Customize the results.

If youre not satisfied with the result, you can tweak the mask in Beauty Box. Read the manual sections about The Beauty Box mask will be good if you have fairly consistent light on the face. However, if there are lots of highlights and shadows, you may need to do some tweaking. You may also need to make some adjustments if the skin tones are very similar to hair or background objects.
Auto-Mask results vs Hand Masking
The goal of Beauty Box is to generate a mask thats good enough for most situations. As with any mask thats automatically generated, it will often be possible to improve on the automask result. However, in most cases, the extra effort to manually create the mask wont produce enough of an improvement to justify the work. The Auto-Mask will do a good enough job on its own. This functionality is especially important for photographers under tight deadlines or without additional masking tools readily available.

Overview of Interface

Beauty Box is pretty simple to use. It automatically applies its skin smoothing settings, and from there you can change the settings and/or adjust the mask. Here is an overview of the controls. Click on the gray/white labels to jump to that section of the manual.
Smoothing group Snapshots area
Main Controls group Manual Mask group
Preset List & buttons

Advanced Mask group

Image Detail group

Color Correction group

Use GPU button
Beauty Box Photo: Main Controls Group

Main Controls group

This group of controls has two very important buttons: The Auto-Mask button automatically generates a smoothing mask. The Show Mask button displays the mask that has been built.

Auto-Mask button

The Auto-Mask button is the single most important control in the Beauty Box plugin. AutoMask tells Beauty Box to analyze the subjects face to determine the skin tones that will be smoothed. This is where the magic happens. The great thing is that this button is always on. (If the button is gray, that means it is active.) Unless you turn it off, Auto-Mask will run when you apply Beauty Box and create the initial smoothing mask. You dont have to do much to get good results.

How It Works

When Auto-Mask is clicked, the face in your photograph is analyzed. Beauty Box Photo uses Face Detection to determine where the face is, then determines what skin tones are needed to create a mask. The mask is used to control where the skin smoothing is applied. Typically Beauty Box will apply a subtle effect but that is easily amplified. Lets look at how in the Smoothing Group section. Please zoom in to view the results.

Original

Beauty Box
Please zoom in to view the results.

Show Mask button

The Show Mask button displays the smoothing mask as a grayscale image. The amount of white, gray or black in the mask can affect how much smoothing is set in certain areas of the face. If this mask is not exactly what you want, you can use the Mask controls to change it. For instance, you can increase the color range that is used in the mask. Find out how to change the mask in the Manual Mask Group section and the Advanced Mask Group section.
When the Show Mask button is highlighted, you see a grayscale smoothing mask.
The first thing Beauty Box does is look at your photo and try to figure out what the skin tones are. Once it does that, it creates a mask based on those skin tones settings. You can see that mask by clicking the Show Mask button. This shows us the grayscale mask that indicates how Beauty Box is applied. The Beauty Box mask works like most masks: White shows where the smoothing mask is fully applied. Black shows where the smoothing mask wont be applied at all. hade of gray will be partially applied. Darker gray means less applied. Lighter S gray means more applied. Show Mask turned on Show Mask turned off
Beauty Box Photo: Smoothing Controls
The amount of smoothing added is set in the Smoothing Controls section. There are three Smoothing controls, though Smoothing Amount is the primary one. Like photography, beauty is somewhat subjective. The right combination will depend on the image, the resolution of the image and your personal tastes. That said, the default Smoothing values try to provide the best initial combination of settings. Lets look at how.
The Smoothing controls work together to smooth over wrinkles and blemishes. There are no fixed settings to provide the best look. Smoothing Amount and Smoothing Radius really control the look of the skin. Skin Detail amount can add back a bit of lost skin texture, but its not usually what youre going to adjust. Amount and Radius are the primary controls.

Resolution and Smoothing

Resolution plays greatly into how much the Smoothing controls work. For instance, a 3,000 x 3,000 pixel image will be affected differently than a 300 x 300 pixel image. Bigger images require higher settings; smaller images will require lower settings. The default settings should work pretty well for a regular size photo, like 8 megapixels. If youre using smaller photos, you may wish to use smaller amounts.

