This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Reducing Jaws and Jowls
This is a retouch you usually do when there’s more than one person in the photo, but you want to slim just one of them. This is one of those techniques that, when you look at it, you think, “There’s no way this is going to work.” But, it actually works amazingly well, even though it only takes a few seconds. Go figure.
STEP ONE:
Click on the image in Lightroom you want to retouch and press Command-E (PC: Ctrl-E) to open it in Photoshop. Here, we’re going to reduce his jaw area and jowls.
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STEP TWO:
Get the Lasso tool (L) and draw a very loose selection around your subject’s jaw and the lower part of the face on both sides (as shown here). Now, soften the edges of the selection by going under the Select menu, under Modify, and choosing Feather. When the Feather Selection dialog appears, enter 10 pixels and click OK.
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STEP THREE:
Go under the Filter menu, under Distort, and choose Pinch. When the Pinch dialog appears, drag the slider to the right to the point where it reduces the area but without looking too obvious. You see a preview of how this affects your image in the filter dialog’s little preview window as you drag the slider (I chose 35% here, but depending on your subject, you might need to use slightly more or less). To see a quick before and after of what the filter is doing, just take your cursor and click-and-hold right inside the preview window to see the before, then let go to see the after. Click OK, and the Pinch filter is applied to your selected area (a before/after is shown below). In some cases, applying the filter once just isn’t enough (it’s too subtle), so to apply the same filter again, using the exact same settings, press Command-F (PC: Ctrl-F).
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