Image Source :
Wikimedia.org/
Digital beauty treatment and cosmetic fixes
Color corrections, removal of skin blemishes, smoothening out the skin imperfections, changing the tonal quality of skin to match the background, the dresses being worn in that scene and to capture the right mood, are some very important duties that a post-production editor will need to handle on a movie set.
You could remove blotchiness, give a certain amount of radiance to the face of your actors or adjust the overexposure to harsh light while a particular scene in the movie was being shot. Sometimes, on low budget films, the producer can’t afford to have a huge entourage of makeup artists for the actors of the movie. Hence, removing freckles, pimples, wrinkles, rashes and sunburns will have to be done during the post-production stage.
Another situation when these techniques come in handy is when a flash-back needs to be depicted. You may have to remove the fine lines and wrinkles from the face of the actor in question to make them look younger.
One of the aims of the digital editor should be to improve the tonality and skin condition without losing the skin texture. One of the key to do that is by first isolating the skin tones so that you don’t blur or affect the other details in that particular shot or footage. You will have to ensure that the skin, eyes, glasses, lip gloss or other extraneous elements in the shot don’t get distorted or feel unreal. Using the right tracking and matte software will help you to color correct and match skin tonalities across different raw footages.
Image source :
Staticflickr.com/
The following are some decent software tools and plug-ins that can detect the skin tones automatically and give you the option to increase or decrease brightness and tonality of the skin.
Some of the best beauty plug-ins for post-production
- Alien Skin Exposure Software: If you like to be in control of the proceedings, you will simply love it. The Alien Skin Exposure software is one of the fastest post-production digital skin treatment plug-ins out there and a battery of amazing, high quality filters. You are always in control of the edits and changes you make and the level of customization allowed, is immense. This is ideal for experienced professionals because the amount of details and options available is immense and could be difficult to master for a beginner.
- Digital Anarchy Beauty Box: Beauty Box is an incredibly easy to use digital beauty enhancing software and is ideal for beginners and those who want speed. It can identify skin tones in a footage and by applying masks, keeps the filters restricted to those areas rather than allowing them to work everywhere in the footage. There is no need to retouch a face frame by frame inside a footage. You can choose from different filter options and choose a skin smoothening option. Relax afterwards, while it renders the footage!
- Tiffen DFX V4: If you are a professional post-production film editor, who loves to experiment with filters, light and color corrections and create natural light and photographic effects, you will love Tiffen DFX V4 since it offers 131 different filters. It has 8, 16 and 32 bit image processing option and a number of masking tools. You can use layering systems for applying multiple filter effects together. It is highly advanced but has a steep learning gradient. It is recommended for Pros offers most beauty enhancement and skin retouching technical support that you require.
The three skin treatment plug-ins mentioned above are the most popular and suits people with different skill sets and experience levels. The final effects are surreal! You can’t go wrong with these.
Related