Smoothing Amount

Smoothing Amount is the master control. It sets the overall amount of smoothing that happens. The higher you set Amount, the more smoothing your photo will have. There is no default setting for Amount. The face detection figures out the size of the face (in pixel dimensions) and makes a smart guess as to how much smoothing is needed. Value range is 0-100, measured in percentage. A value of 0 turns off the Beauty Box effect. The functional range for Smoothing Amount is between 15-40. The optimal value depends upon the size of the image file and the amount of skin damage in the subject. Usually for a regular size photo -- like 8 megapixels -- somewhere between 20-35 is the best range. For very high resolution images, increasing Smoothing Amount above 35 and Smoothing Radius above 20 can be beneficial.

Example of Smoothing Amount Original photo Smoothing Amount, setting of 27
Good balance between realistic texture and improved skin tone.
Smoothing Amount, low settings
Still blotchy, needs more smoothing.
Smoothing Amount, high settings
Over-smoothed, looks a little plastic.

What is the best range?

By best range, we mean a realistic smoothing effect. The ideal range for Smoothing Amount is 20-35%. Going higher than 40% can make the subject start to look too smooth or plastic. The eyebrows get smoothed out unnatually, significant lines that define facial features are smoothed out, and you lose contrast. If youre going for a very stylized look, a high Amount can work but usually you will want your models to look realistic. Its important to find a good, balanced setting where blemishes and some wrinkles are removed, but your subject is not reduced to looking like a mannequin.
Smoothing Amount & the Mask
Smoothing Amount is affected by the Beauty Box mask. The grayscale value of the mask in a particular area will affect how much smoothing is applied. Here is how that works. here the mask is 100% white, the Amount W will be exactly the value you set.
he amount of smoothing will be reduced in T areas that arent 100% white.
here the mask is less than 100% white, the W amount of smoothing applied will be less than whats set in the Amount value.

white = 100% smoothing

or example, if a mask area is 50% gray, the F smoothing applied will be 50% of the Smoothing Amount value. The relationship also works in the opposite direction, though less so. When Smoothing Amount is raised or lowered, the mask gets affected slightly. For instance, if Smoothing Amount is set low, the masks gray values get lowered slightly, which means more smoothing is applied.

black = 0% smoothing

gray = 50% smoothing

View of smoothing mask

In our example at right, we see the Beauty Box mask with the Show Mask button turned on. The main skin surface around the eyes, cheeks, chin, nose and forehead are white, so that area gets 100% smoothing treatment. The gray areas get partial smoothing. The black areas get no smoothing.

Smoothing Radius

Smoothing Radius controls the amount of smoothing on large skin features. It does this by setting the sample size for the Smoothing Amount. As with Smoothing Amount, there is no default setting for Smoothing Radius. The face detection figures out the size of the face (pixel dimensions) and makes a smart guess as to how much smoothing is needed. Value range is 0-100, measured in percentage. A value of 0 turns off the Beauty Box effect. The functional range of Smoothing Radius is really about 10-25%. The optimal setting depends upon the size of your image and the texture of the skin being retouched.

