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Frequency Separation vs Dodge & Burn - Which technique should you use?

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If you shoot portraits and are undecided on what the best technique to use for skin retouching is, then look no further. In this week’s post, we will be brushing over the pros and cons of each technique then come to a conclusion to which I think would be better personally in specific images. Let’s start with the first technique:


Frequency separation


This technique consists of decomposing image data into individual frequencies, which then allows you to edit on each frequency independently. Two frequencies we tend to separate them into is a high-frequency and low-frequency layer. The Higher generally has data for the finer details such as hairs, fine lines, and skin pores. While the lower normally contain colours, shadows and other tone data. We then edit on both of these layers to tweak each specific detail we need to, so the skin smoothens out and removes the inconsistencies.


Pros:

  • You can produce a high-quality retouch in a relatively quick time.

  • An easy method to get you head around.

  • Great for blending skin tones.

Cons:

  • You can over-edit an image in the blink of an eye.

  • A destructive way of editing. 

  • It can look amateur If not practised extensively.



Dodge & Burn


This method is the one most commonly used by professional retouchers and beauty editors in my opinion. This technique involves darkening and lighting small inconsistencies of the skin to balance out the light, to give you a clean, natural-looking retouch. Most people hear dodge and burn and they just think of the general lightening and darkening but if you try this technique on a micro-level and try your best to balance the light out overall on the skin, you will see amazing, professional results. In the image above it shows before and after this technique was applied and as you can see the results are pretty clean. 


 Pros:

  • More professional-looking images.

  • Leaves the skin looking more natural.

  • A non-destructive way of retouching.

Cons:

  • Can take hours of retouching (especially longer on beauty shots).


There are not any more cons I could possibly think of for this technique.



Dodge & Burn action 


I have made an action so you can get to practising this technique right away without the hassle of setting all the small details up. Obviously, it is good to learn how to set this up yourself but this is to just get you started. I will attach the google drive link, make sure you download the file and upload it your actions tab on photoshop, press play and you’re ready to go. I will also add a read me document to go through the steps to make sure, you’re using it right.


Action - Click Here



Conclusion


If I had to pick, I would go with dodge and burn the majority of the time. I think my opinion on it is pretty clear seeing as I have an action for it but not for frequency separation. This is because I just think frequency separation can sometimes look too blurry on the skin and is too destructive for an editing process. At least I know if I made a big mistake dodging or burning I can just paint back over my mistake with the brush. But when you use FS it can be a bit more difficult to recover your mistakes. Personally, I would use FS in situations where you only have a short time to edit your photo or you don’t want to invest hours into retouching. While dodge and burn should be used for close-up beauty shots, or any headshots that need to look professional, the sort you would see on the cover of a magazine.


Once you have edited using either of these methods, tag or dm @chrisblairphoto on Instagram, so I can see how you got on and see if can help further if you need it.
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