• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Oben CTM-2500 5-Section Carbon Fiber Monopod
  • Datacolor SpyderX Elite review and installation guide
  • BenQ SW271 monitor offers perfect color and resolution
  • Cecilia Humboldt 14L backpack offers stylish, customizable storage
  • Stacking up ProGrade Digital’s SDXC card and reader with SanDisk

Photofocus

Education and inspiration for visual storytellers

Menu
  • Blog
  • Photo
    • Shooting
    • Gear
    • Lighting
    • Reviews
    • Close
  • Video
    • Shooting
    • Gear
    • Lighting
    • Reviews
    • Close
  • Learn
    • Maximize Lightroom
    • HDR
    • Video
    • Lightroom
    • Photoshop
    • Close
  • Gear Guides
    • The Ultimate GoPro Kit
    • Architectural Photography
    • Close
  • Business
  • Drones
    • Stills
    • Video
    • Gear
    • Post-Processing
    • Close
  • Inspiration
  • News
  • Software
    • Adobe
    • Apple
    • Mobile
    • Skylum
    • Windows
    • Close
  • Podcasts
    • Audio Podcasts
    • Video Podcasts
    • Close
  • Contests

Frequency Separation for the Next Generation

David J. Crewe 11/19/2017 0

I know, I know…Frequency Separation is a VERY hot & loaded topic to bring up, and no, you don’t _have_ to use it. It’s pretty easy to go way too heavy handed with F.S. and end up making your portrait client look like a plastic doll. But when it’s used right, it’s pretty much going to be your go-to tool for perfecting your clients’ images. A lot of professional full-time retouchers, love it or hate it, use Frequency Separation on nearly everything, so let’s ignore the arguments about what can go wrong with F.S. and just go into why this panel is actually pretty amazing.

Installation

Installation is easy, just unzip and run the installer, (Pc or Mac), and then start up Photoshop.

 

 

You may have to enable the extension to show up in your toolbars. You’ll find the NBP FreqSep Control under the Window -> Extensions -> NBP FreqSep Control, just click it and it’s live in your tools.

 

 

Now, for those of you already familiar with Frequency Separation and how it works, this panel lets you do exactly what you expect. What makes it different from the rest of the F.S. systems out there is it gives you a preview of your settings, (and does so very quickly) before you click the apply button. This alone makes it worth the price of admission in my humble opinion, but what sold me above and beyond was how there were no luminosity changes when you run the action!

A lot of other Frequency Separation actions will end up slightly darkening your image. For a lot of us, that’s not a huge deal, but in the commercial world, it can be a dealbreaker. Your clients will notice that shift and it can be a massive headache to bring that brightness back. Being able to apply these adjustments with no luminosity change is all kinds of awesome for everyone involved.

Live Preview

So let’s have a look at the panel in action with a live preview.

Here’s a before image before running the action

And here’s after making some setting adjustments and hitting the preview button. (Please note, you can set up a Live Preview option in the settings, but this will render after every change and potentially slow your workflow down, so my recommendation is to use the preview button option.) For the purpose of this article, I’ve made the settings a tad extreme so you can see clearly in the screenshot linked below how it looks in use. Obviously, though, you’ll make your adjustments to suit your personal project needs with much stricter control;

 

 

The panel with either the live preview enabled or manually selected gives you complete control over the intensity of the action before you run it, saving you a lot of time in the long run since you won’t have to run/delete and re-run again of you went a little heavy. We all know that anything that’ll save you time in the retouching world is gold!

You’ll notice that no matter what you’ve set the sliders too, once the actions have run, you’ll see no difference to your image’s luminosity when you enable or disable the group!

 

 

Now, for me, not being a professional retoucher, I tend to stay away from the High and Low layers in this group. Those are the sections where if you don’t know what you’re doing it’s easy to go overboard. Where I spend my time is actually in the Transitions section, which is the empty layer in between the High and Low layers, where you can use the brush and eyedropper tool to match your skin tones to remove any inconsistent, shadowed, or blotchy areas without any fear of ruining or over-smoothing out the texture of the skin. For the organization-obsessed out there, you can add as many layers as you like labeling them for each section you work on to keep it organized for later re-edits.

Since it was just hands and face in this image, I made two Transition layers and then started selecting the primary skin tones to blend and paint them in to look more natural.

Here’s a before & after of some work with the NBP FreqSep Plugin doing the majority of the heavy lifting in my skin retouch:

Before Any Editing
After Editing with FreqSep Plugin

The Conclusion

Given I’m no pro retoucher and not the best with skin retouching, this simple in-between layer for matching tones has been a lifesaver for me. The Transitions layers do the majority of the hard work in a fraction of the time I used to spend on it! So yes, I’ve changed my stance on Frequency Separation thanks to this plugin and it’s now become a regular part of my workflow.