Setting the Radius value

If you have skin thats not too blotchy, a low Radius of around 10 is good. Keep in mind that for a low Radius, the sample size will be small. This means that the models freckles may turn a bit blotchy at low Radius settings. Increasing the Smoothing Radius causes the Smoothing Amount to smooth over a larger area. If you have someone with a lot of freckles or blotchy skin, its better to have a larger sample size to smooth out blotches or freckles. In that case, try a Radius of 20-25. Above 30%, you start to lose contrast. Radius will smooth over large skin regions, so when you crank this value up, you lower the image contrast. This is the downside to Smoothing Radius; the more you increase it, the more contrast you lose. At high settings, the face will almost look totally flat, which is usually not a good look. This may work out okay for some images, but for most photographs, its not going to give you the ideal look.
Pay attention to image contrast
Smoothing Radius and skin smoothing in general tends to reduce the contrast of the image. Its important to keep that issue in mind when youre adjusting the settings. Keep an eye out for a significant contrast reduction or shift. Although. some reduction in contrast can be a good thing. For instance, highlights caused by a flash or strobe can be too bright, and reducing the shine on the skin is beneficial. The benefits of using Smooth Radius will depend on factors like the look youre going for, and how the image was shot in the first place.
Example of Smoothing Radius Original photo Smoothing Amount, setting of 35
Good balance between smooth skin and image contrast.
Loss of contrast in eyes, nose and mouth.

Skin Detail Amount

Skin Detail sets how much skin detail is retained after the smoothing process. The default setting is 30. The slider value range is 0-30. The true range is 0100 since you can type in a higher numeric value. A value of 0 turns off the Beauty Box effect. You can usually leave the default of 30. This setting retains the texture and pore structure of the skin. A value of 30 is a good compromise between keeping the integrity of the skin and keeping render times managable. You dont get _that_ much more of an improvement by going above 30 and you really start to see increased render times. Youll see more difference between 5 and 30 than you will between 30 and 100, but render times may triple if you go from 30 to 100.

Render time warning

As we said, High Skin Detail settings can result in significantly higher render times. A value of 30 to 40 is usually a good compromise between amount of skin texture and speed. Keep the speed issue in mind if you decide on a higher setting.

Texture vs smoothing

The higher Skin Detail is set, the more texture and detail youll see in the skin. The tradeoff is that Skin Detail offsets the amount of smoothing youll see, sort of like an anti-smoothing control. If you have a high Smoothing Amount and Smoothing Radius, then you could increase the Skin Detail to get back some of the lost detail. In fact, increasing the Skin Detail is almost a necessity if you have a high Smoothing Radius. A relatively high Smoothing Radius (like 25) combined with a high Skin Detail (50-60) can produce a very good look. This will provide good smoothing of larger skin details while keeping a lot of texture and contrast. If you have a low Smoothing Radius (1 or 2), Skin Detail will have very little effect.
Preserve Small Detail slider
Skin Detail Amount is all about trying to keep skin texture and pore structure. The Preserve Small Detail control is also helpful in preserving those texture details. Read more about the Preserve Detail control.
Example of Smoothing Amount & Radius
NOTE: We list specific Smoothing settings in our examples. These settings may not produce the same result for your photographs depending on factors like the image resolution.

Original photo

Amount 30, Radius 18, Detail 30
Middle ranges give good balance between smooth skin and skin texture.
Amount 15, Radius 10, Detail 30
Low values keep the face blotchy, needs more smoothing.
Amount 50, Radius 30, Detail 30
High values make the face a little too smooth, loses contrast, looks a bit fake.
Beauty Box Photo: Manual Mask Group
The Manual Mask controls are used when you want to edit the automatic mask created by Beauty Box. Use the Set and Add buttons to add and expand the color range used to generate the smoothing mask.

Set Skin Color button

Creating a manual mask is very easy. Click the Set Skin Color button so it is active. In the Preview Window, click on a skin color in your photograph. That click selects the initial color on which you are basing the Beauty Box soothing mask. Next, use the Add Skin Color button to select additional areas on the face.

How to choose the color

When setting the initial color, it is usually best to find a color on the face that is fairly average, like a medium skin tone. Not too dark or too light. Usually an area on the cheek or forehead works well. You can expand the color range using the Add Skin Color button, so when using Set, dont worry about getting a perfect mask immediately.

