Sims Editing: Skin Smoothing, Hair Drawing, etc.

Nice to see you back! :smiley:
I sometimes alternate between using a regular brush and a filter, depends on what I am doing usually and my mood. The filter I use is a plugin called Topaz Clean, though depending on the situation some lines can appear around the edges, usually after cutting. A quick swipe with the smudge tool gets rid of them, though majority of the time they aren't very noticeable. I

For the brush, I never bothered to look for anything new or different, I just use a regular soft brush and use low-ish smudge settings to even skin tones and remove blemishes. I would imagine that any brush used for painting skin would be ideal though.

I prefer the filter though with my current settings because it softens the image, blends/removes most blemishes, and softly sharpens at the same time. Not to mention it is quicker than using a regular brush. If there are large blemishes/issues though, I go in with the soft smudge brush to finish clearing them up.

Here is an image I did recently using the filter. Ignoring the extra editing I did on the other body parts/image, including extra sharpening, the filter cleaned her skin right up (and the clothes too). The areas with my sims (not sure about anyone else's) that are always a mess is around the eyes due to the low texture makeup and the skin.

http://i.imgur.com/NXg7TRy.png

I'm the same as @MizoreYukii, I tend to just use the regular brush with a low opacity. Personally, I like to pick out the common shade close to where I want to smooth for nice transitioning, the same goes for fixing any issues such as blemishes or clipping.

Or, I use the selection tool and go around the parts that I'd like to smooth and use a gaussian blur in a low setting until I'm happy with how smooth her skin looks, then if I want to go ahead and add details I just pick out her darkest and lightest shade and do some shadows and highlights where I want more detail.

That was really informative guys! Thanks so much! @MizoreYukii did you get the plugin off deviantart? Id like to try that!

After leaving s&m, I got rid of everything in my computer that dealt with editing. So I kinda feel like a nood again, entering this worlf again.

Personally, I just use my tears...


Mostly, I use the smudge tool, with a boring round brush and it really depends on what I'm doing with it, as to whether I use soft edges or hard edges.

For hair, I like to use a hair brush. Google "brush for drawing hair in photoshop" you'll get a lot of tutorials for making brushes for drawing hair, but I like to use them with the smudge tool too, to edit hair.

Yay glad youre back! Missed your beautiful edits. Here's the hair brushes you once recommended:


'In addition with Jake's post for the hair brushes he uses, there is also this brush set and this one that I like using. But I tend to lean more toward the Brush Set:P2 though, as the strokes are softer'

@GreenLover331 Sorry for the late reply!
I got the settings off of DeviantArt that was linked to me by another model, but the plugin itself is from one of those mediafire downloads since it's a paid plugin. xD
You can get the action with the settings here (I think, memory is a little fuzzy), https://heypsd.deviantart.com/art/Topaz-Action-348738649

"JoeJoe11;c-16003327" wrote:
Yay glad youre back! Missed your beautiful edits. Here's the hair brushes you once recommended:

@JoeJoe11 There wasnt anything showing for the brushes I rec'd, but I did find them, thankfully after racking my brain! But im really glad to be back, after finding a stable job, then having a baby, ugh... life just happens. Only have time now cuz I'm recovering from back surgery. But hopefully I can keep it up after returning to work!

"Movotti;c-16002558" wrote:
Personally, I just use my tears...

For hair, I like to use a hair brush. Google "brush for drawing hair in photoshop" you'll get a lot of tutorials for making brushes for drawing hair, but I like to use them with the smudge tool too, to edit hair.

@Movotti Lol @ tears, but I may try that method with actual 'hair' brushes, as I just viewed a YouTube tutorial doing that!

"MizoreYukii;c-16015622" wrote:
@GreenLover331 Sorry for the late reply!
I got the settings off of DeviantArt that was linked to me by another model, but the plugin itself is from one of those mediafire downloads since it's a paid plugin. xD
You can get the action with the settings here (I think, memory is a little fuzzy), https://heypsd.deviantart.com/art/Topaz-Action-348738649

@MizoreYukii TY!!! You're cool! Im just now seeing these in my notifs! So I apologize as well, guys!

@GreenLover331 Not sure if I could be of any help as I don't do much smoothing when editing but for when adding in hair strands, etc, I usually set my brush settings on 50% flow.
My actual brush settings in the "Brush Window" are set to this for almost everything but mostly comes in handy with a graphic tablet if you have one.
http://i.imgur.com/U5UGWsJ.png
If you're using a mouse I'd say fiddle with the opacity/flow settings and constantly adjust brush size while working. Sometimes I switch between mouse and tablet and this has helped me a lot when adding hair detail using a mouse.
I also use the burn/dodge tool to bring out some areas of the hair more such as shadows and highlights (burn/dodge set on 50% opacity). I also use this when editing in some parts of the skin or other things.
Like mentioned by others, too, finding nice pre-made hair brushes can take a lot of the pain of drawing the strands in away :dizzy:

Did this edit a bit ago with these brush settings posted above when adding in the extra hair strands and other minor details.
Really ugly looking boy so just a forewarning

"Doctor_Vikter;c-16016095" wrote:
@GreenLover331 Not sure if I could be of any help as I don't do much smoothing when editing but for when adding in hair strands, etc, I usually set my brush settings on 50% flow.
My actual brush settings in the "Brush Window" are set to this for almost everything but mostly comes in handy with a graphic tablet if you have one.
http://i.imgur.com/U5UGWsJ.png
If you're using a mouse I'd say fiddle with the opacity/flow settings and constantly adjust brush size while working. Sometimes I switch between mouse and tablet and this has helped me a lot when adding hair detail using a mouse.
I also use the burn/dodge tool to bring out some areas of the hair more such as shadows and highlights (burn/dodge set on 50% opacity). I also use this when editing in some parts of the skin or other things.
Like mentioned by others, too, finding nice pre-made hair brushes can take a lot of the pain of drawing the strands in away :dizzy:

Did this edit a bit ago with these brush settings posted above when adding in the extra hair strands and other minor details.
Really ugly looking boy so just a forewarning

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/rXPiXXG.jpg

First off! Wow @ that edit; ah-maze-balls! Do you have any tut's?!

Second, I use my Intuos (I feel I spelled that so wrong) tab when editing 98% of the time... and I could not do one strand methods, as my hand cramps easily, plus I suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome in my dominant hand/wrist (righty). :s

"GreenLover331;c-16016186" wrote:

First off! Wow @ that edit; ah-maze-balls! Do you have any tut's?!

Second, I use my Intuos (I feel I spelled that so wrong) tab when editing 98% of the time... and I could not do one strand methods, as my hand cramps easily, plus I suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome in my dominant hand/wrist (righty). :s

Aa thank you! I love editing, keeps the creative juices flowing!
I'm really bad but I actually don't have any in depth for tutorials (yet), ugh. I have a few .gifs I put together during a few of the other edits I've done for a kind of break down but I do need to put some tutorials together, though, maybe this week I can get to creating a thread with some!

And that's spelled right haha! Wacom has some odd tablet names. I have the same problem at times, though, especially when I had my Bamboo tablet. I did grab a wrist brace for times it gets super nasty and it did help but it was hard as anything to try and work with it on so it's 100 percent understandable about drawing in the strands. I usually take a lot of breaks when doing edits because of that so it makes completion time super, super slow :dizzy:

There's also this brush set I've used a few times from DeviantART that has a kind of hairy pattern brush to it that you might be able to manipulate to your liking but downloading an actual hair brush and blending that in might be the best and easiest option :blush: You can still get pretty wild editing results with those