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Photoshop retouching
Head-to-head tests of Retouch4me's AI plugins against manual Photoshop technique (patch tool, dodge & burn, targeted color/curves work) show manual retouching still wins on quality and artistic control across skin, eyes, and teeth, but AI is dramatically faster and good enough to handle the bulk of the work — so the video's recommended path for professionals is a hybrid workflow: let AI do the mundane heavy lifting, then finish by hand.
The video runs three paired comparisons (manual vs. Retouch4me AI plugin) on skin blemishes, eyes, and teeth, showing before/afters side by side each time.
Manual blemish removal uses the Patch tool, including a shortcut where shift-clicking lets you circle several nearby blemishes and drag them all to a clean area at once.
AI blemish removal ('Retouch me' plugin) uses a sensitivity slider to control detection aggressiveness, applies almost instantly, but leaves out some blemishes and can't handle 'complex' distractions the way the manual patch/remove tools can.
Manual dodge and burn: create a blurred stamp-visible layer purely as a visual guide (explicitly stated as 'not frequency separation'), then paint white/black at 1-2% flow on a soft-light blend layer to sculpt the skin.
AI dodge and burn (Retouch4me) uses a 'blend' slider for intensity but applies with the wrong blend mode by default, producing a 'horrible ghost' effect until manually switched to Soft Light.
Manual eye retouching removes veins with the Remove tool, reduces redness in the eye whites via a targeted Hue/Saturation adjustment, and adds directional shine ('kicker light') with a masked Curves layer.
AI eye tools are split into two separate plugins: 'Eye Vessels' (slider-controlled vein removal, which introduces some artifacts/anomalies) and 'Eye Brilliance' (a single brightness slider).
Teeth whitening compares a manual targeted Hue/Saturation approach against the AI 'White Teeth' plugin; the AI's automatic mask is judged harsher and bleeds slightly into the gums versus the more natural manual mask.
The video closes with a three-factor decision framework for choosing AI vs. manual: time, quality, and artistic approach.
Final recommendation: a hybrid approach where AI handles repetitive/mundane retouching first, and the artist manually corrects or fine-tunes afterward.
Patch Tool — A Photoshop healing-group tool used to manually remove blemishes by selecting a flawed area and dragging it onto a clean area to replace the texture. Apply: Duplicate the background layer, select the Patch tool with Source mode, circle a blemish and drag it to a clean nearby area, and shift-click to add multiple nearby blemishes to one selection so they can all be patched in a single drag.
Stamp Visible Layer (Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+Shift+E) — A Photoshop shortcut that merges everything currently visible on the canvas into a new flattened layer on top, without altering the underlying layers. Apply: Press Control/Command Alt Shift E before running a filter or AI plugin that needs a single flattened image layer, or before creating a blurred visual-aid layer for dodge and burn.
Retouch4me "Retouch me" (AI blemish removal) — An AI Photoshop plugin filter that automatically detects and removes skin blemishes, with a sensitivity slider controlling how aggressively it detects flaws. Apply: Duplicate the layer, run Filter > Retouch for me > Retouch for me, set the sensitivity slider higher to detect more blemishes, check 'make mask,' hit Apply, then clean up any missed or complex blemishes manually with the Remove tool or Patch tool.
Dodge and Burning (manual, soft-light layer) — A manual skin-sculpting technique that brightens (dodges) and darkens (burns) selected areas by painting white and black on a low-opacity soft-light blend layer. Apply: Create a stamp-visible layer, blur it about 4 pixels purely as a texture-hiding visual guide, add a new layer set to Soft Light blend mode, and paint with a soft round brush at 1-2% flow — white to brighten, black to darken — then turn off the blurred guide layer to check the textured result.
Frequency Separation — A more advanced manual technique, named as an alternative to dodge and burn, for separating texture from tone/color when softening or evening out skin. Apply: Named as an option the artist could choose instead of dodge and burn for skin softening, though the steps are not walked through in this episode.
Retouch4me "Dodge & Burn" (AI plugin) — An AI plugin that automatically performs dodge-and-burn-style skin sculpting, with a 'blend' slider controlling the strength of the effect. Apply: Create a stamp-visible layer, run Filter > Retouch for me > Retouch for me Dodge Burn, set the blend amount (e.g. around 140), hit Apply, then manually change the resulting layer's blend mode to Soft Light to fix the default 'ghost' artifact and paint additional corrections on top as needed.
Remove Tool — A Photoshop tool, described as AI-assisted, used to paint over and erase unwanted details such as eye veins or blemishes an AI pass missed. Apply: Create a new layer, select the Remove tool with 'Sample all layers' checked, and paint directly over veins or missed blemishes to erase them.