Add Skin Color button

Add Skin Color expands the mask color range. This allows you to work with and expand the custom mask. With this option selected, click on the facial region multiple times to select areas that arent completely white. Anything you click on will expand the skin tones that are masked off. If you select a medium skin tone with Set, then Add works very well at expanding the color range to lighter and darker skin colors. You can use this button to smooth skin that is affected by highlights and shadows.
Use with Show Mask button
With both Set and Add, you can click around the photo when it is in regular mode OR Show Mask mode. In both situations, Set and Add will sample the image. Often, it is easiest to use Set/Add when you are in Show Mask mode. Keep in mind that when you are sampling the grayscale mask, you arent really sampling the black, white or gray. You are instead sampling the skin tones that the mask areas refer to.
Beauty Box Photo: Advanced Mask Group
The Advanced Mask controls are used to perfect your mask. If you have lighter areas in parts of the mask that youd prefer be dark or vise-versa, adjust the Range to tweak the mask more to your liking.

How it Works

Beauty Box works in HSV color space. With these sliders, you are adjusting the range around two colors in the Hue (H), Saturation (S) or Value (V) channel. Usually Beauty Box does a pretty good job of automatically selecting the values for the Falloff parameters. Tweaking the settings can bring some incremental benefits, but its unlikely youll see amazing changes. Improvements in one part of the image are typically offset with other areas degrading.

Use Show Mask button

When using the Range controls, you will see the difference more when the Show Mask button is turned on and showing the grayscale mask. This is because these affect the HSV of the mask. You will see the effects in regular mode (when Show Mask is off) but those effects are typically pretty subtle. Be assured, however, they are working hard.

Hue Range

Hue Range sets the shade distribution of the grayscale mask. Beauty Box sets the value according to how it detects the image, so there is no default setting. Settings are 0-100, measured in percentage. Higher values make lighter shades of gray and add in more white to the mask. Lower values make darker shades of gray and add in more black.

Hue Range at 10. 14

Hue Range at 18.

Hue Range at 40.

Saturation Range
Saturation Range sets the contrast of the grayscale mask. Beauty Box sets the value according to how it detects the image, so there is no default setting. Settings are 0-100, measured in percentage. Higher values create less contrast between the dark and light values, which lightens the mask overall.

Saturation Range at 6.

Saturation Range at 20.

Saturation Range at 40.

Value Range
Value Range affects the brightness of the grayscale mask. Beauty Box sets the value according to how it detects the image, so there is no default setting. Settings are 0-100, measured in percentage. Higher values make the image brighter, which lightens the mask while keeping contrast.

Value Range at 4. 15

Value Range at 18.

Value Range at 50.

Beauty Box Photo: Image Controls
The three Image controls each fine-tune the details of the Beauty Box results.

Preserve Edges

Beauty Box does a good job of keeping details of the face and background. The way it does that, in part, is through Preserve Edges. This is basically a high level find edges function. Default value is 100%, which is fully turned on. Value range is 0-100, measured in percentage. Preserve Edges is designed to keep significant details of the image. These are visual items that intersect with the skin like jewelry, eyelashes, teeth and hair across the forehead. Typically these details were sharp already or form major edges. For instance, areas like the nose, mouth and smile lines or text in a sign behind your subject. These are important details that should not typically be smoothed out.

When to use this slider

Preserve Edges is usually beneficial to have on. However, if youre seeing increased sharpening in wrinkles, especially around the eyes, you may want to turn it off. The downside to Preserve Edges is that it may add sharpenness and contrast to details that youd like smoothed out, like wrinkles around the eye. As with most of the parameters in Beauty Box, the setting is somewhat subjective. Its sweet spot will depend on the image and your judgement.

Preserve Small Detail

The Preserve Small Detail control is also helpful in preserving skin texture. It adds grain to the image after smoothing. Default value is 75%, which is fully turned on. Value range is 0-100, measured in percentage. The results are subtle. If you set to 0 and then to 100, and zoom in, you can see that the higher value brings back the pore structure of the skin. This helps us dial in how much skin texture you keep which helps to increase the realism. It also helps dial in stuff like jpg artifacts and skin blemishes that you dont want. A nice compromise is setting Preserve Detail to 50.

