in a different way, but there were certain things that remained consistent… like the all-important tracking data.

Thanks for your input!

Fine Art Drawings | Photography | Compositing | VFX | Titles | Keying | 3D

[Robert Morris]

Andrei, thanks for your response. But I have to say… you must not have seen a lot of serious post houses. I know of several big post houses in NYC that use After Effects for cleanup right alongside Flame systems. It’s all about the talented people behind the tools and what the studio is most comfortable using with their given workflow. It’s also about being open to doing things quicker and better, with technology and techniques being introduced all the time. You might want to remain a bit more open-minded.

Planar tracking works in some situations, just like any sort of tracking helps. I’m glad that you mentioned stabilization. Because stabilizing a shot will let you clean an area much easier when things aren’t moving all over the screen. Great technique! I cleaned up an actress’s eye recently, who was stung by a bee. Her eye was inflamed and red, so I stabilized her eye, then reconstructed it on the more or less static area, then re-introduced the movement of the shot to bring it back to its original state. All of this was done on 1080p DPX files. Very clean and efficient workflow that got it done very quickly. The client was pleased.

I’ve also dealt with cellulite before. The area was a leg with lots of age spots, pores, and wrinkles. You have to address each shot differently, depending on what you can remove and the methods you can use to remove it, while still keeping the skin looking natural. I tracked the leg, then used a series of masks on the skin area. It was a while ago, but I do believe I used two copies of a colored solid tinted with a medium skin color, with blending modes applied to lighten the shadows and darken the highlights. This diminished the artifacts that the client did not want to see in the shot. Then I added back a little grain. This gave the impression that the skin was not so plastic. The important thing is to keep the shape and major defining features in there, while removing only the things that are distracting. It is truly an art. I hope that you found your solution.

Fine Art Drawings | Photography | Compositing | VFX | Titles | Keying | 3D

[Jim Tierney]

Just to add to this post (which I realize is old) since it came up in a search.

We develop the Beauty Box plugin for AE/FCP/Premiere which is developed specifically for skin retouching videos. While plugins may or may not be the total solution they do offer the ability to do some things that aren’t possible in After Effects by itself.

The masking part of Beauty Box is something that can be accomplished in AE or FCP, but the smoothing algorithm we’re using is not something that you’ll find commercially available. For the purposes of skin retouching there’s nothing in AE that’s comparable.

Given the amount of time you’ll save for this type of task, I would recommend at least looking at the various plugin solutions.

You can get more info on Beauty Box here:

(https://digitalanarchy.com/beautyVID/main.html)

cheers,
Jim
———–
Jim Tierney
Digital Anarchy

[Rusty Shackleford]

probably too late now, but Red Giant Cosmo is pretty nice.
it isolates skin tones too.
default settings are pretty good, of course it’s pretty noticable.
so tweaking will make it less noticable.

Brandon Morris
Co-owner/Creative Director
http://www.fugostudios.com

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[Robert Morris]

Any plugin like that is good is you want plastic, slick looking skin. Seems to be the trend these days in pop music videos. But most commercials that advertise skin or hair products won’t want things to be THAT obviously effected. It should still look natural with texture. That’s the art and skill of any kind of facial retouching. There’s no real push-button solution. It takes a combination of techniques. And I’d still love to hear other people’s solutions.

Fine Art Drawings | Photography | Compositing | VFX | Titles | Keying | 3D