Hue/Saturation targeted adjustment — A Photoshop adjustment-layer technique that isolates a specific color range (e.g. red eye-whites or yellow teeth) so hue, saturation, and lightness can be shifted only in that range. Apply: Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, click the target color on the image with the on-image hand tool to select its range, narrow or expand that range as needed, invert the mask (Ctrl/Cmd+I), then paint white with a brush over just the target area to reveal the adjustment there.
Curves adjustment for eye shine ("kicker light") — A manual technique for adding a directional highlight to the eyes by boosting brightness on a masked Curves layer. Apply: Add a Curves adjustment layer, lift a point to brighten, invert the mask, then dab white with a brush on the side opposite the light source to place a shine highlight, using separate curves layers per eye for asymmetric amounts of shine.
Retouch4me "Eye Vessels" (AI plugin) — An AI plugin that detects and removes red veins/vessels in the eyes, with a slider controlling removal strength. Apply: Run Filter > Retouch for me > Retouch for me Eye Vessels, increase the removal slider until the desired veins are detected, check make mask, hit Apply, then manually mask out any artifacts or 'anomalies' it introduces.
Retouch4me "Eye Brilliance" (AI plugin) — An AI plugin that brightens and enhances the eyes overall via a single 'standard' brightness slider. Apply: Create a stamp-visible layer, run Filter > Retouch for me > Retouch for me Eye Brilliance, set the standard slider (e.g. 100, the middle value), check make mask, and hit Apply.
Retouch4me "White Teeth" (AI plugin) — An AI plugin that whitens and brightens teeth via separate whitening and brightening sliders. Apply: Create a stamp-visible layer, run Filter > Retouch for me > White Teeth, set the whitening amount (e.g. around 26) and brightening amount, optionally make a mask, hit Apply, then check for mask bleed into the gums.
Hybrid approach (AI-first, manual-finish workflow) — The video's recommended professional workflow: let AI plugins handle the repetitive, mundane bulk of retouching, then use manual technique for artistic control and to fix what AI got wrong. Apply: Run the relevant Retouch4me plugin first for blemishes, dodge & burn, eyes, or teeth to do most of the heavy lifting, then add a manual layer (Remove tool, soft-light paint, or a masked adjustment) to correct or refine the specific areas that need an artistic touch.
AI's main failure mode isn't detection sensitivity but judgment on unusual or 'complex' distractions that require contextual, artistic decision-making rather than pattern matching.
The AI dodge-and-burn plugin outputs a raw layer that is unusable until the artist manually reassigns it to Soft Light blend mode — the plugin doesn't manage Photoshop layer semantics, only the pixel-level effect.
Across all three zones tested, the presenter frames AI's masking/edge precision as the consistent weak point, even in cases where the underlying pixel correction (e.g. skin texture) is judged 'pretty darn good.'
Retouch4me's per-feature sliders (sensitivity, blend amount, brilliance 'standard' level, whiten/brighten %) function as a single scalar substitute for artistic judgment, letting the user dial in 'how much to trust the AI' per technique rather than per pixel.
Despite declaring the manual result superior 'without any doubt' in every category, the presenter still actively uses, recommends, and monetizes (discount code) the same AI plugin — positioning it as a time-saving first-pass tool rather than a competing standard of quality.
The blurred 'visual aid' layer before dodge and burn is explicitly distinguished from true frequency separation — it's a simplified shortcut to avoid getting lost in texture while painting, not a texture-preserving technique in its own right.
«with technology getting so much better do you think we artists can still beat AI when it comes to retouching»
— 00:10
«without any doubt the manual one is just so much better so much more cleaner and it does give you the artistic control»
— 03:34
«so basically it comes down to how much time you have and how much time you want to give it»
— 08:34
«let's talk about retouching the eyes and this is where I really think we can do so much better»
— 08:39
«we don't have to think of it as a competitor as something that will take our jobs but it can be used as a tool to help you make your processes much faster with the artistic controls that you want»
— 15:00
«when it comes to AI versus manual retouching there are three things we need to keep in mind number one time»
— 15:25
«I still believe it is not close to the quality of what you can do manually if you have the right skills but I know that it's going to get better with time»
— 15:49
«what I do recommend in all of this if you are a professional is to go for a hybrid approach for all the mundane work»
— 16:19
Reception
Viewers highly appreciate the teaching quality and embrace the hybrid AI-human approach, but express concerns about Retouch4me's pricing, security issues, and feature limitations.
This is a demonstration-driven comparison tutorial whose own before/after evidence backs its stated conclusion — manual technique retains a real quality and artistic-control edge over the tested AI plugin — while explicitly flagging that edge as time-bound and likely to narrow.
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