Because Beauty Box is smoothing out part of the image, the smoothed areas will potentially lose the original grain/noise of the image, along with small details like pore structure. This slider helps bring back some of those very small details. It makes the smoothed areas look more consistant with the rest of the image and prevents the skin from looking blurry.

Sharpening Amount

Sharpening Amount controls how much sharpening is applied to the image. This helps preserve the detail of the overall image by offsetting the smoothing with a touch of sharpening. Default value is 10%. Value range is 0-100, measured in percentage. Between 0-25 tends to be the useful range. Above 25 (and frequently lower than 25) the image starts to get oversharpened, producing noise and artifacts that make the image look worse. Between 10-15 is usually a good range will give you an extra boost, but not create too much noise.
Use Mask for Sharpening checkbox
This checkbox limits the Sharpening effect to the mask area. Where the mask is white, the image will be 100% affected by Sharpening Amount. Where the mask is black, you wont see any change in the image. Shades of gray get partially changed. A similar Use Mask control exists for the Color Correction group. It is very useful for color correction, less so with sharpening, but we felt there was value to including the control. Read about the Color Correction checkbox.
Beauty Box Photo: Color Correction Controls
There are three color correction tools in Beauty Box. Since Beauty Box is building a mask just for the skin tones, it can be helpful to do color corrections in the plugin since those corrections will only affect the skin tones designated by the mask.

When to use them

Hue, Saturation and Brightness tools are great for a little bit of color correction or touchup. Use them if you are doing minor corrections like making the skin a little warmer or a little darker. If you are doing hard core color correction, then we suggest doing that work in Photoshop before applying Beauty Box.

Adjust Hue at -4 Colors get a little redder.

Adjust Hue

Set the slider to negative values to add red/yellow to the image. Set to positive values to add green/ blue. Default setting is 0. Value range is -15 to 15.
Adjust Hue at 4 Colors get a little greener.

Original image

Adjust Saturation
Set the slider to negative values to add saturation, which is a deepening of the colors richness. Set to positive values to remove saturation and dull the colors. Default setting is 0. Value range is -15 to 15.

Adjust Brightness

Set the slider to negative values to darken the image. Set to positive values to brighten the image. Default setting is 0. Value range is -15 to 15.
Use Mask for Color Correction checkbox
This checkbox limits the Color Correction effect to the mask area. Where the mask is white, the image will be 100% affected by Hue, Saturation or Brightness. Where the mask is black, you wont see any change in the image. Shades of gray get partially changed. In our example below, when the checkbox is off, the Brightness slider penetrates the whole photograph and lowers the image contrast while brighting areas. When the checkbox is on, the Brightness is more limited and the image keeps its saturation and contrast. Use Mask for Color turned ON, Adjust Brightness at 10 Use Mask for Color turned OFF, Adjust Brightness at 10
Beauty Box Photo: UI Controls
The interface controls include Snapshots, a Preset List, the Use GPU checkbox and a contextual menu.

Snapshot 1, 2, 3

These buttons take a snapshot of the image as it looks with your Beauty Box corrections. You can save three rendered views. This is a great function if you want to save the smoothing mask but continue to tweak the results without losing your work.

Action buttons

The three Action buttons let you access and use the Snapshots.

Save button

After you click Snapshot 1, 2 or 3, then click the Save button. This saves a rendered version of your Beauty Box image to memory.

View button, Load button

Click View to show the Beauty Box image that was saved as a Snapshot. Click Load to also change the slider values to the saved values, sort of like a preset. For instance, if you have Smoothing settings of 20, 15, 30 and you save those as Snapshot 1, Beauty Box saves those settings and a copy of the rendered image. Lets say you then change the Smoothing settings to 30, 30, 30. If you click View, Beauty Box shows the rendered image created from the settings 20, 15 and 30, but the Smoothing sliders still show 30, 30, 30. If you click Load, the Smoothing sliders change back to 20, 15, 30 along with the rendered image.