Here are some additional facts & features provided by NBP

  • A Plug-In Solution – $25.00
    Extends beyond other plugin panels by utilizing proprietary algorithms (blurring and edge detection) which are faster and higher quality than what is built into Photoshop.
  • Active Previewing
    View results of Low and High-frequency layers according to the settings in real time.
    Adjust settings on-the-fly to your preference or to the ideal parameters for your files.
  • Edge-preserving separation of low-frequency layer
    Blazing fast implementation of proprietary edge preservation (Detail Threshold) combined with high-frequency removal/smoothing (Radius)
    Faster, smoother, and higher quality than Photoshop’s surface blur and gaussian blur traditionally used in frequency separation.
    Actively adjust both parameters simultaneously to tailor the exact type of frequency separation you need and want.
    Dial up more smoothing (blur) for your Low-frequency layer while previewing in detail to avoid over haloing near high contrast transitions.
  • Seamless application of high-frequency layer
    More texture is preserved than in traditional frequency separation.
    Affords you the freedom to more intensely add color under texture to smooth out transitions without sacrificing it as much.
  • Works with your existing frequency separation workflow
    Whether you prefer to directly modify the Low or High layers (healing on High, mixer brush on Low, etc) or add color in between Low and High layers without directly modifying them, your frequency separation workflow will remain unchanged.
  • HTML5 native Photoshop UI panel
    Intuitive and efficient, easy to understand user interface built for effective workflow.
  • Multi-threaded and vectorized code
    The algorithms are implemented to take advantage of modern CPUs for a real-time experience.
  • Internal 32 bit calculation
    Works with 8, 16 and 32-bit images.
    Fewer artifacts, less quantization.

The plugin was created by Nino Batista and his team and for more information, you can visit his site ninobatista.com/plugins or here for more direct tutorials.

  • About
  • Latest Posts
Follow Me

David J. Crewe

Photographer at David J. Crewe Photography
David is an award winning Landscape and Portrait Photographer, Videographer, Writer, and Educator currently based out of Las Vegas, Nevada
Follow Me

Latest posts by David J. Crewe (see all)

  • Angler Silverbox 18″ Softbox Review - December 18, 2017
  • Frequency Separation for the Next Generation - November 19, 2017
  • Should You Update to Adobe Lightroom “Classic”? - November 6, 2017

Categories: Reviews Software Tags: Adobe David J. Crewe Frequency Separation NBP Photoshop CC plugin review software

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
 

You May Also Like:

Please support our partners:

Adobe Stock – The marketplace where videographers and photographers make money with their video footage and still photographs. Become a contributor today!

Lume Cube – Proudly known as the World's Most Versatile Light™, Lume Cube represents the future of LED Lighting.

ACDSee – Experience ultimate creative freedom with the world's first digital asset manager and RAW editor with layers. ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2019 is the answer to your creative graphic and photography needs.

Illuminati Instruments – Maker of the Illuminati meter that measures flash & ambient, color temperature and chromaticity in a compact case that links to a smartphone.

B&H – B&H is a world renowned supplier of all the gear photographers, videographers, and cinematographers need and want to create their very best work.

Skylum – Your photos, more beautiful in minutes. Makers of Luminar, Aurora and Photolemur, Skylum adapts to your style and skill level. Check out the new Luminar 3, now available.

Perfectly Clear Complete – Built for precision. Made for beauty. Perfectly Clear has mastered the science of intelligent image correction - creating superior quality photos in record time, so you can get back to doing what you really love...in no time. Special Photofocus deal here.

V-Flat World – Lightweight and easy to transport, the Foldable V-Flat from V-Flat World makes it easy to travel, collapsing down to 40 x 40 x 2 inches. Learn more at vflatworld.com.

Adobe Creative Cloud – Creative Cloud gives you the world's best apps and services for video, design, photography and the web, whether you're a beginner or a pro! Plans start at $9.99/mo. at adobe.com.

Viewbug – Learn and improve your photography with over 500 videos. Trusted by millions around the world, join over 2 million photographers who already use Viewbug.

HDR Learning Center – Check out new ways to use High Dynamic Range photography to make compelling images. Free tutorials and posts to get results. Produced in partnership with HDRsoft.

ThinkTAP – New online education for photographers by working professionals. Be one of the first 50 people to buy our new time-lapse training for only $99 (that’s 60% off); use the code TL50.

Reader Interactions

Comment Policy: Vigorous discussion is welcome. Please use your real names and respect one another.

Share your thoughts Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Our eBooks

  • Develop Great Images in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (Scribd | iBooks)
  • The Basic Beginner’s Guide to Photography Light & Exposure (iBooks)
  • Secrets of HDR (iBooks)
  • 72 Essays on Photography (iBooks | Amazon)

Footer

Photofocus

Regardless of the type of photography you focus on, Photofocus is here as a helpful and educational resource for the aspiring and professional photographer. Our goal is to assist in your success as an artist.

Advertise on Photofocus

Our eBooks

  • Develop Great Images in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (Scribd | iBooks)
  • The Basic Beginner’s Guide to Photography Light & Exposure (iBooks)
  • Secrets of HDR (iBooks)
  • 72 Essays on Photography (iBooks | Amazon)

Follow Us On Twitter

Follow @photofocus
Follow @rhedpixel
Follow @amesphoto
Follow @bryanesler
Follow @PhotoLevi
Follow @vanelli
Follow @chamirastudios
Follow @HahnNaturePhoto
Follow @LauriNovakPhoto
Follow @lightroomers
Follow @michaelmuraz
Follow @MikeJHagen
Follow @rodharlan
Follow @scottwyden
Follow @TracieJeanPhoto
Follow @Matthew_JordanS
© 2019 Photofocus · All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Advertise
    • Marketing Kit
  • Authors
    • The Publisher
  • Contact Us
  • Legal
    • Contests
    • FTC Disclosures
    • Review Guidelines
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.