all the basic steps of PortraitRetouching here - Removing Blemishes, Dodging & Burning, Frequency Separation and all of that stuff.

 especially from retouchers, is that whether to do Liquify in the very beginning or at the end.

Now, if you had asked me this question about10 years ago, I would have said - do it in the beginning. Why?

Because we always start from the structure,ground up.

However, if you ask me now, my answer would be different. Why?

Because of the introduction of Smart Objects and Smart Filters.

Now here we have a retouch, which I thinkI had featured in a previous video, but let me take you through it.

Let me show you the Before, so this is theBefore and this is the After.

We have covered all the basic steps of PortraitRetouching here - Removing Blemishes, Dodging & Burning, Frequency Separation and all of that stuff.

So if you wanted to make little changes to the structure and probably hair, and you applied Liquify in the very beginning, here's what would happen.

So, here's the main Background layer, here you have applied the Liquify.

On top of that, of course, you can remove the blemishes, maybe do some more Frequency Separation, on top of that, maybe, Color Gradingand all of that stuff.

Now if you want to make any changes to theColor Grading, you can go to that layer and make some changes.

However, if you want to make changes to Liquify,you have to go all the way down, change the Liquify and then you would have to again change all of the

things above that involved masks, that involved anything to do with pixels like removing blemishes.

You would have to change everything at the top.

However, if you apply Liquify in the very end, here is what will happen.

So I'm going to create a brand new layer at the very top, this is an empty layer, and then press Ctrl Alt Shift E.

This creates a merged copy of everything that you see in the canvas.

In other words, it creates a Stamp VisibleLayer.

Now, once that Stamp Visible Layer is created,let's go to Filter and then Convert for Smart Filters.

So I'm going to make a very minute changers.

So, let's say I want to make the hair a little wider.

Let's just drag it a little bit to the left.

I'm liking this and I'm going to hit OK.

Now, if you want to make any changes to theLiquify, you can easily do that by double clicking on the Liquify, you can just erase these changes.

If you want to reduce the changes just a little bit, you can just scroll down and choose Reconstruct.If you want to make any changes to any layer beneath it, what do you do then?

You would have to apply Liquify all over again,right?

No. Let's say, you want to completely turn off the Vignette, right there.

And let's say you want to completely turn off the Color Grading, right there. Okay.

Now this was the Liquify Layer for which we had created a Stamp Visible Layer.

All you need to do here is turn this off.

Now keep in mind we have turned off Vignettingand Color Grading.

Or if you want to make any adjustments, you can make that.

Now, create a brand new layer, all right,and then press Ctrl Alt Shift E.

Once it's done, you don't have to do Liquify all-over again.

So let's say you worked so hard inside ofLiquify, but then you have to make some changes in the layers beneath it, maybe in Color Grading,maybe in removing the

blemishes, you had to erase some blemishes or maybe make some other changes.

All you got to do is to create a new StampVisible Layer, convert that into a Smart Object and then copy the previous Liquify to the new Stamp Visible Layer.

So, this was the previous Liquify right here,and we have it as a Smart Filter.

So all you have to do is to hold the Alt keyor the Option key, click on the Smart Filter, drag it and drop it in the new Stamp VisibleLayer.

So, the same Liquify, which was right here in the previous one, this same Liquefy has been applied in this one as well.

All you had to do was just copy and paste the Smart Filter.

Now you can go ahead and delete the old StampVisible Layer.

Just click and drag it to the trash can.