View Original command

Check or uncheck this menu item to show or hide the original view of your image. This is a great way to toggle between your smoothed image and the original one, so you can really see the changes that Beauty Box has made. Read more in the Contextual Menu section.

Preset List

Through the Preset List, you can save combinations of Beauty Box settings for later use. This is great if you are working on many photos of the same model. It is also useful for saving and resuing certain kinds of skin correction, like fixing the skin blotchiness on babies or giving a slightly glossed glamour treatment for women.

Preset well

This area shows the presets that you have saved.
Save Preset, Apply Preset
These buttons let you save a preset and apply it later. Pretty self-explanatory.

Make it Happen buttons

The usual line-up of buttons that make your interface run.

Reset button

This button tells Beauty Box to reset its smoothing mask. The mask reverts to the original mask that it automatically created.

Cancel button

This button closes the Beauty Box interface without applying its effect, and brings you back into Photoshop.

OK button

This button applies the Beauty Box effect while bringing you back to Photoshop.

Use GPU checkbox

Beauty Box uses the GPU on your video card to speed up the time it takes to render the effect in Photoshop. GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit. It is a separate processor on your video card that is optimized to speed up graphics. (Note: This is not the CPU which runs your computer.) By using the card GPU, Beauty Box significantly speeds up the time it takes to render. Therefore, ou should usually leave this checkbox turned ON.

When to turn off Use GPU

The GPU can sometimes get overloaded and fail, meaning nothing will get rendered. You will usually see a Render Failed error message or Beauty Box will just render the original image with no effect applied. If this happens turn Use GPU off. This should be a rare event, but its possible. Very large images will sometimes cause it. Having many applications open may cause it, particularly if those applications are also trying to use the GPU.

Use GPU and nVidia/CUDA

If you have a nVidia video card, instead of Use GPU button you may see Use GPU and CUDA. Newer nVidia cards support a technology called CUDA which Beauty Box also takes advantage of. This is just another way of speeding up Beauty Box and it does so dramatically. If youre using an nVidia card that supports CUDA, Beauty Box will be 2-4 times faster. By the way, if you primarily use Adobe applications, we strongly recommend getting an nVidia video card that supports CUDA. Even lower end cards like the GeForce GT 220 (about $65) show impressive speed improvements. Actually, we recommend the cheaper nVidia cards ($65-$150) as they provide a good price/performance ratio. The more expensive cards ($300-$500) are faster, but not 3-5 times faster as you might expect from the price. More like 30-50% faster. This speed is significant but may not be worth the extra cost depending on what youre doing.

Preview Window

This is the area that shows the photo you are retouching. There are a few controls that move you around the Preview Window.

Zoom In, Zoom Out

Lets you enlarge or reduce your view of the Preview WIndow. Click Plus to zoom in, Minus to zoom out, or input a numeric value.

Grabber Hand

When your cursor hovers over the Preview Window, it automatically changes to a grabber hand. Click down to scroll the image if it is larger than the display area.

Contextual menu

While your cursor is over the Preview Window, either Control-click (Mac) or Right-click (Windows) to bring up the contextual menu.
These menu items are the equivalent of the Zoom In/Out buttons. Alternately use the keyboard keys Command-Plus/Minus (Mac) or Control-Plus/Minus (Windows).

Reset Viewer

This menu item is the equivalent of clicking the Reset button. Alternately use the keyboard keys Command-R (Mac) or Control-R (Windows).

Show Original

Check or uncheck this menu item to show or hide the original view of your image. This is a great way to toggle between your smoothed image and the original one, so you can really see the changes that Beauty Box has made. Alternately use the keyboard keys Command-G (Mac) or Control-G (Windows).

Undo, Redo

Un-apply or re-apply the last change you made inside of Beauty Box. Works just like the Undo/Redo commands in Photoshop. Alternately use the keyboard keys Command/Control-Z (Mac) or Control-Z (Windows) to Undo, and CommandShift-Z (Mac) or Control-Shift-Z (Windows) to Redo.

