Beauty & Fashion Retouching Learning Path

What You’ll Learn

Beauty and fashion retouching is portrait retouching with the stakes raised: skin that is flawless but still skin, eyes that read from across a room, clothes that hang the way the stylist intended. The Beauty & Fashion Retouching Learning Path is seven tutorials that build to that standard. It starts with the tools and a complete gentle retouch, narrows in on eyes and fabric, works through three real fashion shoots, then puts the whole method in two reference courses, one broad and one professional.

• 1. Learn the retouching tools Camera Raw basics, then the healing tools, dodge and burn, liquify and color correction, on a series of real examples.
• 2. Do a full soft retouch A complete portrait from a real shoot: raw processing, liquify, distractions removed, skin softened without losing texture.
• 3. Retouch the eyes Frequency separation under the eyes, sharpening the iris, brightening the whites, lashes and catchlights.
• 4. Fix clothing and fabric Undergarment lines, wrinkles and texture in fabric, and recoloring garments to match a brief.
• 5. Retouch three fashion images Three shoots in three locations: distractions, skin, color and finishing for editorial use.
• 6. Master every retouching technique The forty-lesson Ultimate Guide to Retouching: the complete reference on skin, hair, eyes, teeth, dodge and burn and color.
• 7. Follow a professional beauty workflow One beauty image start to finish: raw import, markup, combining exposures, skin, hair, makeup and the final color.

Who This Path Is For

Fashion, beauty and editorial photographers and retouchers, portrait photographers whose clients expect magazine finish, and makeup artists and stylists who retouch their own portfolio work.

You should know layers and layer masks. Every retouching technique is taught here, from the first blemish.

What You Need

• Photoshop Any recent version. The tools used here have not changed in years.
• Sample files Included for every tutorial, including the raw files for the full retouches.
• Layers and masks Assumed knowledge. If not, start with the Getting Started in Photoshop & Lightroom.
• A tablet Strongly recommended. Dodge and burn and skin work are far easier with pressure.

For the core techniques on their own, frequency separation, dodge and burn and hair, see the Retouching Learning Path.

How Long It Takes

Seven tutorials and 117 lessons, about 36 hours of video. This is one of the longest paths: the Ultimate Guide to Retouching alone is over nine hours and the introduction is over eight. At a few hours a week, plan on two to three months, and treat steps one and six as references to return to.

Retouch one of your own portraits after each step. Compare it with your first attempt at the end of the path.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a PHLEARN PRO membership?

Yes. This is a PRO Learning Path, so all seven tutorials and their sample files are included with a membership.

Beauty & Fashion Retouching or the Retouching Learning Path?

Retouching teaches the core techniques one at a time: frequency separation, dodge and burn, hair, fabric. This path applies them to beauty and fashion work with full start-to-finish retouches. Many people take both.

Is this about making people look fake?

No. Every tutorial here keeps skin texture and the person’s features. The goal is the finish a client expects, not a different face.

Do I have to follow the order?

It is built to be followed in order, from the tools to full professional retouches. If you already retouch regularly, start at step three.

Are the older tutorials still accurate?

Yes. Retouching is done with the healing tools, Curves and dodge and burn, none of which have changed. The AI tools can speed up the first pass, but the method is the same.

Where to Go Next

• Retouching Learning Path The core techniques, one at a time.
• Portraits Learning Path The portrait edit around the retouch: light, color and location.
• Coloring Learning Path The color grade that finishes a fashion image.
• Photography & Photo Editing Learning Path Shooting the images you will retouch.

More on This Topic

• Glamour Portrait Retouching Enhance light on a face, plus makeup, hair, eyes and glowing skin.
• How to Create Beautiful Glowing Skin in Photoshop Radiant skin color, smoothing, dodge and burn and sharpening.