Three Techniques for Smoothing Skin Tones in DaVinci Resolve

Advanced Beauty Grading Part Three : Smoothing Skin Tones

March 24, 2015

When working with people we always need to smooth skin tones. In this video I explore my three favorite skin smoothing tools.


Series

In this Insight, we take a look at what options we have available to us in DaVinci Resolve for working with skin tones. Skin tone retouching comes up almost daily when color correcting, as clients can be quite nervous about the appearance of their actors on screen.

I’ve used Resolve for such a long time I instinctively combine multiple types of blur when working with Skin. In a previous Insight a member comment about why I chose to use the Mist tool in Resolve?

In reality, I use two types of blur and the midtone detail adjustment

But there is no one magic tool that works in all situations, so I tend to use a combination of all three of these techniques depending on my needs! If you haven’t seen any of this series yet please check out Part 1. This covers more general beauty work and this Insight will make way more sense to you!

Check out my video Insight below to find out more.

– Dan


Comments

Homepage Forums Advanced Beauty Grading Part Three : Smoothing Skin Tones

  • Have you played with the frequency separation skin smoothing power grade from here:

    Lissage naturel de la peau |||| DaVinci Resolve

    It saved a commercial for me.

  • Love the midtone detail….so awesome, thanks for showing that. Could you go more int cloning for beauty in a real life grade situation? it always works w skies and such, but Im always having trouble w skins and very fine “unique” detail and cloning in Resolve. Would love to know other techniques for better clean-up in that sense, ignoring plug-ins. Great part 3, thx!

    off dubject but….Koji. How are you liking those emulations, Dan? Ive been LOVING them, and Im beta testing their new set. Curious to hear your opinion on them compared to your usual D65 Kodak (?) Film look you used to use fairly often (set that come w Resolve)


  • AndrewAndersen
    Guest

    Hey Dan,

    Thanks for sharing your knowledge on this subject. I have been experimenting using a touch of the noise reduction tool rather than blur/myst in combination with keyed selections to smooth out skin. Pushed too far it makes skin look like plastic, but with a good key, I find I can keep sharp details like lashes hair and lips while smoothing out pores and uneven texture. What are your thoughts?


  • bella.zarraa
    Guest

    Very usefull, thank you


  • Todd B
    Guest

    Where did this video go?


  • Patrick Inhofer
    Guest

    It’s back up now… got lost in the transition to Mixing Light v2. Thanks for the heads-up.

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