View Fullscreen

Tells the Preview Window to take over your monitor and show an enlarged view of the Beauty Box photo. Alternately use the keyboard keys Command-F (Mac) or Control-F (Windows).

Troubleshooting section

This section covers technical issues you may run into when using Beauty Box.
You are experiencing crashes or render problems
Since Beauty Box uses the GPU of your video card, it is important to make sure you have the most up-to-date drivers. Photoshop also uses the GPU, so it will benefit as well, especially when running Photoshop CS5. You can get drivers by going to: For nVidia video cards: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index5.aspx?lang=en-us For ATI video cards: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx Not having up-to-date drivers is the cause of a lot of problems. If youre running into problems with Beauty Box, please try to update your video card first. If youre not sure what video card you have, then quit out of Beauty Box and go here in Photoshop: Photoshop> Help> About Plugin> Beauty Box The About Box will tell you who makes your video card and what model it is.

Preview Window displays Render Failed error
This error message usually occurs because the GPU on your video card has become overloaded. Turning off the Use GPU checkbox should solve the problem.

A Photographers Guide to Makeup
Many photographers, especially those of the male persuasion, have no idea how to apply makeup or what makeup adds to an image. With so many photo processing tools available, is a makeup artist even necessary? Why not simply remove blemishes and add color in Photoshop? As a makeup artist, I hear these questions all the time. My goal here is to talk about when you should hire a makeup artist, versus trying it yourself or fixing things in Photoshop. I also give a brief overview of the various components of makeup and how they come together to enhance (or conceal!) your subjects features. Its great information in case you cant hire a makeup artist and want a better understanding of what she would have done as you try to fix the problems in Photoshop.
The Role of a Makeup Artist
The makeup artist you work with should be your partner in crime in getting great images. Its her job to understand the final purpose of images that are being taken (wedding? senior photo? fashion magazine?) and to help you achieve that. However, her main job is to make sure the client, model, or talent looks as good as possible so you have a head start on creating memorable images. A makeup artist is especially important if youre shooting video. Theres a reason why Jon Stewart and Barack Obama never go in front of the camera without makeup on, and its that todays HD film exposes every wrinkle, pore, pimple, and blotch. While such blemishes are easy to remove on a still image, they are much more difficult to fix in a moving picture. It is far easier to have a makeup artist even out skin tone and cover blemishes beforehand than to try any fancy tactics on the computer afterward. A makeup artist is also crucial for controlling shine. A person quickly grows shiny under the hot camera lights, and you dont want to realize while reviewing your film that the subject has suddenly developed an oil slick around frame 5,024. While you could, in theory, watch out for shine and powder a subject yourself, in practice its difficult. A videographer has to stay focused on the making of the film; he cant be swooping in every five minutes to remove shine or tuck away a stray hair.
2010, Digital Anarchy : Smart Tools for Creative Minds | www.digitalanarchy.com
In contrast to video, still photography is much more forgiving when it comes to makeup. If youre photographing only men (and are not shooting an Emporio Armani ad or some other fashion-heavy image), you can get away with just concealer and powder, or even nothing at all, and perfect the skin later using Photoshop and plug-ins like Digital Anarchys Beauty Box. I do recommend using powder, since shine is harder to remove post-picture than localized imperfections like pimples and scars. If using a makeup artist is optional for men in still shots, how about for women? Here, the heuristic is completely different. When photographing a woman, the rule is: Always hire a makeup artist. This is not because women are worse-looking and somehow need more help than men. Rather, its because there is so much opportunity to make women look fantastic using makeup in ways that are extremely difficult for Photoshop to mimic. For example, makeup can make a womans eyes pop, add depth and contour to her features, and in general, make an otherwise ordinary-looking woman appear stunning. Here is one example I am particularly proud of:
I dare you to try doing that in Photoshop. An often-ignored role of makeup is the confidence boost it gives your subjects. Women who feel beautiful, look beautiful. Im often amazed at the transformation in a womans smile, posture, and carriage after having her makeup applied. Even though digital photography is in some ways a numbers game, a confident subject will increase your percentage of shots that are promising.

The Basics of Makeup

Now that weve covered when you should hire a makeup artist (i.e., always except when taking still shots of men, and even then consider it), lets move on to the basics of makeup. The goal here is not to teach makeup application for that, you would need books or a personal lesson in makeup. Instead, its to give you a grasp of the terminology and tools of makeup so that you can effectively collaborate with your makeup artist on set.

A makeup artist will start by applying base (foundation, primer, concealer, and powder). The purpose of base is to smooth out the complexion, reduce redness and shine, and conceal under-eye darkness, wrinkles, and scars. A good base is especially important in video, where blemished skin is a nightmare to correct retroactively. Tools like Digital Anarchys Beauty Box can help, but its not a replacement for makeup done right in the first place. When applying base, a makeup artist will often start by putting on primer, a clear gel that fills in pores and enables makeup application to go on more smoothly. Then, foundation is used to even out skin tone and create a clear canvas for makeup. Ive found that on older subjects, powder foundation can settle into pores and accentuate fine lines. I prefer to mix liquid foundation with water (to make it more sheer), and then apply concealer where needed to cover spots and blemishes. Many makeup artists will use a separate concealer for the under-eye area and a drier, more concentrated one to cover spots and blemishes. One of my favorite tricks is to use a highlighting pen on top of concealer to add radiance to the skin. This can do wonders for brightening aging skin:
When a makeup artist is done with the base, he will set the concealer with powder. This prevents the powder blushes and shadows from grabbing onto creamy spots on the skin.

Cheeks

I like to apply a neutral bronzer along the temples on both women and men to define the bone structure and to give the illusion of more defined cheekbones. A highlighting powder can also be swept right on top of the cheekbones to create more dimension. On women, blush is blended over the bronzer to create a soft, natural flush.
Using shadow, eyeliner, and mascara, a skilled makeup artist can really bring out the color and accentuate the shape of your subjects eyes. Unlike evening out skin tone, applying eyeshadow in when post-processing video is extremely difficult if not impossible, so hiring a makeup artist can make a big difference here. With stills, its not too difficult to do it in Photoshop on a single image, but getting it to look consistent between different shots may be tricky. And, again, dont underestimate the confidence that can come from feeling beautiful with makeup on. Eye makeup is often especially striking on women with light eyes and features. Here, purple shadows and liner are used to define the models green eyes:

I often think of applying eyeshadow as a way of faceting a gem (the eye) for maximum brilliance. Here, too, shadow is used to contour the subjects eyes and reveal depth:
As a part of the overall eye look, a makeup artist will often define the brows. I like to use a pencil to lightly color in strokes, and then use a powder to soften the look.
Lips can be defined using lipstick, lip pencil, gloss, or all three. Depending on the look that you are going for, the lip color can be the center of attention or tie in a monochromatic look. Lip color is also the easiest aspect of makeup to change on set, so if you want to take several shots with different wardrobe, lighting, or set, having your makeup artist change the lip color can be a quick way to complement the new setting. You may be surprised at how changing from a neutral to a bold lip color can instantly alter the mood of the makeup.

How It Comes Together

In my work with photographers and videographers, makeup is typically not the focus of the image or film. I am rarely asked to transform the subject into a runway model or an Orc, but rather the most beautiful, confident, and classy image of themselves: the Vanity Fair cover version. What the audience doesnt see (the under-eye circles, the blemishes, the double-chin) is just as important as, if not more important than, what they do see (the striking eyes, the porcelain skin, the expressive mouth). Creating memorable images is about the overall effect, and makeup as much as lighting, setting, subject, and retouching is an essential part of the process.
Esther Tsai is a Bay Area makeup artist specializing in photography and video. You can view her work and contact her at her website, www.esthertsai.com.